LG Electronics unveiled its first tablet, running on Google's Android platform, through T-Mobile USA, as it seeks to grab some share of the emerging tablet market from Apple.

LG plans to sell the 8.9-inch tablet, based on Google's forthcoming Android version of Honeycomb, in the next few months through the fourth-largest U.S. mobile carrier before launching the delayed product globally.

The South Korean firm said ahead of a joint announcement on Thursday with T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, that the device will be branded as the T-Mobile G-Slate and uses Nvidia's dual core processor.

Toshiba is also set to show off a 10-inch tablet running on Honeycomb this week at the Consumer Electronics Show, making its foray into the tablet war.

Global tablet sales are expected to explode to more than 50 million in 2011, as rivals including Research In Motion Ltd and Hewlett-Packard Co launch new devices.

Apple, which sold more than 12 million iPads in 2010, according to analysts' estimates, is expected to dominate the market in the near term. Rival tablets that have already launched from companies like Samsung Electronics Co and Dell have not been able to beat Apple on price point.

Tablets and smartphones are key for LG to revive its loss-making handset business, ranked the world's third largest.

Its mobile division reported a record loss in July-September, hit by a weak lineup of smartphones and growing development and marketing costs to prop up faltering sales of low-priced models.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew and Miyoung Kim; Editing by Anshuman Daga)

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