Consumers experience smartphones at a mobile store in Shanghai on April 22, 2024. Photo: VCG

Mobile phone shipments in China totaled 24.2 million units in July, up 30.5 percent year-on-year, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed on Wednesday. 

Amid a recovery in the consumer electronics market, mobile phone shipments soared by 15.3 percent year-on-year to 171 million units in the January-July period.

Analysts said that the robust figures mirrored a general consumption recovery, especially in digital and green products. 

The fast-growing China market has been vital for global smartphone brands such as Apple, which is ramping up production for the release of its new iPhone 16 series on September 9, while domestic brands dominate the stage with highly competitive offerings and progress made in the high-end segment, analysts said.

In the second quarter, Apple was edged out of the top five smartphone vendors in China, as competition from domestic brands including Vivo, Huawei and Xiaomi intensified, according to global research firms such as IDC and Canalys. It was the first time that domestic vendors dominated all the top five positions in one quarter.

Boosted by optimism in the strong growth in the first half of 2024 amid a consumer demand recovery and artificial intelligence (AI) features in the global mobile phone market, IDC lifted its full-year growth forecast to 5.8 percent, at 1.23 billion units, from the previous 4 percent.

The China market, growing twice as fast, will remain one of the most vital markets for global smartphone and component makers, analysts said. 

"The strong recovery in the domestic market came after a long period when consumers delayed new purchases. The recovery was also coupled with new demand for better hardware such as memory and computing power in the era of AI," Fu Liang, a veteran industry expert, told the Global Times. 

"As domestic players roll out more low-end offerings to ride the trend, shipments are poised to grow further in the second half of the year," said Fu.

Shipments were led by 5G handsets, which reached 20.65 million units with a surge of 37.2 percent year-on-year in July, according to the CAICT.

In the first seven months, shipments of 5G handsets were up 23.6 percent year-on-year, accounting for 84.8 percent of all smartphones delivered in the period.