BEIJING - Shipments of 5G phones in China surged 70.4 percent year on year to around 183 million units in the first nine months of this year, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.

The volume accounted for 73.8 percent of the country's total mobile phone shipments during the period, said the CAICT, a research institute under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In the January-September period, a total of 172 newly-released mobile phone models were 5G phones, accounting for 48.6 percent of all the newly-released handset models.

In September alone, China shipped around 15.12 million units of 5G phones, up 8.1 percent year on year, the data showed.