\n\t“G3 is the most important phone for the company this year. The device will take at least 40% of our overall smartphone business in the second half,” Soon Kwon, Managing Director of LG India, told ET.
\n\t
\n\tHe said that the South Korean electronics major expects Rs 2,500 crore revenue this fiscal year from its smartphone business, triple from a year earlier. The company is investing Rs 800 crore for R&D and marketing its cellphones in 2014-2015. The company on the whole is investing some Rs 8,000 crore in its India business this year. Apart from mobile phones, the company sells TVs, washing machines, refrigerators among other consumer durables in the country.
\n\t
\n\tBy the end of this year, LG would have launched 25 smartphones, which would also include a new affordable range of 4G LTE smartphones in the second half of the year. “We will launch smartphones at various price points. LG’s smartphone range will be priced between Rs 8,000 to Rs 65,000,’ Kwon said.
\n\t
\n\tOn competition, Kwon said, “We are seeing more congestion in the market, which is a natural trend across the global. However, you need to have core competency to sustain and grow your business. LG will take the benefit of the competition.”
\n\t
\n\tThe executive also added that new players would eat into the market shares of existing players. India’s smartphone market is led by Samsung, followed by Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Nokia.
\n\t
\n\tThe competition in the India market has increased lately with the re-entry of players like Motorola, Philips. Additionally, Chinese vendors like Lenovo, Xiaomi Gionee and Sony are also bolstering their presence in the Indian market with rapid device launches and aggressive marketing.
\n\t
\n\tAccording to IDC, the Indian smartphone market nearly tripled to 44 million devices shipped in 2013, compared to 16.2 million shipped over 2012. The research body expects 80.57 million units to be shipped into India by the end of 2014.
\n\t
\n\tThe South Korean smartphone maker expects its share to touch 10% by this year end, at which point it will consider local manufacturing of its devices, Kwon said. Analysts peg the company’s share at around 4% now.
\n\t
\n\tThe company has also rolled out Android Wear-based smartwatch called LG G Watch in India and priced it at Rs 15,000, but those buying an LG G3 smartphone would get Rs 5,000 off on the LG G watch.<\/p>\n

\n\tLG would also launch a new smartwatch in coming months apart from some tablets shortly, the executive said.
\n\t
\n\tOn the wearables market in India, he said, “Wearable market is growing in India but hasn’t become a major trend. Certain segment of consumers will drive the consumption. Having wearable device is a must in the mobile play.”
\n\t
\n\tThe 16 GB variant of LG G3 is priced at Rs 47,990, while the 32 GB variant is priced at Rs 50,990. The LG G3 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat and sports a 5.5-inch QHD (1440x2560 pixel) AH-IPS LCD display. It is powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.46GHz, featuring 2GB of RAM for its 16GB built-in storage variant, and 3GB of RAM for its 32GB variant.<\/p>\n
\n
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