The woes at LG’s mobile phone unit are compounding, with the division announcing widening losses, as the whole company missed industry consensus for Q3 results.

Reuters reports that LG’s mobile phone business had reported a loss for the sixth consecutive quarter, with quarter-on-quarter losses more than doubling to 140 billion won (£77m), from Q2’s loss of 55 billion won. Putting it frankly, Reuters’ Hyunjoo Jin writes: ‘The results were hurt by a shortage of hit models to compete with Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in the booming smartphone market.’

A tale of two companies

LG’s South Korean rivals Samsung are expected to post extremely positive earnings on Friday, driven significantly by extremely strong sales of its smartphones. It’s widely expected that the company has overtaken Apple as the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world, which would be a significant and notable achievement.

Company turmoil

The LG mobile phone unit has been in dire straits for some time now, with Koo Bon-joon, a member of the company’s founding family, taking over to try turn things around. He has had little success so far. Furthermore, in early September there were rumours that the mobile division had laid off 30 per cent of its international staff with similar cuts due in South Korea, too. Rumours LG half-heartedly denied.

Is there a comeback?

At this stage, it is difficult to see how the struggling LG mobile phone unit will turn around. The company has yet to have a smash hit the likes of HTC’s range or even Samsung’s, and given how few rumours are circulating about what the company has in the pipeline, it means we will not see anything spectacular for some time still.

Again, though, it only takes one massive hit to become a big deal in the highly lucrative smartphone business, as Samsung can testify to with the launch of the first Galaxy S handset. LG could use that hit sooner rather than later.

After the Korean Economic Daily reported that LG would slash the head count of its international mobile business by nearly a third, it appeared the firm was admitting short-term defeat and that a rethink was needed if it was to return to its past glories. The firm has since come out to deny that these reports are true.

It’s not true… kinda – LG

Speaking to Reuters, an LG spokesperson said: ‘We are always looking at opportunities to improve the performance of our mobile business but no decision has been made as to any job reductions.’ This comes after a report in The Korean Daily that 30 per cent of LG mobile’s international staff, working in marketing positions, buying positions and in certain outlets, would lose their jobs. Apparently similar cuts were scheduled to follow in LG’s domestic market of Korea soon after.

The pains

On Friday, in our initial report on the cuts in the LG mobile team, we noted some of the company’s recent struggles in the mobile business. At the time, we wrote: ‘The downsizing of the LG mobile marketing team comes at a time the firm’s mobile division has posted operating losses for the last five consecutive quarters. Year-on-year shipments of LG handsets for Q2 2011 totaled 24.8 million, down considerably from the 30.6 million handsets it sold in the same period last year.’

By comparison, domestic competitor Samsung and other companies like HTC and Motorola have seen their fortunes rise dramatically on the momentum of Google’s Android mobile OS. Samsung is now the number two smartphone maker in the world, and could soon be the number one mobile phone maker in the world overall, while HTC’s earnings reports are constantly characterised by record-breaking blowout quarters.

Not the end

Given that the LG spokesperson did not flat out reject that LG Mobile job cuts were being considered, expect this story to develop fast.

LG’s smartphone woes have taken a toll on the company, with reports suggesting that the firm has cut 30 per cent of the staff working in its mobile phone division. Once a dominant force in mobile phone sales, LG has struggled to make the transition to this generation of smartphones, resulting in its market share eroding significantly compared to its competitors.

Big cuts

The report comes courtesy of the Korea Economic Daily. Though the publication did not cite any specific sources, they said that the bulk of the cuts came in the LG mobile marketing teams, as well as purchasing staff. In addition, unprofitable outlets were also given the axe. While the cuts immediately affect international staff, reports suggest that domestic staff will not be spared, with similar downsizing to follow soon.

FierceWireless reached out to LG, with a company spokesperson declining to comment on the report specifically. After dismissing the LG mobile downsizing as speculation, he told the publication that ‘we continue to evaluate all options to get LG back on track, sooner than later.’ He continued, saying ‘And turning around our mobile operations is top priority.’

When pressure becomes telling

The downsizing of the LG mobile marketing team comes at a time the firm’s mobile division has posted operating losses for the last five consecutive quarters. Year-on-year shipments of LG handsets for Q2 2011 totaled 24.8 million, down considerably from the 30.6 million handsets it sold in the same period last year.

