South Korean electronics giants Samsung and LG Electronics have both suffered a slowdown in mobile phone sales and are hoping World Cup fever will spark customers into shelling out for high-end TVs.
Samsung reported a 4% fall in sales at its mobile phone unit as revenues in the sector fell to 33.4 trillion Korean won (£23.3bn) in the first three months of the year.
The company said “the global market for smartphones is maturing” but it anticipates this summer’s showpiece football tournament in Brazil will encourage shoppers to splash out on ultra high-definition (UHD) TVs.
LG reported a 7% slowdown in smartphone sales on the previous quarter in the first quarter, but said demand for high-end TVs helped offset handset losses to record a 504 billion won profit.
Rival Nokia today appointed Rajeev Suri as chief executive. He had previously led its network equipment division – now its core arm following the sale of its mobile phone division to Microsoft last week.
Nokia also announced plans to return $3.1 billion to shareholders through share buybacks and extra dividends.
