LG Electronics Inc., maker of the Vu and Voyager touch-screen mobile phones, surpassed Samsung Electronics Co. to take second-place in the U.S. handset market behind Motorola Inc., a research firm said.

LG, based in Seoul, accounted for 21 percent of the phones sold in the U.S. last quarter, regaining the No. 2 spot after two years, Boston-based Strategy Analytics said. Motorola widened its share of unit sales to 25.8 percent, while Suwon, South Korea- based Samsung's share dropped to 18.6 percent.

With the Vu and Voyager, which play music and videos and browse the Web, LG tapped demand for touch-screen devices, spurred by the debut of Apple Inc.'s iPhone last year. Motorola, whose market share has declined from about 38 percent at the start of last year, gained back some ground because of devices such as its W755 camera phone.

``LG has been quick to react, and they're now one of the main touch-screen players,'' Neil Mawston, an analyst at Strategy Analytics, said in an interview. ``Motorola is moving, step by step, in the right direction.''

While Motorola is still under threat of losing its No. 1 spot in the U.S. this year to LG, the risk is not as great as it was six months ago, Mawston said.

LG Electronics rose 2.7 percent to close at 113,500 won on the Korea Exchange on Aug. 8. That extended this year's advance to 14 percent, the biggest gain among the world's four largest handset makers. Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, climbed 46 cents to $9.63 on the New York Stock Exchange.

BlackBerry's Rise

Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry e-mail phone, took the No. 4 spot in the U.S., lifting its market share to more than 10 percent for the first time. The company had 10.6 percent of units shipped, helped by demand for its Pearl and Curve devices, which also play music and surf the Web.

Nokia Oyj, the global leader with more than 41 percent of unit sales worldwide, ranked fifth. It almost doubled its U.S. market share to 9.5 percent.

Apple's share of U.S. unit sales fell to 1 percent from 2.7 percent in the previous quarter after the company phased out an older model. A version that debuted last month, after the quarter ended, sold 1 million units in the first three days, leaving most Apple stores out of stock after 10 days.

The U.S. market rose 5.3 percent to 41.9 million phones from the year-earlier quarter, growing more slowly than regions such as Asia and Africa. Global unit sales increased 15 percent to 297 million, Strategy Analytics said last month.

Below is a table of the five biggest handset makers by U.S. market share in the second quarter of 2008, compared with the previous quarter. The figures were compiled by Strategy Analytics.

            Share Q2 '08  Share Q1 '08
            (percent)     (percent)
Motorola       25.8         25.6
LG             21.0         21.3
Samsung        18.6         22.1
RIM            10.6          8.5
Nokia           9.5          5.3
Others         14.4         17.2
Total         100.0        100.0

Source:Bloomberg