LG Electronics began the rollout of its F5 smartphone, the first in the F Series of devices “for consumers who are ready to experience the blazing speeds of 4G LTE without the high costs that normally go with such a device”.

The device debuted in France this week as part of its European rollout, and will also be offered in Latin America, Asia and CIS “over the next several weeks”.

According to its initial announcement, the 4.3-inch screen F5 will be joined by the 4.7-inch F7 in the future.

F5 is powered by a 1.2GHz dual core Qualcomm processor, has a 5 megapixel camera, and runs Android Jelly Bean (4.1.2).

The launch comes shortly after LG announced its biggest ever quarter for smartphone shipments, which saw the recovering South Korean vendor delivering 10.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013.

Research firm Strategy Analytics said that this puts LG in third place for smartphone shipments during the quarter, although only narrowly ahead of ambitious Chinese vendor Huawei, which shifted 10 million units.