LG Electronics Inc. became the world's second-largest maker of smartphones running on the high-speed long-term evolution (LTE) network in the fourth quarter of 2011, an industry report showed Wednesday.
LG Electronics sold around 800,000 units of LTE phones in global markets in the final quarter of last year, taking up an around 20 percent market share, according to a report by Strategy Analytics.
The company outperformed its Taiwanese rival HTC, which sold about 700,000 units with a global market share of 17 percent, according to the report.
Korean tech firm Samsung Electronics Co. ranked first in global sales of LTE phones by selling around 1.7 million units in the cited period.
LG Electronics has been betting on the high-speed fourth-generation LTE market in a bid to turnaround its handset business, which has underperformed compared with rivals like Samsung Electronics. LG Electronics' once money-losing mobile communications division swung to the black for the first time in seven quarters in the fourth quarter.
For the whole year of 2011, Samsung Electronics sold around 2.6 million units of LTE phones, giving it the top spot, followed by HTC with 2 million units and LG Electronics with 1.1 million, it added. (Yonhap)