LG Electronics appears to be cozying up to Google's Android platform, and said about half of the smartphones it releases this year will be based on the search giant's platform.

"We will have smartphones running on Windows Mobile, but about 50 percent of our smartphone models will run on Android," LG CEO Nam Yong said, according to Yonhap News. In September, ahead of the worldwide launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, LG made sure to emphasize that it would champion Microsoft's mobile platform. At the time, the company said it would release a total of 13 new Windows Mobile phones by the end of 2010.

A relative laggard to the smartphone game, LG appears to be gearing up for a major smartphone push. Indeed, in November Nam said he no longer sees the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson as its main competitors, and instead views Apple, Palm and RIM as the main competition. LG is the world's third largest handset maker, behind leaders Nokia and Samsung, though much of the company's volume is due to sales of low- and mid-range feature phones.

As for LG's Android efforts to date, the company last year announced its LG-GW620, the company's first Android phone.

For more:
- see this Korea Herald article

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