China’s smartphone shipments build on post-pandemic rebound in February

China’s smartphone shipments increased more than threefold in February 2021 from a year ago, government data published on Thursday showed, signaling an encouraging rebound from last year’s nadir as the pandemic peaked in China.

Shipments of smartphones within China jumped 236.6% annually to 21.3 million handsets in January, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications (CAICT), a state-backed think tank.

That was up from 6.3 million in February 2020 and higher than the 14.9 million in February 2019, suggesting China’s smartphone sector has returned to its pre-pandemic levels.