LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's No. 2 smartphone maker, has retained its third place in market share for a fourth consecutive quarter ending in September, data showed Wednesday, largely due to robust sales of its marque G3. 
   
Its global market share by revenue stood at 5.4 percent in the third quarter, up from 4.8 percent three months earlier, recent data by Strategic Analytics showed. LG has climbed from 4.1 percent in the last quarter of 2013 and 4.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. 
   
Its stable market share stems from brisk sales of its flagship G3 models. The company shipped a fresh record high of 16.8 million units of smartphones in that period, with its mobile communication unit logging a record-setting quarterly operating profit of 384.4 billion won (US$346.3 million) in the same period.
  

LG's third-quarter operating profit more than doubled from that in the previous quarter, with the net surging 87 percent on-quarter over the cited months. 
   
Its firm market presence compares with a fall in bigger rival Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 1 player. The portion for Samsung reached 24.8 percent in the third quarter, a significant drop from 31.2 percent in the second quarter. Samsung was the second-largest smartphone maker by revenue after Apple Inc., which took up 32.3 percent. 
   
China-based Xiaomi Inc. and Huawei Technologies Co., two fast-growing upstarts, saw their shares come in at 4.3 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively. (Yonhap)