South Korea's handset maker LG Electronics Inc. surpassed its global rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co. in terms of smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of last year, data showed Wednesday.

LG Electronics saw its smartphone sales advance 53 percent in the October-December period from a year earlier by shipping 13.2 million units, according to the data compiled by market researcher Strategy Analytics.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's No. 1 smartphone maker, saw its sales advance 37 percent over the cited period, while U.S. tech giant Apple Inc. held a comparable figure of 7 percent, the data also showed.

China's Huawei and Lenovo Group saw its smartphone sales increase 52 percent and 48 percent on-year, respectively, in the fourth quarter.

For all of 2013, Lenovo saw its shipments rise 94 percent on-year, trailed by LG with 81 percent and Huawei with 67 percent.

Samsung and Apple each held comparable figures of 50 percent and 13 percent.

Samsung accounted for 32.3 percent of the world's smartphone market in 2013, followed by Apple with 15.5 percent and Huawei with 5.1 percent. LG Electronics took up 4.8 percent, and Lenovo held 4.6 percent. (Yonhap)