According to the statistics from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's mobile phone output decreased by 11.2% year-on-year in the first two months of 2009 and its mobile phone exports decreased by 17.2% during the same period, the largest decline over the past few years.
The statistics from MIIT show that in January and February 2009, a total number of 79.672 million mobile phones were produced in China, a decrease of 11.2% compared with the same period of last year.
The statistics from the customs departments show in February 2009, the exports of China's mobile phones and mobile phone parts were USD3.598 billion, a increase of 25.3% compared with the previous month, but a decrease of 3% compared with the same period in 2008. In the first two months of 2009, the accumulated value of exported mobile phones and mobile phone parts was USD6.47 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 17.2% and the value accounted for 14.8% of the total export value of China's high-tech products during the same period.
China's mobile phone industry has maintained a high speed growth over the past few years. In 2006, 480 million mobile phones were produced in the country, increasing 58.2% over 2005 and the number increased by 14.3% to 549 million in 2007. However, the growth slowed down in 2008 with an annual growth rate of 2% to 560 million.
The exports of mobile phones partly reflect the sales of Chinese-made mobile phones. At present, China's exports of mobile phones have exceeded 10% of the total mobile phone demands across the world, making mobile phones some of the top exported products in China's electronics information industry. In 2006, China exported 385 million mobile phones, increasing 69.1% over 2005 and the exported value reached USD31.214 billion, increasing 52.6%. In 2007, the number of exported mobile phones increased by 14.3% to 548 million.