LG opened its new air condition production facility in Riyadh

Top South Korean electronics company LG Electronics (SEO:066575), in collaboration with H.G. Ibrahim Shaker Co. Ltd., set up a new air condition producing plant LG-Shaker Co. Ltd. in Riyadh. Today, the new plant was inaugurated. Saudi Arabian Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr. Abdullah bin Ahmed Zaniel Ali Reza and South Korean Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Lee Jaegil were present in the opening ceremony. Top officials of the two companies were also present in the ceremony. Al Bawaba reports:

Addressing opening ceremony, Mr. Y.H. Lee, the CEO of LG Digital Appliance Company said, “Saudi Arabia is the biggest market in the Middle East. And LG-Shaker Company will build the complete local business system from product development to production. We plan to further strengthen our global network of Air Conditioning business by utilizing all the regional production facilities including LG-Shaker factory, which we inaugurate today. With the construction of this new air conditioner production facility in Saudi Arabia, LG now has eight air conditioner production facilities in local markets around the world.”

H. G. Ibrahim Shaker Company. Ltd., Sole distributor of LG Air Conditioners, is the biggest partner for LG’s business in the world and targeting to sell accumulatively US$ 1.4 billion by 2011 starting from the year 2007 onwards in domestic market.

Located at Al Taweer Industrial City, the joint venture cost $35million. The new plant will produce 250,000 units per year and the number will be doubled in the next five years. LG has 49% share of the company and H.G.Ibrahim Shaker Company and other partners 51%.

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LG declares its strategic plan to become a 'Global'company

In a strategic move toward becoming a more ‘global’ company, LG Electronics announced its restructuring plans and entering into new product markets. LG CEO, Yong Nam, said that LG had aimed to be the best corporate brand in each of the 140 markets it operated in and would do so by increasing its marketing expenditure and restructuring business divisions. He further said that they wanted to make it completely unimportant to consumers where LG was located rather focus on how they feel about LG’s products. Current.com.au reports:

LG cited its US$400 million marketing spend increase over 2007, of which $100 million was spent on its recent Scarlet TV launch, as an example of its marketing direction.

The company admitted, though, that money itself would not be enough, hinting it had undertaken “unique, aggressive campaigns” to help increase brand awareness.

Because of its high expenditure in marketing, the company saw an increase in brand awareness in the USA; one of its major markets. LG said that their division restructuring will go on through the next five years. It would also venture into businesses such as, B2B solutions, healthcare, and energy. LG expects that these changes would yield into sales increase by 10%, profit by 6%. To achieve the company’s goal, LG also hired some non-Korean executives.

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Anadigics Inc. starts shipping its power amplifiers for LG-KU990

New Jersey based semiconductor solutions provider ANADIGICS, Inc. announced that it will start shipping ANADIGICS AWT6277 WCDMA power amplifier modules to LG. The amplifiers will be used in LG Viewty (LG-KU990), the 5.0 mega pixel professional camera phone of LG. LG-KU990, also known as LG Viewty, is one of the best camera phones produced by LG. Similar to LG Prada and Apple’s iPhone, LG-KU990 comes with a large touch screen which enables good camera view. The most prominent feature of this phone is that it can take video at a rate 120 frames per second. With one click, users can upload a recorded video to You Tube. Antara News reports:

"We are very pleased that LG Electronics has chosen our AWT6277 PA module for their cutting-edge LG Viewty 3G camera phone," said Dr. Bami Bastani, President & CEO of ANADIGICS. "Our technologically advanced compact dual-band WCDMA power amplifier offers an industry-leading combination of high performance, small footprint, and low profile, making it possible for this mobile device to do much more than make a phone call."

Specifically designed to meet the needs of feature rich mobile handsets, the AWT6277 HELP(TM) WCDMA PA includes ANADIGICS' HELP(TM) technology which reduces WCDMA average power consumption by 50%. Combined with low leakage current in shutdown mode, the AWT6277 PA delivers longer battery life and additional talk-time-two key metrics for mobile handset designers.

