Electronics, high-tech manufacturing drive double-digit growth in China's industrial profits

BEIJING -- Robust growth in the electronics industry and high-tech manufacturing helped drive a double-digit increase in the profits of China's major industrial firms during the first nine months of 2026, official data showed Tuesday.

Profits of major industrial firms rose 15.5 percent year-on-year to 6.03 trillion yuan (about $897.7 billion) during the January-September period, maintaining double-digit growth since the beginning of the year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In September alone, industrial profits increased 14.4 percent year-on-year.
The electronics industry emerged as a key growth driver, with profits doubling from a year earlier and contributing 9.6 percentage points to the overall increase in industrial profits.

Meanwhile, profits in high-tech manufacturing surged 52 percent year-on-year, outpacing the overall industrial average by 36.5 percentage points, as demand in areas such as AI computing power and data center infrastructure continued to expand.

In the first three quarters, high-tech manufacturing accounted for 25.5 percent of the total profits generated by China's major industrial firms, up 6.2 percentage points from a year earlier.

As high-end manufacturing continues to advance and new quality productive forces take shape at a faster pace, China's industrial sector is steadily shifting toward a more advanced and innovation-driven structure, NBS statistician Yu Weining noted.

Earlier data showed China's industrial sector continued to gain momentum in the first three quarters of 2026, with the value-added industrial output increasing by 5.3 percent year-on-year.