LG is hoping to stick its toes in the tumultuous, but lucrative tablet and smartphone pool by reintroducing the Optimus line. By the end of the year, the South Korean electronics maker will release 10 new android-based smartphones, as well as an android-based tablet that they hope will compete with the iPad.
Despite being the third largest handset maker in the world, LG controls just 1.2-percent of the smartphone market, which helped lead it to its worst quarterly losses in eight years. According to the Wall Street Journal, LG will begin a full push into the smartphone market when it relaunches its Optimus line in September, beginning with the Android-based Optimus One, which will be the flagship product. According to LG, the Optimus One won’t pack the punch in terms of hardware that other smartphones do. Instead, LG is calling the phone a “gateway smartphone, and is planning on gradually releasing more powerful models.
“We think it’s reasonable for us to provide this to people who hesitate to buy or don’t have enough experience with smartphones,” Chang Ma, LG’s VPof marketing told the WSJ. “This is a clear answer to them.”
The upcoming tablet will also carry the Optimus name, and it will us the Android operating system. In an effort to compete with the iPad while still differentiating itself, Ma told the WSJ that the LG tablet will focus on creating content, rather than just consuming it. “It’s going to be surprisingly productive,” Ma said.
Beyond that, details on the tablet are still scarce. LG is planning on using Qualcomm’s dual-core Snapdragon processor, and it has plans to push into the 4G market next year. LG have also increased their research and development and marketing budgets, so expect to hear about the new devices sooner rather than later.
