The fact that LG has just became the third largest manufacturer shouldn’t be such an unexpected event considering how 2008 turned out to be. Two major handset manufacturers have suffered deeply. These are Motorola and Sony Ericsson. We expect them both to recover sooner or later. But in the mean time LG has surpassed them and it won’t be stopped soon. LG surpassed Moto by only about 100k handset as both companies produced around 100 million phones last year. Sony Ericsson managed to sell only about 96.6 million in a disastrous 2008. What will 2009 bring in terms of handsets? Well we know Moto has a few good looking phones set for a Verizon release, but LG won’t surrender! The company wants to launch no less than 100 different handset this year. That’s almost two new handsets per week. And we’re going to cover them all for you!

Oh, and as usual, number one and two are the same companies. Nokia sold 470 million phones while Samsung trailed behind with only 200 million phones in 2008.

via digitimes