To help boost unit sales, LG will focus on the lucrative smartphone market. Hopes are especially high for Android-based phones, which are expected to make up more than half of LG's upcoming smartphone releases, the company said.

"It is still early days for Android as far as sales are concerned, but generally both carriers and consumers have been very positive on the OS and there is a lot of momentum," said Gartner Research Director Carolina Milanesi. "LG might be getting into the game a bit later than HTC and a little more quietly than Motorola, but it is certainly set to take advantage of the momentum we are seeing."

A Long Way To Go

LG increased its global handset shipments from 80 million in 2007 to 100 million in 2008, and to an estimated 116 million in 2009, according to preliminary figures from Gartner. "So 140 million is possible," Milanesi said.

Still, LG has a long way to go before it can challenge market leader Nokia or even the world's second-biggest handset maker, Samsung, which held a 19.6 percent market share in the third quarter -- up from 17.1 percent a year earlier. Samsung's strong third-quarter results were driven by robust sales of touchscreen devices, QWERTY phones, and smartphones in Western Europe and the U.S. as well as steady sales of refreshed older products in emerging markets, Milanesi said.

LG held a 10.3 percent share of the global cell-phone market in the third quarter -- up from 7.8 percent in the year-earlier period. But most of the company's third-quarter sales were of mid-tier phones, in part due to its lack of a smartphone portfolio, Milanesi observed.

Three-Screen Service

With a special smartphone business division now in place and bolstered by a 30 percent increase in its smartphone research and development workforce, LG is aiming to move up in the market. The company said Wednesday that it intends to unveil about 20 smartphones in 2010 that will be based on the Android, Windows Mobile, and Linux operating systems.

LG initially will focus on producing easy-to-use smartphones aimed squarely at first-time owners in the South Korean and North American markets. However, the company also said it intends to release a premium smartphone featuring cutting-edge designs later this year.

Also planned is a three-screen service this year that will let users view identical content on handsets, PCs and TVs without having to convert files into different formats. The enabling technology, called 3-Way Sync, is slated to debut next month on a new LG device.

"We are facing another revolutionary change in the mobile industry, thanks to the rapid growth of smartphones and demand for more content and better services," said Skott Ahn, CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications. "We will continue to make breakthroughs in 2010 as we strive to maintain our trendsetter status and become one of the global top two by 2012."