The worldwide mobile phone market grew 21.7% in the first quarter of 2010… and it welcomed a new face into the 'top 5' manufacturer list. Those are the headlines from a new report by the International Data Corporation. However, IDC says the growth rate is expected to slow, resulting in an average 11% for the year.

Vendors shipped 294.9 million units in the first quarter of 2010 compared to 242.4 million units in the first quarter of 2009.

Tuesday's announcement of the Nokia N8 – the first smartphone equipped with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 channel surround sound – was the beginning of a new partnership between the two companies.

Dolby Laboratories and Nokia have now agreed to incorporate Dolby surround sound technology into a number of other handsets.

Nokia has announced the N8 smartphone, which is set to be the first device running version 3 of the Symbian operating system. There’s a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, there’s HD-quality video recording, Dolby surround sound and a 3.5-inch organic LED screen in the aluminium body.

There's also social network aggregation, built-in video editing and the free Ovi Maps navigation service. Symbian ^3 includes support for multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom on the touchscreen.

Nokia has just reported its first quarter financial results. Sales and profits were both up year-on-year, with net sales reaching 9.5 billion Euro. Device shipments were up 16% year-on-year to 107.8 million units, with sales of 'converged' devices – smartphones and mobile-enabled computers – up 57%. In addition, 10 million Nokia smartphone users have downloaded the company's free sat-nav service since January.

However, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo warned that the company continues to face tough competition at the high end of its mobile device portfolio and challenging market conditions on the infrastructure side.