South Korea's Samsung Electronics overtook Motorola as the world's second-biggest mobile phone maker in the third quarter, industry sources said on Wednesday.
Quoting the latest quarterly statistics by research group Gartner, which are available to executives in the telecoms industry, the sources said Samsung had taken a narrow lead over Motorola.
Samsung sold 22.98 million phones to consumers, giving it a 13.8 percent market share, compared with sales of 22.39 million cell phones by Motorola, which was 13.4 percent of the market.
Gartner, one of the top two market researchers in the mobile phone industry, declined to comment. It said it would publish its numbers later on Wednesday.
Motorola, whose Chief Executive Ed Zander told Reuters last month he wants his company to become the world's biggest handset maker, lost more than two points compared with the second quarter market share of 15.8 percent.
Samsung advanced from 12.1 percent in the second quarter, as consumers continued to snap up its fold-away models with integrated cameras and other advanced features. The sources also said the market share of the world's biggest handset maker Nokia recovered to 30.9 percent, from 29.7 percent in the second quarter.
That figure, however, is still significantly below year-ago levels which were around 34 percent, as the Finnish behemoth lost customers due to a poor line-up. It has addressed the problem with steep price cuts and new product introductions which have started to bear fruit.
Fourth-placed Siemens ended at 7.6 percent, up from 6.9 percent, despite a recall of its new 65 range of models which pushed the business into a loss in the quarter.
Lucky Goldstar
In another victory for South Korea, LG Electronics overtook Japanese-Swedish Sony Ericsson as the world's No 5. handset maker. LG climbed to a 6.7 percent market share, up from 6 percent in the second quarter, while Sony Ericsson slipped slightly to 6.4 percent in the third quarter from 6.6 percent.
But compared with year-ago periods, both companies had gained significant market share on the back of advanced phones. LG was expanding its relations with telecoms carriers through foldaway models and high-speed mobile phones, while Sony Ericsson has carved out a niche in integrating consumer electronics from Sony, such as cameras, games and music players.
