Information Services

The boom of China’s information services continues, as the sector saw a 76.4-percent annual growth in 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on January 30.

Mobile Internet and data usage increased 26.7 percent in 2017, with the monthly average for data consumed per household reaching 1,775 megabytes, more than double that in 2016, said MIIT Chief Engineer Zhang Feng.

China’s 4G network users in 2017 totaled almost 1 billion, accounting for 70 percent of mobile phone users in the country, above the average for developed countries, according to MIIT data.

The fixed-line broadband network covered 72.5 percent of users by the end of 2017, and over 125 major data centers had been built. In addition, there were breakthroughs in cloud computing, according to the ministry.

The revenue growth rate of China’s listed Internet companies topped 40 percent for the sixth consecutive year, and their total revenue is expected to reach 1.4 trillion yuan ($221 billion) for 2017, Zhang said.

China has said it will target high quality growth, with the service sector and hi-tech industries gaining strength.

Official data showed that newenergy vehicles, industrial robots, solar power and integrated circuits outshone most other industries in terms of output in 2017, contributing to a pick-up in industrial output growth last year.