Measuring 4 mm x 4 mm x 1.1 mm, the ANADIGICS AWT6277 WCDMA power amplifier is very suitable for thin phones. The amplifier is enabled by ANADIGICS' advanced patented InGaP-Plus(TM) HBT technology.

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Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. posts 4.6% increase in net profit

Yesterday, Japan’s third largest banking group Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) (TYO: 8316) posted a rise of 4.6% in its net profit in the previous fiscal year. The company was able to make up for its losses caused by sub-prime loan exposure and write-downs taken for non-financial institutions with its one-off gains from recent leasing unit consolidation.

SMFG posted a net profit of 461.54 billion yen which was 441.3 billion in the previous fiscal year. Pretax profit grew by 4.1 % and revenue 18.5% to 4.62 trillion. In January, SMFG forecasted that it would lose 99 billion yen but the real loss was below expectation. The group lost 30 billion from U.S. bond insurers. Despite all these the group posted a higher profit. Forbes reports:

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial also highlighted improved business profit from its core banking operations.

Business profit from banking operations -- or profit derived from ordinary banking operations including deposits, loans and foreign exchange as well as securities operations, excluding one-off factors -- is most commonly used as a profit indicator in the Japaneses banking industry where other industries employ operating income.

Business profit from banking operations at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, the core unit of the group, reached 819.7 billion yen in the year to March 2008, up from 740.6 billion yen a year earlier, mostly on robust gains from trading activity and its lending business.

The group made a trading loss of 10 billion yen in last fiscal year which is much smaller than 74.7 billion in the previous year. Despite the group’s strong effort to clean its balance sheet, it has 803.9 billion non-performing loans which makes up 1.24% of its outstanding advances.

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NTT DoCoMo will market LG PRADA in Japan from June

One of the top Japanese mobile phone companies, NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (TYO:9437) will market LG’s PRADA Phone in Japan from June. Wireless Design Asia reports:

Handset features include an intuitive, full-size touch screen with vibration touch to improve usability. This function activates whenever users touch screen icons to make a call, use e-mail, take and view photos or listen to music. The 2 megapixel camera is equipped with a German-made Schneider-Kreuznach lens and auto-focus capability.

High-speed 7.2Mbps data transmission makes it easy to enjoy i-mode and to download Chaku-Uta Full and other large files, while full 3in browser compatibility enhances the mobile Internet experience.

Currently, PRADA Phone is found in Europe and other countries. The The Laclede Group, Inc., popularly known as LG, is the second largest electronic company of South Korea and third largest in the world.

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LGenV2: Another Qwerty phone from LG

The Laclede Group Incorporation, also known as LG, is one of the top cell phone producers in the world. Here is a review of their latest Qwetry phone product- LGenV2.

The latest version of LGenV2 is smaller and slimmer than its predecessor, LG VX9900 enV.

The phone looks very polished, and elegant with its maroon paint.

The phone has an improved interface. It brings key features to the top menu level. This also includes instant messaging, navigation, and ringtones.

Call quality has not been improved but it has all the favorite calling features: Bluetooth, speaker-independent voice dialing, conference calling.

Text messaging, MMS, instant messaging through Yahoo, MSN and AOL, and basic e-mail work fine. The internal key board is not so smooth. It would have been better if the ‘Space bar’ button was in the center. The problem is it does not have too many message option which fails to make it the ultimate messaging machine.

Multimedia are the weakest feature of the phone. The music and video section has unnecessary options. It requires extra software to recognize memory card synchronized with Windows Media player. Downloading is also very difficult.

With the internal key board, you may be able to type long web addresses but the phone fails to open websites properly. It would have been better if an Opera mini browser was included.

The external screen display is too small. The external key pad may not feel smooth but the numbers on the keys will make feel cozy. This is the best feature of the phone.

The phone also has a better navigation system.

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