The worldwide mobile phone market grew 21.7 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2010 amid strong demand for smartphones, market researcher IDC announced. It's latest quarterly market report shows shipments of 294.9 million units in the first quarter, compared to 242.4 million a year earlier. It also found Research In Motion moving into the top five vendors, replacing Motorola and tying with Sony Ericsson for fourth place. This is the first time since 2005 that a new vendor broke into the top five. RIM shipped 10.6 million BlackBerrys in the quarter, good for 3.6 percent of global sales. Nokia remained number one with 107.8 million handsets shipped, equal to 36.6 percent of the market, followed by Samsung at 64.3 million or 21.8 percent of the market and LG in third with 27.1 million shipments and 9.2 percent market share. IDC expects the market rebound will continue in the rest of 2010, although growth will slow from the first-quarter rate, which benefited from a comparison with a very weak Q1 2009. Overall, the market researcher predicts around 11 percent market volume growth this year.
