BEIJING, May 4 -- China's telecommunications industry registered steady expansion in the first quarter of 2024, official data showed.

The combined business revenue of firms in this sector totaled 443.7 billion yuan (about 62.44 billion U.S. dollars) in the period, rising 4.5 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The combined revenue of emerging businesses, such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, logged double-digit growth.

China's three telecoms giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- saw their revenue from emerging businesses increase by 12.2 percent year on year, driving up the telecoms sector's total revenue by 3 percentage points.

Specifically, revenue from cloud computing and big data jumped 17.4 percent and 37.3 percent, respectively, compared with the same period last year.