As part of its plan to take over the (mobile handset) world, LG said today that it will speed up its push into emerging markets, hoping to up its global market share from 9.3% to 15% over the next 18 months.

Scott Ahn, president of LG’s mobile communications division, told the Financial Times: “We want to become a firm top-three player by 2010 and become number one eventually.”

LG has been steadily gaining on its larger rivals, overtaking Samsung earlier this year for the second largest slice of the U.S. mobile phone market. And as Motorola’s market share, still tops in the U.S., declines on the world’s stage, analysts predict LG could overtake the flagging U.S. handset maker later this year, becoming the third largest handset maker worldwide.

Though Ahn stressed that LG would avoid starting a price war and instead pursue “value competition.”

Via Financial Times