Sales of foreign branded phones in China down 9.7% in May-CAICT

BEIJING, July 4 (Reuters) - Sales of foreign-branded mobile phones in China, including those from Apple Inc AAPL.O, decreased by 9.7% in May, according to data released by a government-affiliated research company on Friday.

Shipments of foreign branded phones including Apple iphones were down to 4.54 million handsets for the month, Reuters calculations based on the data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed.