South Korea's Samsung Group was named as the third-most reputable firm in the United States, a report showed Sunday, on the back of its strong products and services appealing to American consumers.

Being the only foreign company to be included in the top-10 list, only two firms, grocery-chain operator Wegmans Food Markets Inc. and e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc., outperformed Samsung in terms of corporate reputation, the report by U.S.-based market researcher Harris Poll showed.

Apple Inc., which has been chasing the world's No. 1 maker of smartphones in terms of market shares, ranked at ninth place, while Google Inc. also managed to join the top-notch bracket at 10th place, the research showed.

"Samsung has steadily climbed up the ranks in recent years with consumers rating it among the five best on key reputational dimensions of products and services, emotional appeal, financial performance and vision and leadership," Harris Poll said in its release.

South Korea's smaller tech giant LG Group ranked at 23rd spot, hovering below Japan's Sony Corp. and U.S.-based Microsoft Corp. at 13th and 15th place, respectively.

Among carmakers, South Korea's top player Hyundai Motor Co. was placed at the 64th spot, hovering below Japanese rivals such as Honda and Toyota, which ranked at 29th and 49th place. U.S. General Motors was placed at the 88th spot. (Yonhap)