Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest smartphone maker, saw its domestic market share exceed 70 percent for the first time in the third quarter on new products, a market research firm said Sunday.

For the three months that ended in September, Samsung Electronics produced 3.4 million smartphones to account for 72.3 percent of the local smartphone markets, according to data from Strategy Analytics, Inc.

New products such as the Galaxy Note 20 smartphone and the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip foldable phones helped buoy domestic sales in the September quarter, it said.

Samsung Electronics' smaller rival LG Electronics Co. and US tech giant Apple Inc. saw their respective market shares in the Korean smartphone market fall below 10 percent in the third quarter, it said.

In the fourth quarter, however, Samsung's share is expected to decline slightly given strong demand for Apple's new iPhone 12 launched in the local market on Oct. 30. (Yonhap)