Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest smartphone maker, has suffered a drop in its smartphone sales in the Japanese market due to aggressive marketing activities by Apple Inc. and smaller Japanese rivals, data showed Sunday.

According to the data by technology research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung sold 1 million smartphones in the market in the July-September period of the year, down 300,000 units from the second quarter.

Samsung's sales in the market have been on the decline for three consecutive quarters since the fourth quarter of last year when 1.9 million units were sold.

Samsung's sales drop was attributable to the launch of new products and aggressive marketing activities by Apple and a remarkable advance in marketing activities by Japanese rivals such as Sony Corp.

Apple also signed a deal with NTT Docomo Inc., Japan's biggest mobile carrier, to provide its iPhones for the first time. Over the past few years, Apple had only offered its iPhones through the second- and third-largest mobile carriers: KDDI Corp. and SoftBank Corp.

In line with the decreased sales, the market share held by Samsung fell to 9.9 percent in the third quarter from 17 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

Apple, which launched the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c in recent months, dominated the Japanese smartphone market with a 38.1 percent share in the third quarter, selling 3.8 million units.

Apple's third-quarter market share was up 17.1 percentage points from the previous quarter, with its sales rising on-quarter by 1.7 million units.

Sony sold 1.9 million smartphones, taking the second position with 18.9 percent of the market share in the July-September period, followed by Sharp Corp. and Samsung. (Yonhap News)