A man shoots a video of a 5G smartphone launched by Oppo in Barcelona, Spain, Feb 23, 2019. (Photo: VCG)

China's smartphone shipments fell 4.1 percent year on year in March to 26.94 million units, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.

Last month, smartphones made up 94.9 percent of all mobile phone shipments in the country, according to a report from the CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Despite the mobile phone market shrinking, the drop has been moderated, said the report.

Overall mobile phone shipments went down 6 percent in March, narrowing from the 19.9-percent slump in February to 28.37 million units, among which 95.1 percent were 4G phones.

Chinese-brand mobile phones accounted for 90.5 percent of total shipments last month, up from 90.3 percent in February 2019, according to the report.