BEIJING — China's telecommunications industry registered a slight growth in the first quarter, official data showed.

The combined revenue of the sector reached 338.3 billion yuan (about $47.81 billion) during the period, up 1.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In breakdown, revenue from fixed-line communications of the country's three telecom giants — China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom — totaled 115.9 billion yuan in the period, rising 9.8 percent from one year earlier.

Their revenue from mobile communications reached 222.4 billion yuan, contributing 65.7 percent of the sector's total revenue, said the MIIT.

The number of cellphone users remained stable at about 1.6 billion by the end of March, with 4G subscribers hitting 1.28 billion and making up 80.2 percent of the total mobile phone users.

The data also showed that the number of fixed broadband internet users in China grew steadily during the period, with 85.3 percent of the subscribers' internet speed reaching over 100Mbps.