While Apple and Samsung were generating so much hoopla in the mobile devices industry, a silent but key player was gradually creeping in and by Q3 2012, South Korea's LG Electronics is back in black.

LG reported on Wednesday that it netted a total of $US142 million in the September quarter this year, backed mostly by the seven million smartphones it pushed out in the quarter.

The latest results, which contradicted previous market projections, signalled that the Asian tech firm, a perennial competitor of the bigger Samsung, is slowly picking up following the slump it encountered in early 2011, analysts said.

That was the same year that Apple and Samsung ramped up their efforts to corner every possible share of the mobile phone market, pushing brands such as Nokia, HTC and BlackBerry to the brink of collapse.

LG's mobile business was also impacted by the smartphone duopoly of Apple and Samsung, yet it soldiered on and released devices that would serve as alternative flavour to the iPhone and Galaxy craved for by global consumers.

The company succeeded and it brandished an operating profit above the $US200 million mark following the losses it incurred in 2011.

In the three months alone ending in September 2012, LG sold 14.4 million of handsets which spawned a quarterly revenue, 70 per cent were contributed by the new lines of smartphones - scooped up in big numbers by consumers in Japan, South Korea and the North American region.

The company attributed the pick-ups to the growing demand for smartphones in key markets, in turn spurred the growth by the deployment of LTE-4G networks that allow consumers to access super-fast wireless broadband services.

While LG's performance in the TV market is generally flat, the company is tipped to end 2012 with reports of annual profit, which should reverse the losses, totalling 900 billion won, according to The Associated Press (AP), it absorbed from 2010 though the end of 2011.

LG's gains are far from that of its main rival, Samsung, but the company is on track to collect higher revenues in the immediate quarters ahead, Kwon Sung-ryul of Dongbu Securities told AP.

Mr Kwon pointed to the LG Optimus and the tech firm's upcoming handset models as likely attracting more consumers' interests for other products outside of the Apple and Samsung mobile device realms.