G5 to be LG's best-selling smartphone: South Korean analysts

The LG G5 will likely become the company's best-selling smartphone to date thanks to its all-metal, modular design, and dual camera, analysts in South Korea have predicted.

On Sunday, South Korean tech giants Samsung and LG held their respective unveiling events for their first flagship smartphones of 2016, a day ahead of Mobile World Congress' kick off in Barcelona.

Kim Dong-won of Hyundai Securities estimated that the G5 will sell 136 percent more than its predecessor the G4 and move a total of 10.6 million units after its April launch.

"The G5 presented the expandability of the ecosystem through smartphones by applying the world's first modular design," Kim said in a note to clients. "The metal design and dual camera are key differentiating points."

Kim Ji-san of Kiwoon Securities also estimated that the G5 will sell over 10 million units after launch.

The G5 captured "three rabbits with one stone", said SK Securities' Park Hyung-woo, by aiming towards the smartphone, wearable, and Internet of Things markets at once.

"Highlighting new devices that overcome conventional smartphone features such as virtual reality and cameras was a successful strategy," Park said.

Kwon Sung-ryul of Donbu Securities said the G5 was beyond expectations and signalled the revival of the firm's G series.

"[Thanks to the G5] the expectations for LG's mobile division to turn to the black in the second quarter have risen," he said.

Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge received mixed opinions from analysts, some commenting that it was "more or less what they expected".

Kwon said the Galaxy S7 series was more or less same as earlier estimations and will sell around 40 million units, like its predecessor the S6 series. "Samsung Electronics has always shown strong improvement in hardware every time they launched a flagship model, but the reaction for that has considerably dropped since the S4. The S7 shows improved application processor, DRAM, and camera, but consumers' main interest will be the price."

Cho Sung-eun of Samsung Securities estimated that the S7 series will sell 5 percent less than the S6 series.

"It looks the same as the previous models [S6 series] in outer design, and no noticeable improvement in hardware as well," said Kim Rok-ho of Hana Investment & Securities. "In unit sales, I think it is rational to lower estimates."

Both companies' devices, however, received some negative reaction for the lack of innovation in software. "Both the Galaxy S7 and G5 have no noticeable differentiating point in software, and that is a shame," said one analyst.