As Motorola (NYSE: MOT) sinks, its rivals rise. LG Electronics (SEO: 066570), the world’s fifth largest handset maker by market share, posted a net profit in the first quarter after a loss the year before, boosted in part by record mobile phone sales. The South Korean electronics firm said it had shipped a quarterly record of 24.4 million handsets globally, compared with 15.8 million units a year earlier. It attributed the rise in sales to the popularity of its premium models such as the touch screen Viewty and Voyager and the Venus. Global operating profit for the handset division climbed to 14 percent in the first quarter, up from 8.8 percent in the previous quarter, and 4.7 percent from a year earlier. LG said it expects handset sales to rise 20 percent from the first quarter to the next, helped along by “new line-ups including the third model in ‘Black Label’ series” which will sport a touch-screen and internet accessibility. More importantly, it is predicting double-digit profit margin for the group. LG said it hoped to sell more than 100 million mobile devices this year. In 2007, it sold 80.5 million units (release). 

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