Total mobile phone shipments in China increased 8 per cent year-on-year in 2016 to 560 million units, with domestic brands accounting for 89 per cent of the figure.

Shipments of Chinese models increased 16 per cent to 498 million units, according to a report by the China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR). The majority of shipments were 4G models, with 519 million units shipped in 2016 – an increase of 18 per cent on 2015, C114.net reported.

A total of 1,446 new handset models were released last year, down 3 per cent from the previous year, the CATR report said.

More than 70 per cent of 4G handset shipments run on all four of the country’s main mobile networks: FDD, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and cdma2000.

Looking ahead, market leader China Mobile, with a 70 per cent share of 4G connections, said it aims to sell more than 400 million 4G handsets in 2017.