Shipments of smartphones in China dropped 38.9 percent in January year-on-year to 20.81 million units due to the COVID-19, official data showed Wednesday.

Domestic brands took the lion's share with 18.32 million units being shipped, accounting for 88 percent of the total, while registering a decrease of 42.9 percent year-on-year, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.

Despite an overall slump in smartphone shipments last month, 5G smartphone shipments continued to grow with 5.46 million 5G handsets being shipped, up from December's 5.41 million, CAICT data showed.

As of last month, Huawei 5G smartphone shipments have exceeded 10 million units, according to Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business. Yu said the company's total smartphone shipment reached 240 million units in 2019, up 16 percent year-on-year, ranking second globally.

About 83.9 percent of consumers surveyed are likely to buy a Huawei 5G handset over the next year, followed by Apple, Xiaomi, Vivo and Honor, according to a February research by Penguin Intelligence, a think tank under Tencent.

iPhone sales in China fell 28 percent in January compared with the previous month, according to a UBS research. "February numbers are likely to be far worse due to both supply and demand issues related to the virus outbreak," UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri wrote.

Apple earlier this month closed all its 42 retail outlets in Chinese mainland due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. As of February 25, 29 stores resumed business at reduced hours.

China saw surging shipments of 5G handsets after it granted 5G licenses for commercial use in June 2019. A total of 13.77 million 5G smartphones were shipped last year.