LG Electronics earnings hit bottom in Q2: CEO

SEOUL, July 6 (Yonhap) -- The worst has passed for LG Electronics Inc., the world's No. 3 mobile phone maker, as its earnings hit bottom in the second quarter and will likely improve down the road, its chief executive officer said Wednesday.
Koo Bon-joon, who took control of the electronics giant in October as its mobile business faltered in the lucrative smartphone race, said that the company's earnings will not deteriorate further as its mobile and TV businesses pick up.
"We did not make a significant rebound in our overall businesses," in the first half of this year, Koo said in a note to his employees. "But earnings are not going to worsen in the future so we will only go up."
He said that the positive market response to its Optimus 2X smartphones, 3-D TVs and premium home appliances were encouraging signs for the company.
Hurt by mobile losses and weak TV sales, LG posted a second straight quarterly loss in the first three months of this year, losing 15.8 billion won (US$14.6 million).
LG's mobile sector, which lost money for four straight quarters since the April-June period of 2010, will not make a turnaround in the current quarter, its chief financial officer said in April.
While its rival Samsung Electronics Co. made a quick transformation from a smartphone also-ran to a viable competitor to Apple Inc.'s iPhone, LG failed to produce a hit smartphone model, as it reacted too slowly to the rapidly growing market for feature-packed, mobile computing devices.
The company unveiled a string of high-end smartphones this year with 3-D glasses and a dual-core processor, hoping to regain ground lost to rivals.
Koo also said he will beef up efforts to stamp out corruption and wrongdoing from the company as he received many tips through his e-mail about improper behavior within the company.
Koo's pledge came after Lee Kun-hee, chairman of larger rival Samsung Electronics Co. and South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group, declared a war on groupwide corruption last month and conducted a management reshuffle.
ylee@yna.co.kr