A Samsung employee holds a mobile phone at a Samsung display store in Johannesburg. October 10, 2013.

Samsung rules in the global smartphone market. While Apple reported on Tuesday impressive 4th quarter results of $6.9 billion earnings, broken down into $31.2 million for the iPhone, $14.6 million for iPads and $3.8 million for Macs, the South Korean tech giant easily trounced the Cupertino-based firm's accomplishment.

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The IDC Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker report said Samsung shipped 88.4 million phones for the same quarter, grabbing a 35 per cent market share. The company's Galaxy S4 sales may have slowed down, but it was made up for by stronger demand for the new Note 3 phablet and the lower-priced Galaxy Y units.

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In contrast, Apple shipped 33.8 million iPhones, resulting in their market share shrinking to 13 per cent from 16 per cent.

In third to fifth places are Asian phone makers, Huawei of China, LG of South Korea and Lenovo of China. Huawei has jumped to third place, in the process overtaking LG.

Experts said that Samsung and Apple would probably dominate the Christmas holiday season with the recent release of their new smartphones.

Apple's weakness is its inability to penetrate the emerging markets because of its high price tag. When the Cupertino-based firm released the iPhone 5C in China, the device failed to ignite interest among Chinese consumers because of its high price tag, prompting CEO Tim Cook to clarify that the company never envisioned to offer a cheap phone, only a quality gadget with a lower price.