(Telecompaper) The smartphone market picked up in the third quarter and grew by 15.5 percent year-on-year to 353 million units, according to estimates by Garter. The market researcher said the growing availability of affordable smartphones in emerging markets drove more feature phone users to upgrade to smartphones. Smartphone sales in emerging markets rose 18.4 percent on an annual basis to 259.7 million in the third quarter, compared to 8.2 percent growth in mature markets. Samsung remained market leader in the quarter with a 23.7 percent share of unit sales, while Apple continued to grow its share, reaching 13.1 percent versus 12.5 percent of sales in the same period of 2014. Huawei was in third place with a 7.7 percent share, up from 5.2 a year ago thanks to its continued expansion at home and abroad. Lenovo, including Motorola, fell to 4.9 percent from 7.0 a year earlier, and Xiaomi also had 4.9 percent of the market.