China's mobile phone shipments fall in 2017

BEIJING - China produced fewer mobile phones and new mobile phone versions in 2017, industrial data showed.

Mobile phone shipments reached 491 million last year while only 1,054 new types of cellphones were rolled out, down 12.3 percent and 27.1 percent respectively, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

Shipments of domestic mobile phone brands fell by 12.4 percent year-on-year to reach 436 million last year, accounting for about 88.8 percent of total shipments.

China's mobile phone shipments started to fall last March, with the biggest monthly year-on-year drop of 32.5 percent in December.

Chinese telecom giant Huawei said its smartphone shipments reached 153 million last year, grabbing a 10-percent global market share to become the third-largest international smartphone player.

Analysts said that the Chinese smartphone market is expected to see a reshuffle as smartphone consumption slows down with almost all Chinese people owning at least one mobile phone.