As the company struggles with the transition from cheap low end mobiles to the desired smartphone market, LG have cut down its smartphone sales projection by 20%, bracing itself for another quarterly loss.

With aggressive competition from Apple, Samsung and HTC, LG have had to cut their predicted sales forecasts by 20 per cent.

The South Korean firm cut down its 30 million smartphone projection to 24 million, while also reducing their overall mobile projection of 150 million to 114 million.

Struggling to keep up with the mobile technology of its local and bigger rival Samsung, LG have been forced to use price as their competitive edge.

In the first half of 2011, LG sold little more than 10 million smartphones, where in contrast Samsung sold 19 million within its second quarter alone.

With it struggling to produce mobile innovations that can compete with the likes of Apple, LG is expected to generate another quarterly loss, making this the fifth consecutive quarter where its handset division hasn’t turned a profit.

According to Park Jong-seok, Head of LG’s handset division, LG’s trends are on the turn around.

“Our overall performance is gradually improving … but it’s difficult to give a precise prediction when our business will turn around due to a fast changing external market environment.”

The gradual recovery is owed to the demand of their Optimus 2X and Optimus Black range, but with Blackberry and Nokia slashing handset prices, and Samsung, HTC and Apple producing desired high end phones, LG is struggling to emerge from the dwindling low end consumer segment as more and more customers turn to smartphones.