And while LG has backed Windows Phone 7 and Google Android for its smartphone mobile OS platforms, the firm has seen little success with either, while Samsung and HTC have seen torrid growth in the same period. Suffice it to say, while the reported job cuts in the LG mobile marketing team and beyond are a sad eventuality for the people who will be out of work, the Korean company needs to do something drastic to return to winning ways. It appears it’s choosing cost cutting as opposed to cutting-edge innovation to achieve that in the short run.

How successful that will be remains to be seen.

Great uncertainty surrounds Hewlett-Packard’s future, mostly because the company’s long-term strategy is seeing fundamental changes. A secondary factor is that its PC business, which has long gone hand-in-hand in people’s minds with what HP does, is being put up for sale, or will be spun out, or something of the sort once HP decides what it actually wants to do with it. Apparently Hewlett-Packard approached both LG and Samsung about potentially selling its PC business to them.

Is it PC to ask you to beg you to take our PCs?

The news comes courtesy of CNET, citing an unnamed source. Apparently Hewlett-Packard approached the Korean consumer electronics giant late last year about the potential sale of the business. This of course, is long before the HP PC spinoff/sale was even confirmed – or, rather, what the company calls the evaluation of ‘strategic alternatives’ regarding the unit.

Why Samsung and LG, though?

Samsung and LG, being consumer electronics giants, seem strange targets for something as specialised as computers. Hewlett-Packard was apparently positioning the sale strategically, in the sense that PCs would ‘complement other portions of the target companies’ business’. Clearly LG and Samsung weren’t moved by the prospect of purchasing the high-volume but low profit HP PC unit.

What’s next?

As things have developed, it is looking increasingly likely HP will not find a buyer at anything but a fire sale price, since few companies have the capacity to acquire a business unit that large, and would instead spinoff the PC business. HP Exec and head of the Personal Systems group Todd Bradley intimated as much, when he said he’d prefer to see an HP spinoff, and that his: ‘intention would be to lead it through this transaction… and if it’s a standalone public company, to lead that.’

It will be interesting to see what happens in the immediate future of the HP PC unit and the business as a whole. While perhaps necessary, it’s a big change from the company’s previous strategy.

The Apple iPad 3, which is widely expected to arrive early next year, is reportedly gearing up for trial production starting in October. In the meantime, Apple has been getting its ducks in a row by sourcing various component partners to contribute different hardware parts to the device. The latest rumours suggest that the incoming tablet’s biggest new feature – the iPad 3 ‘Retina Display’ panel – will be supplied by three companies.

Asian components makers

Digitimes on Tuesday reported that Samsung, LG and Sharp have all been commissioned to manufacture the tablet PC’s high resolution screen. The publication wrote that: ‘Apple has chosen LG Display (LGD), Samsung Electronics and Sharp to supply LCD panels for the iPad 3, with LGD remaining the biggest panel supplier for the US vendor’s tablet PCs.’

Digitimes ‘industry sources’ also revealed that ‘Taiwan-based Radiant Opto-Electronics has become the major supplier of backlight units (BLUs) for iPad 3 panels,’ which represents a big win for the Taiwanese company, given the high volume Apple sells devices – and therefore orders components – in.

Another dominant cycle

For Apple, the iPad tablet PC has been a commercial blockbuster. Side-by-side with the iPhone, the company’s mobile devices account for two-thirds of Apple’s revenue. Being the first of the new generation tablet devices, Apple has always seemed a step ahead of competition, in terms of adding features – or positioning their devices as if they have had features added.

With the iPad 3 Retina Display, the Cupertino giant may very well re-affirm its position of having the best tablet display on the market. But, at the same time, other device manufacturers, like the Samsungs of the world, who are quick to learn and adapt, could close both the sales and the quality gap come the next go around. It’s a game of wait and see, really.

Often times in technology where there are one or two big winners, there are many more companies on the opposite end of the success continuum. LG is one such company, and the Korean consumer electronics giant has just cut its forecasted sales for LG smartphones and feature phones as competitors like Samsung and Apple dominate the space.

These guys area killing us

Not only did the South Korean firm, which is the third-biggest volume seller of mobile phones in the world, slash its projected sales, it also said that it was unsure when its phone unit would see a turn around, which, to date, has reported four quarterly losses.

