BEIJING, March 27 -- China's software and information technology service industry reported steady growth in revenue and profits in the first two months of 2023, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed on Monday.

The profits of the sector expanded 12.2 percent year on year to 176.9 billion yuan (about 25.74 billion U.S. dollars) in the January-February period, while revenue grew by 11 percent from a year ago to 1.45 trillion yuan, the data showed.

The revenue from software products increased by 9.5 percent year on year to 337.9 billion yuan in the first two months, while that for information technology services expanded to 943.4 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 11.6 percent in the period, the data showed.

China currently has over 2 million enterprises engaged in big data business, with more than 393,000 enterprises in cloud computing, according to the corporate information provider Tianyancha.