BEIJING - Chinese major cultural industry firms raked in more than 3.6 trillion yuan ($540 billion) of revenues in the first half of 2016, official data showed Friday.

The figure, without adjusting for inflation, reflects a year-on-year increase of 7.9 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The NBS tracks 48,000 companies with annual sales over 2 million yuan and commercial enterprises with annual sales over 5 million yuan.

China's cultural industry saw its 10 sectors report revenue increases in H1, including six sectors engaged in cultural services and four in manufacturing of cultural products, NBS data showed.

Five sectors posted double-digit growth, including a 29.7 percent surge in information transmission services delivered by Internet Plus businesses.

In terms of regional growth, cultural enterprises in eastern China generated over 2.7 trillion yuan of revenues, or 75 percent of the total, while central China eclipsed other regions with a double-digit growth rate of 12 percent to reach 601.9 billion yuan.

Revenues registered in northeastern China continued dropping by 7 percent to 47.3 billion yuan.