Park Jong-seok, who is the head of LG’s handset division, told reporters that: ‘Our overall performance is gradually improving… but it’s difficult to give a precise prediction when our business will turn around due to a fast changing external market environment.’ By this, he no doubt means the rapid shift from feature phones to smartphones, an area where companies like Samsung, HTC and Apple dominate, while LG remains relatively weak.

Big cuts

What’s most worrying for investors is how much LG smartphones and feature phones projections were slashed by. The company now expects smartphone sales of 24 million units now, a 20 per cent drop from a previous target of 30 million units. It also cut its overhaul handset sales projections drastically, going from the previously projected 150 million units to just 114 million units.

For some perspective, in the first half of the year, LG sold 50 million handsets in total, 10 million of which were smartphones. By comparison, homeland competitor Samsung is expected to sell 19 million smartphones in just one quarter.

This could well be the beginning of bloodletting in the smartphone market. Nokia has taken a beating, it looks like Research in Motion is on course for a beating, and even LG is struggling. It would not be a surprise to see many of these companies pulling out of the mobile devices markets in the next three to five years.

Reviewing tablet PCs is very difficult. You have to review them on their own merits, but within a greater context of the overall industry, too. So, with the iPad catching everyone unawares and becoming a tour de force in consumer electronics, how do other tablets escape being compared to it? The answer: they don’t. So, how does the LG G-Slate stack up to Apple’s tablet? From a hardware standpoint, it stands tall.

So what is it?

The LG G-Slate is an Android Honeycomb tablet PC, that, unlike many of its competitors, is only available in one SKU. It has an 8.9-inch 1280×768 display, with 32GB of flash storage. A 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor does the heavy lifting, and it features dual-cameras for teleconferencing. The rear-facing camera has a 5MP resolution, while the front-facing camera tops out at 2MP.

Its build quality is up there with the best. It’s incredibly sturdy, and on initial inspection, looks a more comfortable size than either 7 or 10.1 inches.

What we don’t like

Where the hardware stands tall, the Android Honeycomb mobile OS that powers the device too frequently comes short. This is not due to the OS alone – it’s very good and very polished, but where it lets you down, you feel it. Sometimes the LG G-Slate lags when performing certain functions. This isn’t a train smash, but it is an annoyance when it occurs.

There are elements to it that aren’t all that intuitive initially, but once you work out the kinks, that isn’t enough of a problem to complain about. A complaint Google needs to desperately address is the lack of apps for Android Honeycomb. Compared to the iPad, there may as well be none, they are so sparse. Sure, this is a problem that will be rectified with time, but remember how iOS apps for Apple’s tablets were numerous from day one? Google would have done better to get more developers on board from the very start.

The difficult line

The LG G-Slate is a great piece of kit from a hardware standpoint. While Google Honeycomb OS has some soft spots, in due time it will come right. The problem is, by then, we would have moved on to the next generation of tablet PCs. In this regard, the LG G-Slate feels like something of a disembodied experience – you know you’re holding great potential in your hands, but you have no means, outside of what Google does, to get it up to speed. It’s ahead of its time. And the problem with tablet PCs where the standard for hardware was set on day one, is that software is everything.

The iPad 2 has been persistently sold out around the globe since its arrival. Many of those who’ve been lucky enough to get their hands on one, though, have complained of light leakage from their devices. It has since emerged that that which has caused the design defect also happens to be what has caused the iPad 2’s release hold up – and LG LCD panels are to blame for both.

Screen yellowing

Digitimes reports [via Engadget] that the screen yellowing effect, where one sees light leaking from the edges of their iPad’s display when darker objects are being shown, is attributable to a design defect in LG LCD panels. While Samsung – who also supplies Apple with the 9.7-inch panels – has been able to ship four million units of the display, LG’s woes have meant that they have only been able to ship 800,000 after they halted production to address this issue.

Backlog

The knock on effect has been that the iPad 2, which is hugely in demand, has seen a component shortage, which, in turn, has caused a shortage of the device the end user would purchase. With sources saying LG displays will only return to the supply line during the second quarter, it’s unclear how soon the supply of the Apple tablet will finally be able to meet its incredible demand.

