Profits of China's major industrial firms up 15.7% in first eight months
Xinhua | September 28, 2026
China's industrial profits maintained double-digit growth in the first eight months of 2026, driven by the rapid expansion of high-tech manufacturing and new growth drivers, official figures showed Monday.
Profits of industrial firms above designated size increased 15.7 percent year on year during the first eight months of 2026, according to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.
These industrial firms with an annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.97 million U.S. dollars) saw their combined profits reach 5.27 trillion yuan in the January-August period.
In the three major sectors, mining industry profits jumped 35.1 percent to 766.15 billion yuan, and manufacturing profits climbed 17.4 percent to nearly 3.97 trillion yuan. Profits in the power, heat, gas and water production and supply sector fell 12 percent to 536.3 billion yuan.
Yu Weining, an NBS statistician, attributed the relatively fast profit growth to the steady advance of industrial production and the widened increase in industrial product prices.
Yu highlighted the electronic sector as the main pillar, with profits surging 110 percent year on year, contributing 62 percent to the overall profit growth of industrial firms.
"The accelerated expansion of new technology applications represented by artificial intelligence has driven the expansion of demand in related fields, propelling rapid profit growth in the electronics industry," Yu said.
Yu noted that rising chip demand driven by emerging scenarios such as new energy vehicles, the Internet of Things and computing power centers boosted profits in the optoelectronic device manufacturing and semiconductor discrete device manufacturing industries by 72 percent and 51.8 percent, respectively.
High-tech manufacturing played a prominent role in driving growth. During the January-August period, profits of high-tech manufacturing firms above designated size rose 54.7 percent year on year, 39 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate.
In August alone, profits of major industrial firms grew 4.2 percent year on year, according to the NBS.