BEIJING, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- More than 75 percent of Chinese listed companies that have released their annual results by far reported profit growth last year, Securities Daily reported Wednesday.

As of Feb. 25, 296 listed companies on the two major stock exchanges on the Chinese mainland had released their annual performance reports, with 223 seeing year-on-year profit growth.

Among these firms, 13 reported that their annual net profits exceeded 10 billion yuan (about 1.4 billion U.S. dollars) while 16 saw profits more than doubled from a year earlier, said the report.

China Merchants Bank's net profits rose 15.28 percent to 92.87 billion yuan, the highest among companies having released annual results.

Steady increases in the net profit of listed firms were mainly attributed to the substantial growth in revenue from main businesses, higher gross profit margin of key products and sales of equity and other assets, said the paper quoting analysts.