With Q4 setting new shipment records for 'converged mobile devices' too.
Analyst IDC says that 174.2 million smartphones shipped in 2009, representing a rise of 15.1% on the 151.4 million units shipped in 2009.
The company's latest research estimates that smartphones - or 'converged mobile devices' as it describes them - accounted for 15.4% of all mobile phone sales in 2009, up from 12.7% the year before.
The fourth quarter was particularly storming according to IDC, which says 54.5 million smartphones shipped in that period - up 39% year-on-year.
For 2009 as a whole, IDC has Nokia as the top smartphone firm, shipping 67.7 million devices and taking a 38.9% market share.
It's followed by Research In Motion (34.5m - 19.8%), Apple (25.1m - 14.4%), HTC (8.1m - 4.6%) and Samsung (5.7m - 3.3%). Other manufacturers accounted for 33.1 million units and a 19% market share for the year.
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However, for the fourth quarter alone, Motorola sneaks into fourth spot ahead of HTC, reflecting sales of its Droid handset in the US.
IDC is predicting that 2010 will be another record-breaking year, though.
"2009 was the coming-out party for Google's Android and Palm's webOS as both operating systems revealed new ways to surround the users with increased functionality," says IDC analyst Kevin Restivo.
"More advances are in store for 2010 as Symbian and Windows are expected to unveil new versions of their respective operating systems. These and other operating systems will compete with attention-grabbing intuitiveness and seamlessness, a thriving mobile application library, and a compelling user experience that tightly holds on to the user."
Earlier this week, Strategy Analytics released its own research focusing on smartphone sales in Q4 2009.
