Network maintenance staffers at the local subsidiary of China Mobile in Tongling, East China's Anhui Province test antennas for 5G base stations on December 13, 2021. As of early December, the Tongling subsidiary had built over 650 5G stations, enabling full coverage in Tongling's rural hot spots. Photo: cnsphoto

Cellphone shipments in China rose 13.9 percent in 2021 to 351 million units, with rapid growth in shipments of 5G devices, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) said on Tuesday, despite chip shortages and other disruptions in the industry in 2021. 

In December alone, 33.4 million phones were shipped in China, up 25.6 percent year-on-year, among which 27.14 million were 5G devices, up 49.2 percent from 2020, accounting for 81.3 percent of mobile phone shipments. The gains largely reflected a low base in 2020. 

The chip shortage had little impact on mobile phone shipments in 2021, Ma Jihua, a veteran telecommunications industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday, noting that the COVID-19 pandemic boosted global demand for electronic products.

Shipments of domestic brands rose 38.5 percent year-on-year in December to 28.46 million units, accounting for 85.2 percent of total shipments. 

Fifty new models were launched in December, up 13.6 percent year-on-year, accounting for 89.3 percent of the new models.

Notably, domestic brands launched many new models in the fourth quarter, with new functions and features such as folding screens, in order to stand out amid the fierce competition among domestic Android phones, Ma said.

"With a high degree of homogeneity and no major breakthroughs in 5G applications in 2021, domestic manufacturers had to keep making upgrades in their  functions to attract market attention," Ma said.

Domestic brands also improved their functions to compete with foreign brands in the high-end market, Ma said.

For example, Huawei officially announced its third foldable smartphone, the P50 Pocket, in December, and Honor announced the Magic V, its first foldable smartphone in January, in a bid to rival Samsung's foldable phones.

Domestic mobile phones made great progress in 2021, Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based independent analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"In the past, the iPhone was the only choice of handsets priced at 6,000 yuan ($945) to 10,000 yuan. Now Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo have begun to enter this tier, which shows the progress of domestic mobile phones," Liu said.

However, challenges remain for domestic brands to rival foreign brands in the core systems and chips, Liu said.

"Huawei is the domestic brand with the best chance to wrestle with Apple. The sanctions by the US forced it to explore basic research and development. If it makes a breakthrough, it is expected to compete with Apple in the high-end market," Liu said.