Mobile World Congress has fully gotten underway over in Barcelona, Spain and as we pound the halls of the Fira Gran Via looking to get our hands on all of the shiny baubles that we can find, the industry is waking up to all of these announcements. The LG G5 made a big splash over the weekend, as Samsung’s South Korean rival introduced a radical departure from previous G-series smartphones. We covered the main announcement and were lucky enough to spend a little quality time with the G5 at the show, but one analyst things the G5 could be LG’s “breakout moment”.
As the Wall Street Journal is reporting, analysts from different firms all over the world have positive things to say about the G5, with the general consensus being that the G5 could sell as many as 10 Million units throughout 2016, not bad for a company that only has roughly 15% of the world’s mobile market share. LG is now punching well above its weight these days, and thanks to a strong focus in music and photos, Jefferson Wang of IBB Consulting Group, thinks LG has something the public will take to. Something that many users were missing from last year’s Galaxy S6 line of devices were removable batteries and microSD cards. While the latter has made a return this year, LG has both of those features as options for G5 owners, and they go one further than that with their Magic Slot accessories. With a camera grip and better audio module already announced, the G5 has a lot more on offer than most other smartphones being announced this week.
Other analysts, such as Jeff Fieldhack from Counterpoint Technology Market Research thinks LG can take market share from the likes of HTC, Sony and Microsoft should the South Korean firm turn their hand to better marketing. Pushing a product’s name and capabilities seem to be a big deal for a lot of companies, and it’s arguably one area that Samsung is strongest in, and certainly one that LG needs to work harder at. One thing that Samsung has over LG right now however, is that pre-orders have already started for the Galaxy and Galaxy S7 Edge, with devices arriving in people’s hands some time around the second week of March. This contrasts with LG’s pre-orders not starting until March 18th, and the phone not launching until April or so.