"Despite rumors of a slowing market, smartphone shipments continue to see record-setting volumes," said Ryan Reith, Program Director with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

"We've finally reached a point where most developed markets are experiencing single-digit growth while emerging markets are still growing at more than 30% collectively. In these markets, smartphone price points are making mobile computing possible where we once expected feature phones to remain dominant. This is great news for overall volumes, but the challenge has now become how to make money on devices that are quickly becoming commodity products. Outside of Apple, many are struggling to do this."

A driving force behind the record smartphone volume was the combined effort of the vendors trailing market leaders Samsung and Apple. "The next three vendors – Xiaomi, Lenovo, and LG Electronics – all posted market-beating growth and with markedly different strategies," said Ramon Llamas, Research Manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team.

"This shows that there is still room to compete in this market, whether it be in the low end as Lenovo has done, at the high end where Xiaomi competes, or in both as LG Electronics has shown. Beyond the top five, there are a number of other vendors achieving similar results."