LG: Our Business Is Improving, So We’re Cutting Our Smartphone Forecast

LG says its business is “gradually improving,” but evidently not so much that the company can stick by its sales targets.

The company on Thursday slashed its 2011 smartphone sales forecast by 20 percent, lowering it to 24 million from 30 million amid increased competition from HTC, Apple and Samsung, among others. Worse, it said that the 150 million in total handset sales it had projected for the year was a bit too aggressive. A more realistic number: 114 million, said Jong-Seok Park, head of LG’s handset division, during a press conference today.

Ugly news for LG and its continuing efforts to revive its money-losing handset business, which is gearing up to report its fifth straight quarterly loss.

“Our overall performance is gradually improving,” Park said. “It’s hard to give an exact timing, because there are so many market variables, and the situation changes quickly.”

Particularly when it changes for the worse …