Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia may already pale in comparison to the rise and creative inventions of Apple and Samsung Electronics Co, but in the UAE, it still remains king of mobile phones, at least according to a review by the country's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA).

In terms of general phones or non-smartphones, it is Nokia that is lord of them all in the UAE market, where it was found that 50 per cent of all handsets registered on networks are manufactured by Nokia, the TRA report said.

Nokia's wide range of budget phones enabled it to capture a huge share of the market, the TRA report noted.

The Nokia 1280, for instance, which is the country's most commonly-used registered handset with a 3.08 per cent share. Priced at Dh70, UAE mobile users can actually buy 32 of them for the price of one iPhone 4S.

"It was not so expensive, but if it falls, if I drop it, it does not break," Muhammad Nawaz, an Abu Dhabi taxi driver from Pakistan, told The National. "The signal is very good. In all of Abu Dhabi and in our accommodation, the Nokia still has good signal, when other phones do not work. Nokia is the best I think - easy to use."

He claimed he has had his Nokie 1280 for over a year now.

Following Nokia 1280 in the TRA's most commonly-used registered handset include the iPhone 4S at 2.93 per cent, Nokia X1-01 at 2.9 per cent, Nokia E5 at 2.61 per cent and iPhone 4 at 2.58 per cent. Completing the top 10 are the Samsung SIII, Nokia 101, iPhone 5, BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry Bold 9780.

The iPhone 4S is the most popular in the smartphone category, while in terms of operating system, Nokia's Symbian led the market with a 50 per cent share. Apple's iOS seconded the list at 13.8 per cent, the BlackBerry OS at 10.7 per cent and Google's Android at 10.4 per cent.