Samsung Electronics Co. was the top smartphone vendor in Latin America in the second quarter, a report showed Thursday, although its market share dropped from a year earlier.

Samsung represented 37.3 percent of smartphone shipments in Latin America in the April-June period, defending its leading status, according to market tracker Counterpoint Research. However, its second-quarter market share was down from 42.5 percent a year ago.

"Samsung was the most affected due to the constraints related to its Vietnam factory," said Tina Lu, a principal analyst at Counterpoint Research. "Brazilian manufacturing also had supply issues."

The South Korean tech giant was the leading brand across major Latin American countries, except Mexico and Peru, where the company trailed behind Motorola Inc. and Xiaomi Corp., respectively.

Motorola was the runner-up in the Latin American smartphone market in the second quarter with a 22.3 percent market share, followed by Xiaomi, which increased its market share to 11.4 percent from 4.9 percent a year earlier.

ZTE Corp. came in fourth place with a market share of 4.4 percent followed by Apple Inc. with 3.8 percent.

South Korea's LG Electronics Inc., which terminated its money-losing mobile business, was the No. 3 brand in Brazil and Argentina but failed to stay in the top five.

"LG still has some demand, but Samsung, Motorola, ZTE and others are quickly grabbing its volume," Counterpoint Research said.

The market researcher added smartphone shipments in Latin America increased 41.8 percent from a year earlier but declined 6.5 percent compared with the first quarter.

"Smartphone demand in the region grew steadily but volume growth was impacted by the ongoing chipset shortages and manufacturing constraints," it said. "Most countries are enduring various degrees and forms of lockdowns, leading to an economic slowdown." (Yonhap)