LG G2 Sales Are Significantly Less than Expected; Even at Home in South Korea

The LG G2 has been one of the most successful LG flagships, however, according to a new report, it’s still significantly less than what LG expected. The LG G2 sales have barely broken 600,000 in South Korea, which is only about 10 percent more than what the Optimus G Pro sold early this year in the same amount of time (4 months).

LG wanted to sell at least 3 million units internationally, too, but they’ve only sold 2.3 million, which is 20 percent less than what they were expecting to sell. To reach even those 2.3 million customers, LG had to increase its marketing budget, too, but it doesn’t look like their marketing campaigns have been very effective. Unfortunately for LG, marketing campaign effectiveness also depends on how strong your brand is and if you’re the kind of company that creates excellent products.

This means that you have to have an excellent track record in creating great products first. So even if the LG G2 itself was great, a lot of people make their purchasing decision based on a company’s track record, and advertising is not so effective without a good track record. LG has just started pushing flagship products to US, so I don’t think a lot of customers trust them yet, other than the people who know they made the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, and know they can make some pretty decent products.

LG also needs something to differentiate themselves more from Samsung. They’ve been having this line of thinking that if they do what Samsung does, they will be successful, and maybe that has worked relatively well for them so far, but if they want to be treated as a serious mobile company (especially in US), they need to step out of Samsung’s shadow, and have software and devices that are significantly different than what Samsung is offering. The LG G2 seemed to have an interface that has never been closer to Samsung’s Nature UX/TouchWiz.

Wanting to imitate Samsung so much also means they’re repeating a lot of Samsung’s own mistakes, such as using glossy plastic and poor designs for the phones, and adding as much software bloat as possible between new releases. So if LG wants to be successful on their own, they need to follow their own path, and create things that they think are best for customers, rather than making what Samsung thinks is best for customers.