LG to invest Rs 1000 crore on R&D and marketing; to make phones in India in near future

LG announced its latest flagship device , the LG G4 in Mumbai on June 19. The phone which will set you back by Rs 51,000 will replace the LG G3 as the top line device. According to LG India managing director Soon Kwon, LG expects to sell around 1 lakh LG G4s in the next three months.

According to a report in The Economic Times , LG will start manufacturing phones in India once it hits the 10% market share. According to Kwon, that target is achievable by December this year. Apart from this, Kwon also said that LG plans to invest around Rs 1,000 crore towards research and development (R&D) and marketing. At the event, Kwon shared that he was confident that the LG G4 would do as well as the LG G3 and the G2. “My aim is to double out market share and increase the contribution of the mobile business to 15%, towards our overall revenue,” he told the Economic Times. LG is planning to add around 20 handsets to its portfolio by the end of the year, across price segments in order to achieve its market share target of 10%. There are currently eight LG phones which comes with 4G support. Kwon also said that LG plans to invest towards talent acquisition, product development and laboratories. The company has over 1,000 engineers working in its R&D unit in Bengaluru who are responsible, among other things, for customising the smartphones for Indian consumers. Of the Rs 1,000 crore budget, around half will go towards R&D and the other half will go towards marketing and promotional campaigns, according to LG India marketing head Amit Gujral.