BEIJING — First-quarter business reports from Chinese companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges show their combined profits were 5.85 percent higher than in the same period last year, according to research released on April 27.

The 1,307 companies that had released first-quarter business reports as of April 26 raked in a profit of 111.34 billion yuan ($18.19 billion), the China Securities Journal reported.

The companies registered a total business revenue of 1.44 trillion yuan in the first three months, up 2.24 percent from a year earlier.

The most profitable listed companies were those in the brokerage, Internet and environment protection sectors, with expanded business scopes and industrial upgrades serving as new profit drivers for many of them. The profitability of machinery, mining, steel and other traditional industries witnessed a sharp decline in the period.