South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. topped the North American smartphone market for the first time in the second quarter, data showed Wednesday, on the back of robust sales of the flagship Galaxy S5.

The world's No. 1 maker of smartphones grabbed 36.2 percent of the North American market in the April-June period, compared to the

27.9 percent by its U.S. rival, Apple Inc., the data compiled by Strategy Analytics showed.

Industry watchers said the turnaround came as Samsung commenced its full-fledged sales of the flagship Galaxy S5 in the North American market in the second quarter, while Apple loyalists refrained from purchasing new devices as a new iPhone is anticipated to be released later in the year.

LG Electronics Inc., Samsung's smaller rival, also posted a record market share of 11.9 percent over the cited period, after releasing various high- and low-end lineups to approach a wider scope of North American consumers.

While Chinese firms are becoming bigger challengers to South Korean players, they had only a limited presence in North America, with ZTE Corp. being the only China-based tech company in the top

10 list with a share of 6.1 percent. Taiwan's HTC ranked in seventh place with a share of 3 percent.

Separate data from industry tracker Canalys showed earlier that Samsung was overtaken by Xiaomi in China for the first time.

Samsung held 12 percent of the Chinese smartphone market in the second quarter, compared to the 14 percent by local firm Xiaomi.

Xiaomi's growth, however, has a limited impact on the global smartphone market, as 97 percent of its shipments were in mainland China, Canalys said. (Yonhap)