Samsung is now the most popular smartphone OEM in China, after 2012 saw sales of its smartphones increase 198 percent against the previous year.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung's 2012 tally of 30.6 million smartphones sales gives the company a 17.7 percent share of the Chinese market. In 2011, Samsung sold 10.9 million handsets and held a market share of 10.9 percent.

Apple, meanwhile, can lay claim to an 11 percent share of the Chinese smartphone market in 2012 – a figure that puts Cook and co. in third place behind Samsung and Lenovo.

Nose dive

While Samsung and Apple battle to gain ground in the world's largest smartphone market, though, Nokia's market share is in freefall.

In 2011, the Finnish company's market share stood at an impressive 29.9 percent. In 2012, Strategy Analytics pegs Nokia's share at just 3.7 percent.

But given Nokia's focus on Windows Phone 8, it's perhaps unsurprising that the company is losing out in a market that's dominated by low-cost Android smartphones.

[source: Yonhap via TheNextWeb]