LG Sells 8.6M Smartphones in Q4, Records Loss of $431M

South Korean handset and TV manufacturer LG has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Fourth quarter revenues stood at $12.37 billion with an operating profit of $98.08 million. However, for the quarter ending on December 31, LG suffered a net loss of $428.96 million, largely due to a fine of $640 million for allegedly fixing prices of TV and computer monitor cathode-ray tubes.

LG Electronics generated revenues of $45.22 billion and a net profit of $80.75 million during the entirety of 2012. Although it suffered a 6 percent revenue decrease when compared to 2011, operating profits increased to $1.01 billion from $342.06 million.

The company's handset division reported a 14.7 percent quarter-over-quarter increase in revenue to $2.57 billion, representing a year-over-year jump of 3.1 percent. It generated a profit of $50.8 million in its handset division in 2012's Q4, which is an increase when compared to a loss of 5 billion KRW last year.

For the whole year, handsets delivered sales of $9.1 billion, a decrease of 13.1 percent from 2011. During 2012, the handset division made an overall profit of $47 million.

Smartphone shipments increased by 23 percent during the fourth quarter of 2012. LG sold 8.6 million smartphones in the period, an increase of 1.6 million from the 7 million units it sold in the same quarter during 2011. The firm has sold over 10 million L-Series smartphone units thus far and overtook Apple as the second leading handset manufacturer in the U.S. during December.

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