China's tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd topped the ranking of top app publishers by revenue for the first time in 2016, according to a report released on Thursday by App Annie, a US-based mobile analytics company.

The company said 11 Chinese companies were on the annual top 52 app publishers list. Due to the rapid growth of the gaming sector, Chinese internet company NetEase Inc moved to third place, up from ninth last year.

Top new China-based publishers include Perfect World Co Ltd, Baidu Inc and G-bits Network Technology Xiamen Co Ltd.

Dai Bin, region director of Greater China at AppAnnie, said: "As China's mobile market grows increasingly, we can see more Chinese publishers appear on the top publishers list than before. In the future, we will see more innovation boosted by China and then spread to other parts of the world."

According to the company, the rankings are based on revenue earned from paid downloads and in-app purchases on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. They do not include revenue earned from in-app advertising or subscriptions outside app store channels.