BEIJING, May 17 (Xinhua) -- China's mobile phone shipments increased by 14.2 percent year on year to 41.73 million units in April, reversing a 10-month decline, a report from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.

Shipments of 5G phones reached 16.38 million units in the same period, accounting for 39.3 percent of the total, according to the CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In the first four months of this year, mobile phone shipments dropped 20.1 percent year on year to 90.68 million units due to sluggish sales in the first quarter.

Forty-eight new models were introduced to the market last month, up 14.3 percent from a year ago, of which 22 were 5G models, said the CAICT.

The country's domestic brands dominated mobile phone shipments in April, with those made by Chinese manufacturers hitting 37.98 million units and making up 91 percent of the total shipments.