The Fruity Cargo cult Apple has been trying to convince the world that it has a long term future. It touted China and India as the key markets where it was going to expand. After all they were areas which still needed a smartphone revolution and the US and European markets were saturated.  However Apple largely failed to do that, mostly because its products were too pricey for India while the Chinese were too canny to fall for Apple marketing. 

Samsung however appears to be firmly grounded in both markets and is continuing to make gains. Samsung is lndia's eading the country's phone manufacturer, cornering 22.6 percent of the smartphone market between July and September, according to Counterpoint Research. That's more than double that of its nearest competitor, Indian brand Micromax, which had a 9.9 percent market share.

Compared to the same quarter last year, Samsung's smartphone market share is down by a small fraction -- it held 23.2 percent of the market last year. However, it has a greater hold on the handset market as a whole. In India, where feature phones are still popular, the company had an overall handset market share of 22.6 percent, compared to 19 percent in the same quarter last year.  In China, Samsung is not doing as well as Oppo, Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi  But the numbers it is selling are huge and still above Apple.

But India is a money spinner and a number two behind China. Last year the country's smartphone sales eclipsing those in the United States last year for the first time. It is also growing.

Beancouters at Counterpoint Research say that Q3 was a "record quarter" for smart and feature phone sales in India. Samsung is also not going to face much fall out from the Note 7 in that country. With most smartphones sold in India costing under $150, it's unlikely the premium device would have made up a huge amount of the company's shipments.

What is important then is that while Apple is talking about these markets, Samsung is in there and doing the right things. This means that when the Note 7 fiasco has gone away, Samsung will be still strongly positioned in the only smartphone areas which are growing. This should be a problem for Apple as its iPhone 7 cash cow slowly dies.