China's mobile phone shipments in January stood at 20.8 million units, down 38.9 percent year on year, according to a report by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).
A total of 34 new models were released during the period, up 6.3 percent from the same period last year, said CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
4G phones took the lion's share of the total shipments with over 15 million units produced, while 5G phones shipments came in at 5.47 million units, CAICT data showed.
Meanwhile, smartphone shipments in January dropped 36.6 percent to 20.4 million units, accounting for 97.8 percent of the gross shipments during the month.
The country's domestic brands dominated mobile phone shipments in January, with those made by Chinese manufacturers hitting 18.32 million units and making up 88 percent of the total shipments.