The head of LG’s struggling handsets business says he is looking at a range of possible partnerships in a bid to revive the division – but denied suggestions that the South Korean giant was looking to exit the sector and talked up a recovery in smartphones.

"We are always talking to other businesses and companies [on alliances and deals]. We're looking into almost every alliance that the mobile industry can think of," Park Jong-seok, chief executive of LG's mobile communications business, told Reuters.

"Some of the talks are quite active.. but one thing that does not change is that LG is very committed to the mobile business.. Our recent rights offering was mainly aimed at investing in handsets, and that proves it."

That offering saw LG raise almost US$1 billion to prop up its loss-making handset unit. But Park claimed the situation had improved "a lot" in Q4 thanks to solid sales of its Optimus LTE model, which went on sale in early October. He said that LG has sold more than 500,000 Optimus LTE phones so far and that sales are likely to top 1 million by the end of this month. A tablet-sized version of the device is also expected to launch soon.

"Earnings will get better this year, as we plan to raise premium phones, mainly LTE models, to more than half of our smartphone line-up," Park said.

LG remains the world’s third-largest handset vendor overall, but has lost ground in the key smartphone sector in recent years to the likes of Apple, Samsung and HTC.