Despite the release of flagship handsets by major smartphone makers in recent months, the Korean smartphone market posted stagnant sales for a fourth consecutive month, according to market analysts.

The total shipment volume of smartphones in October stood at 1.5 million, slightly up from 1.4 million last month, but the figure shows little change from those in August and July at around 1.5 million units, market sources said Thursday.

They said customers did not respond strongly to attempts to stimulate the market with new smartphones that provide little more innovation than improvement in hardware.

Once LG Electronics released its flagship smartphone G2 in August, other domestic and global manufacturers rolled out their products in Korea.

Samsung Electronics released its flagship phablet Galaxy Note 3 in late September, and Pantech and Apple released the Vega Secret Note and iPhone 5S and 5C, respectively, in October.

One industry source, however, said the lack of rebates was a bigger reason for the sluggish market.

“The government regulation on the rebate shackled the growth of the whole domestic mobile businesses, which could lead to long-lasting stagnation and loss of competitiveness in the global market,” the source said.

The government currently bans the marketing strategy of mobile carriers to subsidize customers’ smartphone purchases, and is trying to pass a similar law that prevents smartphone makers from giving financial support to customers when purchasing their products.

According to the sources, the number of smartphone shipments this year will likely drop to below 20 million units, which is lower than the 26 million units forecast by leading U.S. market research institute Strategy Analytics last week.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)