China seems to be the market everyone wants to crack at the moment. Notoriously difficult to become a big hit, and battling against more local content providers proves tough for many manufacturers. LG however, is all set to have another crack at the market with its new flagship, the G3.
Partnering with the second largest online shopping site, and buoyed by turning a quarterly profit for the first time in a year, LG will launch the new handset at 3,999 yian ($650). Much lower than its price in its native South Korea of 899,800 won ($869). However even this price point will prove to be a difficult sell against native handsets such as Xiami’s Mi3, which is available at less than half the price.
Cracking The Chinese Market
Factored with the fact that Xiaomi leads even the likes of Samsung in sales in China, going to market without networking backing will be tough. While LG makes the trip to China currently at the number 5 spot in terms of global sales, this doesn’t even place them in the top 10 in China. Samsung and Apple are the only external manufactures to appear in top 10 sales charts in China.
It’s unclear if LG not penning a deal similar to the one seen by Apple and China mobile was by choice or lack of interest.  However LG claims they chose to partner with JD.com to cut the distribution costs, in turn allowing for a lower price point.
Sure, LG shipping 14.5 million handsets in the last quarter is big business for them. However, these numbers are dwarfed by the 108.5 million units shipped in the same period in China alone. Cutting edge hardware may be a major selling point, but at twice the price of competing handsets and with Apple and Samsung set to launch new hardware in the next month LG definitely has their work cut out for them in China. May we see yet another retraction from the Chinese market?
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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