Shipments of smartphones in China increased by 22.6% in May, a significant acceleration from the previous months and a hopeful indication for the country’s mobile device sector, which has been suffering in recent years.

In preparation for China’s second largest shopping festival, 6.18, which featured discounts beginning in late May and continuing into June, phone manufacturers shipped out a total of 25.2 million smartphones throughout the month of May.

According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, this may have assisted manufacturers in the process of offloading gadgets, which resulted in an increase of more than 4 million units in comparison to the same time period one year previously.

Phonemakers sold 25.2 million devices during June’s shopping event.

Even with the most recent growth, the domestic market is still down 2.6% from January through May, according to the official figures. This is despite the fact that the market has been locked in a lengthy doldrums.

Demand for more hardware was restrained as a result of concerns over the economy of the country and an abundance of unsold goods. China, which is the largest smartphone market in the world, is responsible for much of the global industry’s downturn, and the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasted that it would be the biggest drag on worldwide shipments this month.

Other suppliers, such as Sony Group Corp., which provides image sensors for the cameras included in Apple Inc.’s iPhones, have also issued warnings indicating that they do not anticipate demand to return this year.

However, increase in shipments has been seen after many months of this year’s decline, and the fact that May’s results were positive lends credence to expectations of a quicker rebound.