BEIJING, Sept. 29 -- China's telecommunication industry saw steady expansion from January to August, driven by emerging businesses, according to official data.

The combined business revenue of firms in this sector totaled 1.14 trillion yuan (about 158.57 billion U.S. dollars), up 6.2 percent year on year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Of the total, emerging sectors such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things and internet data centers saw their revenues rise 18.9 percent year on year.

5G technology continued steady expansion in the same period. By the end of August, China had about 3.14 million 5G base stations, with the number of 5G mobile phone users across the country's three telecom giants reaching 714 million.