Global smartphone shipments grew 6.8% sequentially to 355.2 million units in the third quarter of 2015, marking the second highest quarterly shipments on record, according to the latest data compiled by IDC.

The third quarter shipments were slightly below IDC's previous forecast of 363.8 million units, largely due to slightly lower than expected iPhone shipments, as well as higher than expected prices of new flagship models introduced by Android phone vendors.

Samsung Electronics remained the overall leader in the worldwide smartphone market in the third quarter with 84.5 million units shipped, up 6.1% on year, IDC said.

Apple's newest iPhones helped drive third quarter shipments to 48 million units, up 22.2% from a year earlier.

Huawei shipped 26.5 million units, up an impressive 60.9% from the same period of a year ago. Huawei once again focused its efforts on the mid-to-high range as nearly a third of the quarterly shipments were in this price range, IDC commented.

Combined shipments of Lenovo and Motorola-branded smartphones reached 18.8 million in the third quarter, which were up 11.1% from a year ago.

Xiaomi Technology shipped 18.3 million smartphones in the third quarter, bringing its 2015 total so far to 52.1 million units, said IDC.