BEIJING, May 3 (Xinhua) -- China's major internet and related services companies have maintained business revenue growth in the first quarter (Q1) of the year amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic, official data showed.

Their total revenue reached 215.3 billion yuan (about 30.5 billion U.S. dollars) during the January-March period, up 1.5 percent year on year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The growth rate was 15.8 percentage points lower than in the same period last year.

Profit of the industry continued to shrink, declining 24.9 percent from a year earlier to 18.44 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, the sector's spending on research and development neared 12.1 billion yuan, basically flat from Q1 last year.

Information services raked in an income of 146.6 billion yuan, up 11.1 percent year on year and accounting for 68.1 percent of the industry's total revenue.

The MIIT statistics cover enterprises with annual revenue from internet services of above 3 million yuan in the previous year.