China's large internet companies post faster profit growth in Jan-Aug

BEIJING - China's large internet companies saw their profits expand at a faster pace in the first eight months of this year, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.

Profits of these companies surged 37.5 percent year-on-year to reach 103.3 billion yuan ($15.93 billion) during the period, MIIT data showed. The growth rate was 9.5 percentage points higher than that in the first seven months.

Meanwhile, revenue went up 25.4 percent from a year earlier to about 1.01 trillion yuan, with the growth rate edging down 0.9 percentage points from that in the January-July period.

Among different sectors, revenue generated from information services including online audio, videos, games and news sustained robust growth momentum, the data showed. The revenue of these sectors stood at 555.8 billion yuan in the first eight months, representing year-on-year growth of 20.3 percent.

Large internet companies refer to enterprises that focus on internet and related services with an annual business revenue of at least 5 million yuan.