In November last year, LG had released a unique Android smartphone called AKA, a handset with special cases and interface that has its own personality, exclusively in its home country of South Korea. LG has now announced that it will bring its quirky AKA (pronounced "aw-kuh") line to new markets in the coming months, starting from Hong Kong and followed by China, Singapore, Taiwan, and Turkey.

The LG AKA has proved to be a huge hit among Korean consumers and also won the IF Design Award for its "unconventional approach to smartphone design." Originally designed exclusively for South Korea, each LG AKA features a different character that peeks out from the top of their own accessories to reveal their own unique personas. There is Wooky in white, who speaks slang, Soul in dark blue who loves beer and music, Eggy in yellow who is a romantic at heart, and finally Yo-Yo in pink whose crash-diets cause her weight to fluctuate.

When the handset is used along with one of its special cases, animated eyes show up in the upper part of the screen, adding personality to the device, as well as providing information such as battery status, and notifications. The characters' personalities are an integral part of each phone model as they are woven into wallpapers, widgets and ringtones. Apart from AKA's interactive, animated eyes, users can customize their phones with stickers, markers or paint, for a true DIY experience.

Keeping the global audience in mind, LG has tweaked the AKA lineup by adding an emotional UX element, which will allow users to customize the character's eyes with different pairs of glasses and eyebrows. Another unique UX feature, "Art Toy" figurine can be digitized and incorporated into the phone's user experience. When users take a photo of the accessory figurine using the Snapshot tool of the AKA phone, it creates an animated 3D version of the figure that appears next to selfies.

In terms of specifications, the LG AKA is a mid-range handset featuring a 5-inch IPS display with 720 x 1280 pixels, an 8 MP rear camera with laser auto focus, 2 MP front-facing camera, and LTE connectivity. The smartphone is powered by a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor with 1.5 GB RAM, 16 GB of internal memory, and a 2610 mAh battery. LG has not provided any pricing details for the LG AKA in the new markets and if the device becomes a hit in those regions, then the company could release it in North America at a later stage.