revenue of the sector stood at over 1.32 trillion yuan (about US$185 billion) in the January-October period, rising 8% year on year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Emerging businesses such as big data, cloud computing, internet data centers and Internet of Things registered a rapid revenue increase during this period. The emerging business revenue of China's three telecom giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom -- jumped 33.1% from a year earlier to 256.3 billion yuan.

Specifically, revenue from cloud computing and big data soared 127.8% and 59.3%, respectively, in the first 10 months, while that from data centers logged an increase of 12.7%.

China's 5G network development has continued to advance. The number of 5G base stations reached 2.25 million by the end of October, a net increase of 825,000 compared to the end of 2021.