LG`s attention to `emotional detail` raises smartphone sales

LG`s attention to `emotional detail` raises smartphone sales. July. 20, 2012 04:07. jaeyuna@donga.com.

LG`s latest smartphones such as the Optimus View and Optimus LTE2 have one accessory that their competitors lack: a slider cap that protects the charging cable connector. Users can open and close the cap by pushing it aside.

A slider cap might seem like a simple accessory, but the developers had to test more than 100 designs before finding one that satisfied Park Jong-seok, the head of LG`s mobile communications division who had them do it over and over again. "Make the cap neither too loose nor too hard. Make it feel just right," he said.

The Quick Memo feature, a world first achieved by LG, is also an example of LG items reflected in the company`s philosophy of "adding emotional details to products."

Allowing users to take notes on any page on the phone with the touch of a button, the feature was added with the undo/redo function. The function lets users either cancel or recover notes by touching an icon on the screen. Before this feature, users had to use an eraser to remove part or all of a note.

Division chief Park said, "LG smartphone developers must reflect even minor regrets of smartphone users into our smartphones to recover ground that we`ve lost in the smartphone market."

LG`s Quick Voice App is another example of the company`s attention to detail. A male voice was added to the app while rivals such as the Apple iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S series only have female voices. Taking Korean consumers into consideration, the app also enables users to find lunar calendar dates through the voice recognition feature.

Thanks to these features, LG smartphones have begun to appeal to more smartphone users. Encouraging to the company is the brisk sales of LG`s LTE smartphones as the next-generation devices move into the mainstream in countries such as Korea, the U.S. and Japan.

Since the launch of its LTE phones in October last year, LG has recorded sales of 4 million of them worldwide. The Optimus LTE2, which was released in May this year, recently sold 400,000 units along with the impressive feat of 400,000 LTE phones sold in Japan, where foreign smartphone makers have struggled.

Park Seong-min, a senior researcher at Kyobo Securities in Seoul, said, "LG Electronics can achieve stable sales this year because its LTE phones sell well as consumers get access to a bigger pool of mobile carriers."