China's telecom sector sees steady growth in first 8 months

BEIJING, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) -- China's telecommunication industry logged steady growth in the first eight months of 2024, driven by emerging businesses, official data showed.

Revenues of telecommunication services totaled 1.17 trillion yuan (about 167.6 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-August period, rising 2.7 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

During this period, emerging sectors such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things continued to post strong performances.

China's three telecom giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- saw their revenue from emerging businesses jump 10.5 percent year on year to 289.7 billion yuan, driving up the telecom sector's total revenue growth by 2.4 percentage points.

Specifically, revenue from cloud computing and big data surged 12.3 percent and 61.6 percent, respectively, compared with the same period a year ago.

Broadband internet services generated 181.6 billion yuan for China's three major telecom companies from January to August, up 4.6 percent year on year, according to the data. ■