China's Cultural Industry Revenue Surpasses 20 Trillion Yuan in 2025

China’s cultural industry and related sectors achieved an all-time high operating revenue of nearly 20.83 trillion yuan (approximately 3.06 trillion US dollars) in 2025, an 8.8 per cent increase compared to the previous year, according to a report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday. Specifically, all nine cultural sectors recorded an increase in business revenue last year, with four of them posting double-digit growth, the NBS stated. Creative design services, content creation and production, news information services, and cultural entertainment and recreation services surged by 13.2 per cent, 12.4 per cent, 12.3 per cent, and 10.7 per cent, respectively. The sector’s profitability improved steadily, with total profits reaching 1.9 trillion yuan in 2025, up 7.3 per cent year-on-year. Emerging business models continued to play a major role. Sixteen sub-sectors featuring new cultural business models generated revenues of 7.67 trillion yuan, a 15.1 per cent increase, outpacing the overall industry growth by 6.3 percentage points. Furthermore, research and development (R&D) investment by cultural enterprises grew rapidly. In 2025, large cultural enterprises poured 182 billion yuan into R&D, an increase of 12.1 per cent year-on-year, according to the data.