Despite the hardships being faced by many, home electronics giant LG and its employees will be having a good Christmas this year as they have seen sales figures rocket in the first three quarters of 2009. The company saw profits of $684 million over this period, powered jointly by an increase in demand and a recovery in the falling prices of LCD screens. LG is the second largest manufacturer of flat screen televisions and monitors in the world, but the figures also includes a substantial equity methods gain from subsidiaries and partners from around the world.
2009 has been an excellent year for both sides of the counter in fact, with massive reductions on cheap LG TVs at the beginning of the year to help shed stock amid the recession, followed by discounts right across the board to try and attract new customers as the first green shoots of recovery started to appear. The technology has also matured significantly, allowing for increasingly cheaper entry level models, leading to cheap LCD TVs becoming available at higher price points as well.
Whether these sales figures can be maintained in to 2010 will remain to be seen, but with recovery across most of the world gathering pace and with strong product diversification allowing them to cover several markets, you would be a fool to bet against them.