LG Electronics (News - Alert) is reportedly planning to strengthen the presence of its Viewty phone, also known as LG-KU990, by the end of the year in 18 countries, including Asian markets such as Hong Kong, Singapore, India and Malaysia, as their improving economy is boosting demand for high-end electric gadgets.

 

LG officials stated that the company expects the sale of GSM handsets, including 3G phones in Asian emerging markets and even in South Africa, to reach 10 million this year, up 75 percent from a year ago, as consumers shift to multi-functional handsets from old-fashioned CDMA phones.

 

In addition, according to reports, Viewty provides upward momentum for the company in China, where LG takes up only about 13 percent of the market for the CDMA phone industry.

 

Recently, LG had introduced Viewty phone in 14 European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain through major carriers. The new touch screen phone features an image stabilizer and manual focus, and allows users to download up to 3.6 megabits of data per second. It also has a built-in photo-editing program that allows users to touch up their photos on a three-inch LCD touch screen.

 

Strategy Analytics (News - Alert) reports that the demand for camera phones will rise to 1.02 billion by 2011 from 500 million in 2006. It also expects that the sales of over 5-megapixel camera phones will reach 202 million by 2011 from 4.6 million last year.