BEIJING -- China's IT services saw steady revenue growth in the first quarter this year, official data showed.

Revenue of IT services increased 16.7 percent year on year to 858.3 billion yuan (about 127.56 billion US dollars) in the first three months, accounting for 58.2 percent of the software and IT services sector's total amount, according to a report by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Specifically, the revenue of cloud services rose 15.4 percent from one year earlier, while that of big data services grew 20.7 percent.

With the country's growing emphasis on information safety, the revenue of information safety products and services reached 20.7 billion yuan in the first three months, up 13.4 percent year on year.

Meanwhile, the report showed that software business revenue posted a notable year-on-year increase of 14.4 percent in the period, amounting to 1.48 trillion yuan.

China's software and IT service sector has witnessed rapid development during the past decade thanks to Internet-based innovations and upgrades in traditional sectors.