South Korea's No. 2 tech giant LG Electronics Inc. saw its revenue from smartphone sales reach $11.07 billion last year, market research data showed Thursday, further distancing itself from smaller tech players around the globe.

   The pursuer of Samsung Electronics Co. became the world's No. 3 smartphone maker in terms of sales in 2013 by accounting for 4.1 percent of the industry's combined revenue, the data by Strategy Analytics showed.

   LG's latest standing marked an improvement from sixth a year earlier when it trailed behind Samsung, Apple Inc., HTC Corp., Sony Corp. and Blackberry.    It was also the first time for LG to see its smartphone sales rise above the $10-billion mark. The company's smartphone sales stood at $1.9 billion in 2010 and quickly improved to $7.3 billion in 2012.

   Market watchers attributed the on-year rise to LG's high-end line-up, such as the G2 smartphone and the G Pro phablets.

   While Chinese technology companies outdid LG in terms of units sold last year, their revenue remained relatively weak as they focused on lower-end products sold at home.

   The revenues of Huawei Technologies Co., Lenovo Group Ltd and ZTE Corp. from the smartphone business came to $3.9 billion, $2.3 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively, last year.

   Apple and Samsung's smartphone sales came to $92.8 billion and
$92.3 billion won, respectively, the data also showed.

   Separate data by Strategy Analytics placed Samsung on higher footing for the first quarter of 2014, estimating its world market share at 36.2 percent compared to 17 percent for Apple Inc. (Yonhap)