Major enterprises in China's cultural sector and related businesses saw their combined revenue increase steadily in the first three quarters of the year as the industry continued to recover, official data showed on Monday.

From January to September, these enterprises recorded 9.16 trillion yuan (about 1.28 trillion U.S. dollars) of revenue in total, a 7.7-percent uplift from a year earlier and 0.4 percentage points higher than the first half of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The cultural industry maintained the momentum of improvement in the first three quarters as the economic performance picked up, market potential was unleashed, and government support policies kicked in, said Zhang Peng, an NBS senior statistician.

Profits of major enterprises jumped 31.4 percent year on year in the first three quarters, the data showed. Zhang attributed the growth to a low comparison base and the rapid recovery of business.

Enterprises featuring new business forms accounted for 40.2 percent of the total revenue of the sector, up 2.6 percentage points from the same period last year, according to the NBS.