Moon B Shin

How about the possible US recession? Not a problem for LG, as just $2.5 billion of its sales are in the USA, and the benefits of the group's geographical diversification will be apparent at a time when many other Korean companies pay a high price for over dependence on orders from Uncle Sam.

Perhaps these are two reasons for regional LG president Moon B Shin to be cheerful. His third reason for good cheer is his region's sales performance.

For the past few years LG has been growing its Middle East and African sales at around 20% compound per annum. That meant total sales of $828 million in the year 2000, and a projected $940 million for this year.

'My predecessor Mr YH Kim did a wonderful job,' says Mr Shin sat on a brown leather sofa in LG's Gulf regional headquarters in Jebel Ali. 'The market here is driven by quality, state-of-the-art technology and reasonable prices. This will not be changing.

'We plan to launch many new products here such as our Internet microwave oven (which downloads menus and programmes the oven), an Internet linked washing machine (which can be programmed from a PC) and Internet fridge (which restocks itself by placing orders over the Internet). This is a market that welcomes new products'.

LG is not short of new ideas. But its top selling consumer products are the more ordinary TVs, a/cs, fridges and computer monitors. Also popular are its flat-screen plasma TV screens. They are expensive, though Mr Shin sees prices falling by around 50% over the next two years.

Indeed, LG claims its market share of the consumer electronics and white goods sector has also been growing at the expense of other manufacturers. Mr Shin says this growth has been greatly aided by customers' appreciation of outstanding after-sales support, and a big marketing effort led by the sponsorship of major sports events such as the World Cup in France.

But curiously LG has not been actively marketing itself on the Internet yet, despite its commitment to advanced Web cross products like the Internet fridge.

'We are studying the Internet and working out how to get visitors to our website,' he says. 'But we are very careful'. That said www.lgservice is the site to visit for service advice from LG, and www.lggulf.com is an e-commerce enabled site for buying LG products, albeit through its regional distributor network.

For the future Mr Shin says his group has a clear growth strategy, and he is very optimistic about the business outlook in the Middle East. Another reason for LG to be cheerful.