LG G8 ThinQ to go on pre-order with its lowest flagship price yet

LG Electronics will begin pre-orders for the G8 ThinQ smartphone in South Korea on Friday, the company has announced.

Pre-orders will run until Thursday, March 21, with official sales kicking off on Friday, March 22.

The phone -- which will have 128GB of storage -- will be priced at 897,600 won, approximately $790, slightly lower than its predecessor the G7 ThinQ's price tag of 898,700 won.

The price is competitive to that of the Galaxy S10e -- the Galaxy S10 series' budget model which also has 128GB of storage -- which has been set at 899,800 won.

LG said the relatively low price tag was to offer premium design and features to as many customers as possible. The G8 has a 6.1-inch QHD+ OLED display with 564 pixels per inch, is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 mobile platform, and has a 3,500mAh battery.

The company needs the G8 ThinQ to sell well to protect is share in its home country.

According to Strategy Analytics, Samsung controlled 60.3 percent of the smartphone market share last year while Apple had 16.7 percent and LG only 14.3 percent in South Korea. Samsung saw an increase of 4.1 percentage points from the previous year, while Apple's share dropped 1 percentage point, and LG dipped by 3.1 percentage points.

LG will also launch the pricier but 5G-enabled V50 ThinQ in May.

Samsung meanwhile had a head start last week with Galaxy S10's pre-orders being 20 percent higher on the first day compared to the S9.

The South Korean tech giant is also planning to launch the 5G version of the S10, most likely sometime next month. The model was initially slated to launch this month but South Korea has delayed the roll out of 5G network.

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