BEIJING — China's telecommunications sector posted steady expansion in the first six months of the year, with emerging businesses such as cloud computing growing rapidly, official data showed.

The sector posted 815.8 billion yuan (about $121 billion) in aggregate revenue during the period, up 8.3 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Emerging businesses, including big data, cloud computing, and internet data centers, expanded notably during the period. The emerging business revenue of China's three telecom giants — China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, surged 36.3 percent year-on-year to 162.4 billion yuan.

Revenue for cloud computing services and big data expanded by 139.2 percent and 56.4 percent year-on-year, respectively.

China also saw steady progress in 5G base station construction. By the end of June, China had 1.85 million 5G base stations, with 429,000 built during the first six months of the year.