We already know from published rumors and reports that LG wants to launch about 10 different smartphones in the 2009 calendar year. That’s a fair amount for any company, especially with phone sales dropping overall. We also know that the South Korean manufacturer further intends to concentrate more on the cheaper side of mobile phones by coming with lots of lower-end handsets next year, a smart move in these economically challenged times.
But recent rumors have surfaced on a few sites that LG plans to release no less than 125 new handset models in 2009 globally. In this writer’s opinion, that’s nothing less than corporate suicide. The market is saturated, the economy not just in the US but in many other countries is on a downward slide, and the iPhone is grabbing customers left and right (and will grab even more with its upcoming release into Wal-Mart and its venture into China).
If this is true, the company will have to come up with about 10 phones every month – and not even Nokia, the world’s largest handset manufacturer and purveyors of many unusual and prototype phones, does this. LG may be overshooting their capability, and putting themselves into unnecessary financial jeopardy.
If most of those phones don’t sell well (say 60% sell poorly), you can wave goodbye to profits in that particular year. But LG has surely done their homework and decided there’s room in the marketplace, somewhere, for all those phones. Color me skeptical. We’ll see.
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