Profits at China's major industrial firms sustained strong growth momentum in the first five months of the year, buoyed by rapid profit gains in the electronics sector, official data showed on Saturday.
Industrial enterprises with annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.93 million) reported total profits of 3.14 trillion yuan, up 18.8 percent year-on-year, with the growth rate accelerating by 0.6 percentage point from the January-April period, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
The solid growth was underpinned by a sharp increase in profits in the electronics manufacturing sector, said Yu Weining, a statistician at the bureau.
Profits in the electronics manufacturing sector surged 103.9 percent year-on-year in the January-May period, contributing 43.1 percent to overall profit growth among major industrial firms, according to the NBS.
"The rapid advance of artificial intelligence worldwide has spurred a surge in demand for advanced computing and memory chips, providing a strong boost to profit growth in the electronics sector," Yu added.
