BEIJING, March 17 (Reuters) - Shipments of

foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple Inc's ( AAPL )

iPhone, in China fell 21% in January year-on-year, according to

Reuters' calculations based on data released on Monday by a

government-affiliated research firm.

Calculations based on the data from the China Academy of

Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) showed that

during the month shipments of foreign-branded phones in China

decreased to 4.398 million units from 5.542 million units a year

earlier.

(Reporting by Che Pan and Brenda Goh; Editing by Muralikumar

Anantharaman)