While market-leader Apple saw its share slide from 51.7 percent to 43.6 percent, despite a rise in sales, Samsung’s Galaxy range sold a total of 7.9 million units, up from 2.2 million the previous year, taking its market share to 15.1 percent.

The company provided further optimism by also revealing that its backlog of plane orders also hit an all-time high of $390 billion as it began delivering the first of its new flagship Dreamliner 787 jets.

"In a year of considerable achievement, Boeing was the commercial aviation market leader for both orders and deliveries, with more than 600 airplanes delivered, including the first Charleston-built 787 Dreamliners," said chief executive Jim McNerney.

The most widely used of all minerals, iron accounts for approximately 95 percent of the world’s metal production in terms of weight. As the world’s third largest iron ore producer and exporter, Brazil has long reaped the financial benefits provided by one of its largest export products.

Only a handful of cities in the world can claim a history as rich and diverse as that of Prague. During the thousand years of its existence, Prague has been home to Holy Roman Emperors, a seat of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, capital of Bohemia and even one of the most important cities in the eastern bloc after the second world war.

Zodiac Aviation Support, Inc. (ZAS), based near John F. Kennedy International airport in New York City, is a proven and respected provider of the full range of in-flight products and services. The highly experienced ZAS staff caters exclusively to the international aviation community.  They are skilled at meeting both deadlines and budgets while routinely exceeding customer expectations.

South Africans love their seafood, and with perfectly good reason. With businesses supplied year round by an astonishing array of seafood fresh from the waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans, the straight-from-the-sea freshness of the country’s dishes has become legendary in local and international circles.

Mining has been a part of life in the Norilsk area since the 1920s, during which time the seeds were sown for what would become a lucrative industry for the region and Russia as a whole over the course of the subsequent century. It was in 1935 that the government of the USSR created the Norilsk Combine and 1943 that Norilsk managed to produce an annual total of 4000 tonnes of refined nickel, before hitting its target figure of 10,000 tonnes just two years later in 1945.

While for much of its 161 year history Liberia has been a stable and productive democracy, recent decades have seen the country plagued by civil war and adversely affected by the drying up of foreign investment. Nevertheless, the current government of Liberia, led by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is determined to lead the country into a new age of economic growth.

Funai will pay $200 million, as well as a regular brand licensing fee, to take control of Philips’ product lines, which include its hi-fis and DVD players.  

The deal follows the announcement last year that Philips was to transfer its loss-making television unit to a new joint venture arrangement with Hong Kong’s TPV and comes at a time where the company wants to focus on its healthcare, light bulbs and home appliances businesses as part of its "Accelerate!" restructuring plan.