Samsung Electronics Co. slightly expanded its share in the North American smartphone market in the third quarter despite a drop in overall shipments, a report released by industry tracker Strategy Analytics showed Monday.

The South Korean tech giant took up 27.8 percent of the market in terms of shipments over the July-September period, up from 25.7 percent last year. The total number of handsets sold, however, dropped 400,000 units from on-year to 10.3 million, the data showed.

Samsung's third-quarter market share was down from 28.7 percent posted a quarter earlier.

The combined shipments of smartphones in the North American market over the third quarter came to 37.1 million units, down 11 percent from 41 million units posted in the same period of 2017, the Strategy Analytics data showed.

LG Electronics Inc. improved its share to 18.9 percent on-year, up from the previous 17 percent, but its shipment volume fell

100,000 units to hit 7 million units, the industry tracker said.

The smaller rival of Samsung, however, managed maintain growth in terms of quarterly market share. LG took up 16.2 percent of the market a quarter earlier.

U.S. giant Apple Inc., which shipped 13 million units in the market, stood as the leading player with a 35-percent share. Apple expanded sales both in terms of market share and units from last year's 30.7 percent and 12.8 million units.

"It seems Samsung did not really benefit from the release of the Galaxy Note 9 (in the North American market)," an industry watcher said. "LG, on the other hand, maintained growth on the back of its strategy to focus on the North American and South Korean markets with premium products." (Yonhap)