BEIJING — China's software industry registered rapid revenue growth in the first three quarters of this year, official data showed.

Business revenue increased by 15.2 percent year-on-year to reach 5.2 trillion yuan ($742 billion), 0.2 percentage points faster than the growth during the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

Profits of the industry climbed by 10.8 percent to 651.8 billion yuan during the January-September period.

Sales of software products rose 14.4 percent to reach 1.46 trillion yuan in the first three quarters while revenue of information technology services surged 17.2 percent to 3 trillion yuan, MIIT data shows.