Samsung's smartphone business is continuing to thrive as Strategy Analytics reveals that the Korean manufacturer shifted 86 million handsets in the last quarter of 2013. That gave Samsung a massive 29.6 per cent share of the global smartphone market.

In comparison, Apple attained a 17.6 per cent share of the market, but that was down by almost 5 per cent as Chinese brands Huawei and Lenovo continue to rise in stature, most prominently in the low-end smartphone sector. The last two took third and fourth place in the manufacturer league table for Q4, but LG still holds on to fourth spot for the whole of 2013.

READ: Samsung posts first quarterly profit decline in two years

With the entire year taken into account, the company has lost a considerable amount of market share - although Apple has recently revealed its iPhone sales have been very encouraging, having been bolstered by two products in the range and an expanded Chinese release. It has dropped year on year by almost 4 per cent, while Samsung has risen by almost 2 per cent year on year.

But the new figures are relative as more smartphones were sold in 2013 than ever before: almost one billion of them according to Strategy Analytics. Apple sold 153.4 million iPhones, it claims, which is a rise of 17.6 million phones over 2012.