Still, analysts cautioned against reading too much into Monday's figures.
"If you look at it [PMI data] in the past three years, we've always had weak January and February numbers so this is not something new," Ken Wong, Asia equity portfolio specialist at Eastspring Investments, told CNBC.
"What's more important actually is looking at some of these other figures, like the producer price index. It's been down for the past four years...Manufacturing is important but when you know for a fact that the first few months of this year is going to be weak, this isn't something that will surprise people."
For now, Monday's data will likely give the People's Bank of China (PBOC) more ammunition to ease monetary policy further, with ING forecasting two 25 basis point interest rate cuts by mid-year.
Further injections into money markets via reverse repo rates could also be on the table after the PBOC increased the frequency of open market operations to daily from twice a week in order to meet demand ahead of the week-long Lunar New Year holiday.