Beijing, Apr 14 (IANS): After a massive slump in shipments in February due to the COVID-19 crisis, sales of iPhones in China rose to 2.5 million units in March from 500,000 units in the previous month, show data from a government think tank.

However, compared to March 2019, the sales of 2.5 million iPhones in March this year marked 20 per cent year-over-year decline, AppleInsider reported.

Overall, 21.756 million handsets were shipped in China in March, a year-over-year decrease of 23.3 per cent, showed the data from China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.

In March, China's 5G mobile phone shipments were 6.2 million, cnTechPost reported Monday.

From January to March 2020, the overall domestic mobile phone market shipments were 48.9 million, a year-on-year decrease of 36.4 per cent, said the report.

In March 2020, 39 new models were launched, a year-on-year decrease of 25 per cent, including 4 2G mobile phones, 11 4G mobile phones, and 24 5G mobile phones.

In March 2020, domestic brand mobile phone shipments in China were 18.8 million, a year-on-year decrease of 26.5 per cent, accounting for 86.8 per cent of mobile phone shipments during the same period, said the report.