South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. lost nearly 8 percentage points of its global smartphone market share in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to industry data Tuesday, contrasting with Chinese rivals.
   
The world's No. 1 maker of smartphones shipped 73.21 million smartphones in the July-September period, down 7 million units from last year, the data compiled by market tracker Gartner Inc. showed.

Its world market share fell 7.7 percentage points over the cited period to 24.4 percent.
   
Major Chinese brands expanded their presence in the global market, with Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo taking up 15.5 percent of the market in the third quarter, up 4.1 percentage points on-year.
   
Xiaomi, which claimed 5.2 percent, saw its shipment of smartphones reach 15.7 million units, growing fourfold from the 3.62 million units posted last year. Huawei and Lenovo took up 5.3 percent and 5 percent, respectively.
   
Samsung's biggest rival, Apple Inc., sold 38.19 million units in the third quarter, up 8 million units from a year earlier, to account for 12.7 percent of the market, the data showed. The researcher expected Apple to post record-high sales in the fourth quarter, helped by the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. (Yonhap)