Samsung Electronics Co. took second place in the U.S. smartphone market during the third quarter, trailing behind Taiwan-based HTC Corp., a market research firm said Wednesday.  

   Even though Samsung became the leading smartphone maker worldwide, it lagged behind HTC in the world's biggest smartphone market in the July-September period, market researcher Canalys said in a report.

   HTC shipped 5.7 million smartphones to the United States in the latest quarter, claiming nearly a quarter of the market, compared with Samsung's 4.9 million units, the Palo Alto, California-based researcher said.

   "(HTC) now has a strong range of 4G Android products, with devices ranged by each of the major carriers," Canalys vice president Chris Jones said in a news release.

   The two Asian mobile vendors saw brisk sales of their smartphones built on Google Inc.'s Android system, which fueled their growth. Samsung sold more than 10 million units of the Galaxy S2 smartphone, which made a global debut in April. 

   Apple Inc., which was the No. 1 smartphone supplier for the U.S. market one year earlier, sold 4.6 million units during the three month period and its U.S. rank fell two notches down to No. 3, Canalys said.

   "(Apple) was affected around the world by consumers waiting for the launch of the next-generation iPhone," the report said.

   Canalys said, however, that Apple's smartphone sales in the fourth quarter is expected to be strong with the release of the iPhone 4S last month.

   Worldwide, Canalys estimated that Samsung shipped 27.3 million units of smartphones during the three month period, edging out Nokia Corp. and Apple. 

The figure represents more than a three-times increase from the company's smartphone sales one year ago and a 60 percent on-quarter surge.

   Separately, Samsung retained more than a 55 percent market share in the South Korean market for six straight months in October. Its domestic mobile-phone sales hit 1.13 million units last month, it said.

(Yonhap News)