China's major industrial firms earned 14.4 percent more in September than a year earlier, up sharply from 4.2 percent growth in August, with electronics and high-tech manufacturing driving the acceleration, the National Bureau of Statistics reported.
Profits at China's major industrial firms rose 14.4 percent in September from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Tuesday, accelerating sharply from 4.2 percent growth in August. The result beat a Bloomberg Economics forecast of 12 percent and marked the fastest pace in three months. For the first nine months of 2026, industrial profits rose 15.5 percent year on year to 6.03 trillion yuan, slightly below the 15.7 percent increase recorded for January to August.
Electronics remained the largest driver of the nine-month increase. Profits in the electronics industry doubled from a year earlier and contributed 9.6 percentage points to overall industrial profit growth, according to the bureau's chief statistician, Yu Weining. High-tech manufacturing profits rose 52 percent over the same period and accounted for 25.5 percent of total industrial profits, up 6.2 percentage points from a year earlier.
Within electronics, profits at makers of specialised electronic materials more than tripled on demand for artificial intelligence computing and advanced memory products, while semiconductor discrete device makers gained 51.7 percent and makers of optoelectronic devices and electronic circuits rose 69.8 percent and 62.5 percent respectively. Optical-fibre makers' profits surged almost sixfold and optical-cable makers more than doubled. In raw materials, nonferrous metal profits rose 79.7 percent, chemicals gained 49.2 percent, and petroleum refining returned to profit with earnings of 84.2 billion yuan after a loss a year earlier. Factory-gate prices rose 5 percent from a year earlier, the fastest since 2022.
The headline figures come from the statistics bureau itself, and Dow Jones, Reuters and Xinhua all report the same September and nine-month totals, with the same sector breakdown attributed to Yu Weining. The data cover industrial enterprises with annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan, so they describe larger firms rather than the whole of Chinese industry, and no disagreement between the outlets on the headline numbers was found.
The strength is concentrated rather than broad-based. Reuters reporting on the same release notes that firms tied to domestic demand continue to grapple with subdued consumption, and that listed Chinese companies have on average missed earnings forecasts, even as mining and electronics benefit from higher commodity prices and AI-related demand. Whether the September acceleration broadens beyond those sectors, or fades as it did after earlier spurts this year, will be tested by the October figures and by company results in the current earnings season.