While CDMA sales increased 8% with strong sales in North America offsetting a domestic downturn, the big expansion was in the GSM market where sales expanded by 353%, due to strong sales in North America and an expansion of the WCDMA market.
In the traditionally strong fourth quarter, the Seoul, South Korea-based company forecasts that sales will be 45% over last year’s level at 13 million units, with strong growth in the North American CDMA market. It sees a slight slowdown in the North American GSM market but increases in Europe and other regions.
While LG has been hit by lower capital spending by carriers in the telecoms equipment sector, its telecoms business as a whole recorded a 61.3% increase in revenue to KRW 2.47 billion ($2.1 billion).
The company reports an operating margin of 6.4% in its handset business and its rapid increase in market share is one of the reasons for the problems currently faced by market leader Nokia Corp.
