BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese shipments of foreign-branded cellphones, including Apple Inc's ( AAPL ) iPhones, dropped by 49.6% year on year in March, according to data released on Monday by a government-affiliated research company.

Calculations based on the data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed that March shipments of foreign-branded phones in China decreased to 1.887 million units from 3.747 million a year earlier.