LG Electronics Inc., the world’s third-largest maker of liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions, aims to overtake Sony Corp. as the second-biggest this year, driven by stronger-than-expected demand.

The company is maintaining its LCD TV shipment target of 18 million units in 2009, which will be achievable, Simon Kang, head of the company’s home-entertainment division, told reporters in Seoul.

Global revenue from LCD TVs will drop 6 percent this year to $76 billion, researcher DisplaySearch said last week, higher than its previous estimate of $66 billion. Worldwide LCD TV shipments will rise 21 percent to 127 million units, compared with an earlier prediction of 120 million, because of higher demand from China and as more consumers replace bulkier glass-tube sets, according to the Austin, Texas-based research firm.

LG said in January it aims to increase sales of flat-panel TVs by 42 percent this year and boost market share with new products and technologies. Shipments of LCD TVs may rise 50 percent to 18 million sets this year, while those of plasma models will probably climb 7 percent to 3 million, Seoul-based LG said at the time.

LG Electronics will continue to gain market share in LCD TVs in the second half and may surpass Sony as the world’s second-largest maker in the current quarter, Henry Kim, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a report this month.

The South Korean company today introduced its latest LCD TVs using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as backlights instead of conventional fluorescent lights.

Global shipments of LCD TV panels with LED backlights will increase to 3.3 million units this year compared with 438,000 in 2008, according to researcher iSuppli Corp. this month. LED backlights, illuminated by glowing chips and used in products such as Apple Inc.’s laptop computers, are brighter and consume less power than conventional fluorescent tubes.

“The TV business has reached a big enough scale to offer a complete lineup of low-end small TV models to the latest premium large TVs with LED backlight,” Keon Han, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a report.

LG said it expects global shipments of LCD TVs with LED backlights will rise almost 10-fold to 30 million units next year from 3.1 million in 2009. The company aims to sell 400,000 sets in 2009 and 3 million to 4 million units next year, it said.

LG’s Home Entertainment division, which was formed in December after combining the display and media businesses, makes flat-panel TVs, plasma screens and audio and video products. (Bloomberg)