China’s handset shipments last year dropped 22 per cent to 452 million units, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

Smartphones, which saw a decline of 8 per cent to 389 million units, accounted for 86 per cent of total shipments, C114.net reported.

China’s 4G shipments hit 171 million, representing 38 per cent of the total (China now has 90 million 4G connections, representing almost 7 per cent of its 1.3 billion mobile connections, according to GSMA Intelligence).

3G deliveries fell 46 per cent to 220 million units. Shipments of 2G models dropped 64 per cent to just 61 million units.

Android handsets accounted for 77 per cent of China’s total shipments.

Global shipments of mobile phones increased 7.6 per cent to 460 million units in Q3, according to Strategy Analytics. But Gartner said Q3 shipments were flat at 455.8 million.

IDC said that worldwide smartphone shipments during the same quarter rose 25 per cent, but China’s growth was just 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter. Smartphones accounted for 70 per cent of worldwide mobile phone shipments in Q3.