LG Posts Record Handset Loss

Shinhye Kang and Seonjin Cha, reporting for Businessweek:

Losses from mobile phones totaled 120 billion won ($101 million) in the second quarter, compared with profit of 620 billion won a year earlier, Seoul-based LG said in a statement today. The loss, the division’s first in four years, was triple the size projected by the average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

This shows the folly of thinking “market share” is a primary concern. LG sold over 30 million handsets in the quarter — up 2 percent over last year — but lost money because most of them were cheap low-profit models.

★ Wednesday, 28 July 2010