LG Electronics on Thursday announced its foray into the cellular phone market in India with the launch of two new handsets in the high-end category and said it expects to sell 400,000 handsets during the next year.
"The handsets come with a 65K colour display and support a host of features like 3200 character messaging, MMS and GPRS," K R Kim, managing director of LG Electronics India, said at a press conference in New Delhi.
The G5300 and G7030 handsets priced at Rs 13,490 and Rs 18,990 respectively would target the high-end segment -- a category that the company claims is fastest growing; though LG plans to have models at every price segment by January 2004.
"We want to become a market leader in the high end segment in 2-3 years," he said, adding they expected to launch 12 models next year.
The company did not disclose the new models that it plans to bring to India.
LG Electronics would be using the direct dealer channel, cutting across the different layers like national and regional distributors.
Initially there would be about 500 dealers; that would gradually be expanded to 2000 dealers by the first quarter of 2004, the company said, adding it would set up over 250 service centres across India.
Soon-Tae Hong, vice president - GSM handset division (Mobile Handsets Company), LG Electronics Inc, said the company hopes to grab a 15 per cent marketshare in the cellular segment in about two years.
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