LG Electronics, one of the world’s top five smartphone makers, has begun the global marketing pitch for its first curved smartphone, starting in Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, the company said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, LG held a launching ceremony at Hong Kong’s Charter House building for the local press to announce that the curved G Flex will start selling in Hong Kong on Dec. 13 through five of the nation’s main network carriers.

In Singapore, preorders will begin on Dec. 8 with official sales to kick off Dec. 21.

Taiwanese and European consumers will have to wait until early next year for the G Flex, LG Electronics said.

“We’ll be accelerating our global marketing efforts starting with Asia in an aim to eventually lead the world’s curved smartphone market,” said Park Jong-seok, president of LG Electronics and head of its mobile communications unit.

The G Flex boasts a curved, 6-inch, 1280x720-pixel organic light-emitting display screen, as well as a curved 3,500 mAh battery. It is equipped with a 2.26 GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, 2 GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera.

The G Flex also has inherited the rear volume and power buttons from LG’s flagship G2 model, and runs on the Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean operating system.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)