However, Nokia still owns the largest portion of the market, having shipped 106.6 million mobile phones -- or 27.3% of all mobile phones sent to vendors -- in the last quarter, according to estimates from Boston-based research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics.
The Finnish manufacturer unveiled a number of new devices in London earlier this week, including two Windows Phone devices and four Symbian smartphones, pictured in the gallery below.
According to the same estimates, Samsung shipped 88 million units in the third quarter, compared to 71.4 million units in the period last year. The company is now in possession of 22.6% of the global handset vendor market, up from 20.9% a year ago.
LG, ZTE and Apple rounded out the top five with 5.4%, 4.7% and 4.4% of the market, respectively. LG's share declined by 3% and ZTE's grew by 0.6%. Apple's growth was marginal at 0.3%, despite triple-digit sales increases in the Asia-Pacific region.
Collectively, 390 million handsets were shipped in Q3 2011, up 14% from the same period in 2010.