LG reports disappointing Q3 results, handset sales down

LG has posted its Q3 financial report and things aren't looking particularly good for the company. Sales are down both on year-on-year basis and sequentially and the conglomerate has actually lost some money over the past three months.

The sales of all LG divisions in the third quarter were just KRW12.9 trillion ($11.57 billion), which is 10.3% lower than what they achieved in Q2 and 4% than the sales for Q3 of 2010. The net loss recorded was 414 billion KRW or $371.36 million.

For a second quarter in a row, it was the handset division that is doing the most damage. The LG handsets sales totaled 21.1 million units, brought in $2.41 billion (down 9.5% YoY and 16% sequentially), but the division lost $125.58 million. That's the fifth losing quarter in a row for the LG mobile division and it's certainly not quite what you'd want to see going into the holiday season.

LG stated that it's betting hard on the LTE market as it expects it to expand rapidly and the company is hoping to "dominate that market in advance".

Being a pretty rich company LG may be able to afford the luxury to wait some more time, but we can't help ourselves thinking that maybe there's something about the marketing of their current products that they are doing wrong. After all, their R&D came up with the first dual-core smartphone, the first globally-available 3D smartphone, along with cool devices like the Optimus Black and they are losing money. We don’t know about you, but something seems wrong to us here.

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