Samsung's Galaxy is a world beater

The iPhone might seem ubiquitous in London, but soaring popularity for Samsung's Galaxy this summer means the South Korean technology giant has overtaken Apple to become the world's biggest smartphone seller.

Samsung sold 27.8 million smartphones between July and September, well ahead of Apple's 17.1 million iPhones, and Nokia's 16.8 million smart handset sales.

Nokia is still the world's biggest phone-maker, but Samsung is king of the smartphones, with sales up 44% on the previous year, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.

It may be a struggle for Samsung to retain the title, however, as the reason iPhone sales fell during the quarter was because potential customers waited until this month's launch of Apple's new iPhone 4S.

Samsung has just unveiled the Galaxy Nexus, the first to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.