China domestic mobile phone shipments fall 56% year-on-year in February

London — China's domestic mobile phone shipments dropped significantly in February, down 56% year on year to 6.4 million units, which is usually a bearish signal for lithium and cobalt demand.

Global mobile phone manufacturing makes up around 10% of global lithium demand and about 35% of cobalt demand, with a large percentage coming from China.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's (CAICT) mobile phone market report for February released this week, local brands accounted for 91.8% of total shipments in February at 5.9 million units, down 55.3% year-on-year.

Of the total, 6.3 million units, or 88.9%, were smart phones, down 54.7% year-on-year. In China, 14 new smart phone models were released in February, down 61.1% from a year ago, accounting for 87.5% of the number of new releases.

Looking at the first two months of 2020, the CAICT said shipments fell 44% on the year to 27.2 million units, with the number of new models released also down 31.5% to 50.

Of the new models released in January and February, 24.2 million units were local brands, down 46.5% and accounting for 88.9% of total domestic mobile phone shipments.

Smart phone made up 98.2% of total domestic mobile phone shipments in the first two month of 2020 at 26.7 million units, down 42.1% on the year, with 40 new smart phone models released, down 31% and accounting for 80% of the number of new releases.