South Korea's Samsung Electronics overtook Motorola as the world's second-biggest mobile phone maker in the third quarter as the market continued to boom, a survey showed on Wednesday. Confirming an earlier Reuters story, research group Gartner said 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, was forced publish its quarterly statistics a day earlier than planned after the leak of key numbers by industry sources.
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. It also entered the mass market with cheap phones in growing markets like China.
Motorola should benefit from new models which have just arrived in shops, such as the ultra-thin Razr model.
Gartner 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.
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.
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.