Shortage

In the first quarter of 2011, Apple was able to shift 3.2 million units of their tablet PC, yet huge backlogs of the device prevented the device from selling as much as it could have. Apple’s COO Tim Cook said the company sold as many of the device as they could make, calling the shortage ‘the mother of all backlogs’ at Apple’s recent earnings call.

The knock-on effect, however, is that it is not only Apple who are affected by this shortage, but every other tablet PC maker. With Apple ordering more components than its competitors, it wields a great deal of power, and suppliers as such always give the company first preference even during times of weak supply. The LG LCD panels issue could be affecting iPad 2 users, and tablet PC initiatives of other companies alike.

Korean consumer electronics giant LG says that its new range of LG Cinema 3D monitors are the first of their kind to offer flicker-free 3D playback. The displays also feature new tech that delivers brighter and clearer imagery.

D41p and D42P

The two LG Cinema 3D monitors – the D41P and the D42P – ship with Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) tech, which the Korean company says delivers clearer, brighter and flicker-free 3D pictures, while significantly lowering crosstalk, too.

Spreading the flicker-free love

It is not only the LG Cinema 3D monitors that get the flicker-free technology, but also the Cinema 3D TV range. The company says not only will this lead to a superior image, but reduces the nausea, dizziness – and, by extension, headaches – that accompany viewing a three dimensional image.

Putting the claims to the test

Given I fought through Avatar with a fearless, inconsiderate headache, trust that I’ll be one of the first to put this claim to the test. We can’t fault LG for their confidence, with Si-hwan Park, the vice president of monitors, confident they address the shortcomings of most 3D displays.

You want this

He says: ‘Although 3D is one of the hottest items in technology today, some consumers are holding back from purchasing 3D products because of concerns over performance and price.’ He concludes, saying: ‘With Cinema 3D Monitors, we’ve addressed all these concerns. The advanced picture quality, more comfortable glasses and competitive pricing makes it very hard to keep putting off 3D.’

What’s in the box

The LG Cinema 3D monitors work as monitors should – which is to say they support mainstream operating systems and graphics card. The dreaded 2D to 3D conversion makes an appearance here, too, and if experience is anything to go buy, it’s a feature best left ignored. In addition the monitors come in a range of sizes, starting at 21.5 inches and peaking out at 25 inches, and they offer the latest HDMI 1.4 standard for connectivity.

Though the company claims their 3D monitors are affordable, they’ve failed to give both a price point and a release date for the displays. This doesn’t instill much confidence that they won’t dent our pockets the way 3D TVs have.

What do you do when you’re one of the world’s biggest mobile phone manufacturers with one of the biggest advertising budgets, and realise that returns from additional end spending are almost zero? Oh, host a worldwide speed texting record contest, giving the winner $100,000 as a prize, and hoping the global press covers it. Well, guess what LG mobile phones people, your trick worked!

Fast fingers indeed

LG’s annual speed texting record contest got under way several months ago in various corners of the globe, and with many hopefuls falling by the wayside over the period, a pair of winners have been crowned. The final phase of the contest, held in New York, saw 16 hopefuls from different corners of the globe texting furiously on the LG Town and LG Chocolate phones to see who had the quickest fingers.

The winners win lots of money

Panamanians Jennifer and Cristina Sales Ancines earned the honour of being the fastes (LG) texters, walking away with a cheque fat enough to buy enough LG smartphones for their whole block back home, and with change to spare. Though, I pray desperately, they spend their money better than that.

The person with the bragging rights

Though our Panamanian friends (by association of writing about them, of course) couldn’t break the texting record for being Usain Bolt world-record fast on traditional 1-9 number pads, there was an individual who showed he was the most badass of them all on a Qwerty keyboard.

That’s right, 15-year old Cheong Kit Au of Australia managed to type out a predefined 264-character text message in just one minute and 17 seconds. That’s 264 characters in 77 seconds. That’s nearly three and a half characters per second. If this guy is not doing well at school, his parents should take his mobile phone away from him.

Then again he won $10, 000 just for making to the finals, so while we would never advise it, he can at least turn around to his folks and say ‘Fine, I’ll drop out and become a professional texter! You think this is a useless skill, but it’s getting me paid!’ Oh, kids of today. What do you think, folks? Is being the texting record holder the new black?