BEIJING, April 5 -- China's software and information technology service industry got off to a good start this year, with double-digit growth reported in revenue and profits in January and February, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows.

Profits in the sector expanded 11.5 percent year on year to 206.4 billion yuan (about 29.09 billion U.S. dollars) during the period, while revenue grew by 11.9 percent from the year before to nearly 1.71 trillion yuan, the data shows.

Revenue from software products increased 8.4 percent year on year to 394.4 billion yuan during this period, while revenue from industrial software products expanded to 40.7 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of 8.2 percent.

Cloud computing and big data services revenue jumped 13.8 percent year on year, and e-commerce platform technical services revenue rose 3.8 percent, the data shows.