LG May Start Assembling Mobile Phones in Tierra Del Fueg

South Korean manufacturing giant LG Electronics may start assembling mobile telephones in Argentina's southern Tierra del Fuego province in 2007, newspaper Infobae reported LG Argentina mobile telephony director Marcelo Palazzo as saying.

At least eight companies have already received licenses to produce mobile phones in Tierra del Fuego.

The executive explained that LG plans to sell nearly 600,000 devices in Argentina by end-2006 and aims to be among the four leading companies in the market in 2007. In the local market, LG currently has 14 mobile telephone models.

LG posted total sales of nearly US$100mn in Argentina in 2005 and plans to double that figure by the end of this year, the newspaper reported.

"We intend to triple our market share by the end of the year to reach 6%," Infobae quoted Palazzo as saying.

In July, manufacturers Moon Manufacturers, Iatec, Cisa Fueguina and Mach Austral were granted permission to install factories in Tierra del Fuego with estimated investments of 20mn pesos. In August another two, Noblex and Tecnotronic, were given the green light, promising to invest 7.8mn pesos (US$2.55mn) and 8.8mn pesos respectively.

US equipment vendor Motorola and Argentine consortium BGH as well as Miami-based wireless equipment distributor Brightstar Corporation are already manufacturing phones in the southern province.

Meanwhile China's largest listed telecommunications manufacturer ZTE, South Korea based Samsung, and Finnish equipment supplier Nokia have all expressed interest in setting up manufacturing plants in Tierra del Fuego.

BNAmericas.com"

Posted to the site on 3rd October 2006