BEIJING — China's mobile phone shipments climbed 13.9 percent from a year ago to 351 million units in 2021, according to a report by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT).

Shipments of 5G mobile phones amounted to 266 million units last year, rising 63.5 percent and accounting for 75.9 percent of the total shipments, said CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In December alone, total shipments in the country came in at 33.4 million units, logging a year-on-year increase of 25.6 percent.

5G mobile phone shipments last month reached 27.15 million units, with a sharp increase of 49.2 percent year-on-year.