Samsung Electronics Co. was the largest smartphone vendor in Russia in the third quarter of the year, beating its Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co., a report showed Wednesday.

Samsung accounted for 28.4 percent of smartphone sales in Russia in the July-September period, edging out Huawei by 2.9 percentage points, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research.

China's Xiaomi Corp. came in third with a 22.6 percent share in the third quarter, followed by Apple Inc. with a 9.2 percent share, data showed.

"The Samsung Galaxy A51, Samsung Galaxy A31 and Apple iPhone 11 are the top-selling smartphones on online platforms, while the Samsung Galaxy A51, Redmi Note 8T and Samsung Galaxy A31 are the bestselling models on offline platforms," said Tarun Pathak, an associate director at Counterpoint Research.

Smartphone sales in Russia grew 5 percent on-year in the third quarter, with 34 percent of them purchased online due to the pandemic.

When it comes to online smartphone sales, Samsung ranked third with a 26.3 percent share, trailing behind Huawei with 27.8 percent and Xiaomi with 27 percent.

"After the restoration of normalcy in retail store operations, Samsung went back to depending on offline sales, which caused a decrease in its market share for online sales," Counterpoint Research said. (Yonhap)