More than 1 in 3 North American smartphone owners use a made-in-Korea device, according to Strategy Analytics, a U.S. market research firm.

The company said Apple became the biggest seller of smartphones in North America with a 37.6 percent market share last year. But Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics continued to increase their sales in U.S. and Canada with market shares of 26.6 percent and 7.1 percent, respectively.

Market analysts said the two Korean companies’ combined sales are expected to overtake that of Apple in the near future given that Samsung already topped mobile phone markets in the world over Nokia last year.

The other minor players in North America are Motorola with a 6.6 percent market share, HTC with 5.0 percent, RIM with 5.0 percent, ZTE with 3.4 percent, Huawei with 3.0 percent and Nokia with 1.5 percent.

By Chung Joo-won  (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)