BEIJING — China's software and information technology (IT) service industry continued to restore growth in the first quarter of this year, with its profits increasing rapidly, official data showed.

The sector raked in 237.1 billion yuan (about $36.51 billion) in total profits during the period, surging 25.9 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In the first three months, the revenue of China's software sector came in at 1.9 trillion yuan, up 26.5 percent year-on-year. The growth rate accelerated from the 21.3-percent increase registered in the first two months.

Benefited from rising demand from the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry, revenue from industrial software products expanded 20.9 percent year-on-year to 47.9 billion yuan, up 2.5 percentage points from the Jan-Feb period.

The application of new information technologies such as cloud computing and big data continued to speed up in Q1, generating revenue of 170.6 billion yuan, up 26.6 percent.

MIIT data also showed revenue from e-commerce platform technology services climbed 33.2 percent to 159.9 billion yuan while that from integrated circuit design rose 38.5 percent from January to March.

Software exports remained fast expansion in Q1, rising 15.4 percent year-on-year to $11.1 billion, MIIT data showed.