Workers of China Telecom install a 5G base station in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, on Sept 25, 2021. Chinese telecom firms are preparing for a fully internet-connected world. (TONG CHANGHUAI / FOR CHINA DAILY)

BEIJING - China's telecommunication industry saw steady expansion from January to October, buoyed by emerging businesses, according to official data.

The combined business revenue of firms in this sector totaled 1.42 trillion yuan (about $199 billion), up 6.9 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

By the end of October, nearly half of China's mobile phone users were 5G service subscribers

Of the total, emerging sectors such as cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things, and internet data centers saw their revenues rise 20.5 percent year-on-year to 301.2 billion yuan.

Broadband internet services generated 219 billion yuan worth of revenue for China's three telecom giants -- China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom -- in the first 10 months, up 9.3 percent over the previous year.

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5G technology continued steady expansion in the same period. By the end of October, China had 3.215 million 5G base stations and 754 million 5G users. By the end of October, nearly half of China's mobile phone users were 5G service subscribers.