LG outguns Chinese rivals in U.S. smartphone market

LG Electronics seems to be on course to solidify its presence in the U.S. market, outrunning its Chinese rivals Huawei and Lenovo.

The Korean smartphone-maker has reclaimed the third spot in the U.S. in March, taking up 17.1 percent of market share, according to a report released by Counterpoint Research, a market researcher, on Thursday.

The market share is the third highest after Samsung Electronics and Apple, which held 28.8 percent and 23 percent in the same month, respectively.

Chinese smartphone-makers Huawei and Lenovo, which have expanded their foothold in the global markets, have posed a challenge for LG over the past few years, eating into the Korean firm's market share in the U.S.

LG, once considered one of the big three smartphone-makers with Samsung and Apple, was in fourth place in the U.S. market in 2012 while Huawei captured the third spot. The two companies have vied against each other for third place since then.

Concerns over LG's performance have increased recently as its handsets failed to appeal to global consumers. LG's G4 smartphone, predecessor of the G5, failed to improve the firm's balance sheet last year.

LG reportedly shipped around 5.5 million units of the G4 last year, much lower than 10 million posted by the G3 smartphone.

The Counterpoint Research repor t showed a glimpse of LG's resilience in the U.S. market, where the firm's annual smartphone sales accounts more than 50 percent of its global smartphone sales,

The market researcher said LG's recent upbeat performance in the U.S. market was largely thanks to its low-end and mid-range handsets, such as the V10 and the K series smartphones.

"We have maintained a 7 to 8 percentage point lead over the fourth largest market player in the U.S. smartphone market for a long time," said Song Keun-young, a public relations representative at LGE, questioning the credibility of the report.

Meanwhile, the G5's camera was picked as the best smartphone camera among seven smartphone models including Samsung's Galaxy S7 Edge, Apple's iPhone 6S Plus, and Huawei's P9, according to a survey by Android Authority, an online tech news media.

The G5 scored 91 points in 16 test categories in the survey, beating the Galaxy S6 Edge and iPhone 6S Plus, which gained 85 and 84 points, respectively.

LGE earlier said that it had shipped around 1.6 million units of the G5 in the first month since its release on March 31.

The firm anticipated that sales of the G5 could reach more than 3 million in the April-June period, but some market watchers were more positive.

Shinhan Investment forecast that the sales could surpass 3.5 million in the second month with the G5's accumulative sales this year reaching 12 million, 20 percent higher than that of LG's G3 smartphone.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

Source: LG outguns Chinese rivals in U.S. smartphone market