China's cultural industry revenue exceeds 20 trillion yuan in 2025

China's cultural and related industries achieved record-high operating revenue of nearly 20.83 trillion yuan (about 3.06 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2025, up 8.8 percent year on year, according to a report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday.

Specifically, all nine cultural sectors saw their business revenues rise last year, with four of them registering double-digit growth, the NBS said.

Creative design services, content creation and production, news information services, and cultural entertainment and leisure services surged 13.2 percent, 12.4 percent, 12.3 percent, and 10.7 percent, respectively.

The sector's profitability improved steadily, with total profits reaching 1.9 trillion yuan in 2025, up 7.3 percent from the previous year.

Emerging business models continued to play a leading role. The 16 sub-sectors with distinctive new cultural business models generated 7.67 trillion yuan in revenue, up 15.1 percent, outpacing overall industry growth by 6.3 percentage points.

In addition, research and development (R&D) investment by cultural enterprises grew rapidly. In 2025, major cultural enterprises spent 182 billion yuan on R&D, up 12.1 percent year-on-year, the data showed.