This is a sad day for Motorola. The beleaguered maker of mobile phones has lost the top spot in the United States to Korean handset maker Samsung. Motorola has steadily lost market share over the last year, and for the first time since 2004, is no longer No. 1 on its home turf.In the third quarter of 2007, Motorola held onto 32.7% of the market for cell phones in the United States. Since then, its share has declined by a third to 21.1% of the market. At the same time, Korean handset maker Samsung has been hitting hard with a wave of new handsets. It increased its market share to 22.4%, putting it ahead of Motorola in the United States. LG is a close third, with 20.5% of the market.

The numbers come from Strategy Analytics. The analysts didn't provide numbers for notable competitors to Samsung, Motorola, and LG, such as Apple and RIM. Apple sold 6.9 million iPhones during the third quarter, while RIM sold 6.3 million BlackBerrys.

It is worth pointing out that, globally, Motorola, Samsung, and LG are far behind Nokia, which still sells more than the other three combined. Nokia has, however, struggled to hold onto market share in the United States, where it has a meager 8.4% of the market.

Samsung may not have firmly pushed Motorola off of the hill altogether, but considering the gloomy news coming from Schaumburg, Ill., these days, there's little evidence to suggest that Motorola is going to re-take the top spot any time soon.