BEIJING -- China's telecommunications sector posted steady expansion in the first four months of the year, with emerging businesses such as cloud computing growing rapidly, official data showed.

The sector posted 529.2 billion yuan ($78.5 billion) in aggregate revenue during the period, up 8.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Emerging businesses, including big data, cloud computing, and internet data centers, expanded notably during the period. The emerging business revenue of China's three telecom giants -- China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, surged 35 percent year-on-year to 103.9 billion yuan.

Revenue for cloud computing services and big data expanded by 132.6 percent and 57.3 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Data also demonstrated China's steady progress in 5G base station construction. By the end of April, China had 1.615 million 5G base stations, with 190,000 built during the first four months of the year.