China's 2021 smartphone shipments up 15.9% y/y – govt data

China had shipped 342.8 million smartphones to domestic consumers in 2021, up 15.9% year-on-year, according to government data published on Tuesday, implying a sector recovery from a blow it took in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis. While shipments were above the 296-million mark that the industry reached in 2020, they remained below 2019, when they rang in at 372 million for the year, according to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT), a government-backed think-tank. Last month, China had shipped 32.7 million smartphones domestically, up 29.6% year-on-year.