Sales of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple Inc's iPhone, in China fell 12.7% in August year-on-year, according to data released on Wednesday from 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, sales of foreign-branded phones in China fell to 1.87 million handsets, down from 2.142 million a year earlier.

Overall phone sales in China increased 26.7% from a year earlier to 24.05 million handsets in August, the CAICT data showed.