While economic projections for 2009 continue to be grim, one company is keeping its eyes on opportunity and has announced it will be focusing even more on its customer service, sustainability and product innovation this year.

LG Electronics, a provider of consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile communications, saw progress in 2008 and hopes to keep up the momentum this year.

Michael Ahn, the company's President and CEO for North America said in his annual keynote address this year that even with the current economy here in the U.S., there is still "opportunity for LG Electronics (News - Alert) to differentiate itself."

 

To do so, he said the company must "press forward" and continue to work toward their goals.

 

"Even with the recession, we will not reduce investments in marketing or R&D," he said.

 

Not only did Ahn discuss product leadership goals and new innovations for this year, but said the company is pushing to improve its customer service levels in 2009 and has already improved call response times to 30 seconds.

 

LG's 2009 North American strategy includes new Smart HDTV technologies with wireless capabilities and improved picture quality as well as more Network Blu-ray Disc Players and Blu-ray based Home Theater Systems and more options for content delivery through network connectivity options added to their plasma and LCD TVs.

In line with this, the company announced  2 new HDTV series with NetCast Entertainment Access today that stream movies, TV shows and videos via a direct Ethernet connection to the television.

 

"New and expanded LG partnerships with industry leaders such as Yahoo!, YouTube (News - Alert), Netflix and CinemaNow will deliver content that consumers crave," said Ahn.

 

Finally, the company said it will also continue to focus on sustainability this year and grow their nationwide electronics recycling program as well as introduce LCD HDTVs with low energy consumption.

 

In 2008, LG increased its brand awareness in the U.S. 92.3 percent. In 2007 it was at 83 percent and only at 75 percent in 2006. The company was also able to exceed its goals for the last year - an increase of 16 percent over the previous year. In 2008, the company achieved revenues of $13.2 billion; in 2005 the company's North American revenues were only at $5.6 billion.

 

"This growth is a result of our intense focus on the consumer - delivering products that are innovative and stylish and most importantly, products that fit into consumers' everyday lives," Ahn said.