Once upon a time in the near past, one brand - Sony - represented Asia to the rest of the world. Sony with it cutting edge technology (for its day), sleek designs and ability to foresee and even create customer demand rewrote the rule book in the consumer electronics industry. So powerful was Sony that when Samsung, a little known company from South Korea started to follow in Sony's steps albeit learning from Sony's mistakes, not many thought too much about Samsung. But Samsung has grown so strong over the years that Sony has had to learn lessons from its one time follower.

Another South Korean company - LG - chose to follow the Samsung route. Once again not much was thought about LG in its initial days. But LG has grown from strength to strength. Much like Samsung, LG has based its tremendous growth and reputation on top notch quality, world class design and user friendly consumer electronics.

A case in point is LG's ascent in the mobile phone industry. The US$142 billion-a-year global mobile industry is made up of five major players: Nokia (the market leader), Samsung (the number 2 player), Motorola, LG and Sony-Ericsson (although iPhone has joined the market very recently).

LG has managed to grow so well in this highly competitive market that shipments of its phone were up by 54% in the first three months of 2008 and sold 24.4 million handsets compared to last year, when the industry average was a mere 14%. With such a growth, LG has also increased its market share from 6.4% in 2007 to 8.6% in 2008 and in turn has overtaken Sony-Ericsson as the number four player in the industry. If Motorola had the highly successful RAZR line of phones, LG hit it big with its Chocolate mobile phone. Since it was launched in May 2006, the Chocolate has sold more than 18 million units.

But unlike most companies that choose to milk a single product with different variants (like Motorola did with its RAZR line), LG has taken a different route. Skott Ann, the head of the mobile handset unit, has chosen the route of constant innovation and coming up with more winning models like the Chocolate. In this effort, he has increased the number of designers to 150 and the number of engineers to 4000.

Another innovative strategy that he has introduced is to conduct internal competitions for the best designed mobile phone. The latest winner, Secret - made of carbon fiber and tempered glass and with a 5 mega pixel camera, is already making waves in the industry. With such commitment in innovation and brand growth, LG's first quarter operating profits jumped four times to US$444 million on sales of US$32.2 billion. Furthermore, its profit margin jumped from 4.7% a year ago to 13.9%. So upbeat are customers and other stakeholders about LG that its stock increased 57% this year, making it the best performing mobile phone company among the big five.

Such success only raises expectations and competition. So far, LG has managed to keep its brand resonating with its customers. LG has come to be known as a brand that can be trusted and also as a brand that is in line with the times in terms of design, quality and functionality. It will be interesting to see how LG progresses from this point on. The change management process is currently on its way, and it can leverage the LG brand much further.