LG Electronics on Wednesday launched a smartphone based on Google's Android operating system in South Korea, as it seeks to boost its smartphone line-ups. LG, which is fighting an uphill battle against leaders Nokia, Blackberry maker RIM and Apple, plans to boost smartphone offerings with some 20 models this year, half the offerings based on the most popular Android.

The South Korean firm wants to claim a double-digit share of the global smartphone market by 2012.

The LG-KH5200 model will be sold by the country's second-largest mobile carrier KT.It comes with a 3-inch touchscreen (320 x 480), a 5 megapixel camera, a QWERTY keyboard, 32GB of memory, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 , MP3 player, FM radio and wil cost around 650,000 won.

LG's rival Samsung is also set to unveil Android phones this month.