China's mobile phone shipments reached 18.08 million units in April, down 34.2 percent from a year ago, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed.

In the January-April period, total shipments came in at 87.42 million units, the academy, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said on Friday.

Shipments of 5G mobile phones amounted to 14.59 million units last month, accounting for 80.7 percent of shipments, data showed.

Domestic brands continued to dominate China's mobile phone market last month with shipments of 16.43 million units, or 90.9 percent of April's total.

Smartphone shipments came in at 17.69 million units last month, down 34.4 percent year on year. 

China's mobile phone shipments have taken a downturn this year. Data showed that the shipments in the past four months have dropped by 17.7 percent, 34.7 percent, 40.5 percent and 30.3 percent year on year respectively.

Worldwide smartphone shipments fell by 11 percent year on year amid unfavorable economic conditions and sluggish seasonal demand in the first quarter of this year, according to data from Canalys, a market analysis firm.

(With inputs from Xinhua)