China's box office receipts reached 7.58 billion yuan (US$1.14 billion) in the first three quarters of the year, an official at the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said Monday.

At the opening ceremony of an exhibition on Hong Kong movies in Shanghai, Zhang Hongsen, deputy director of the agency's film bureau, said domestic films brought in 3.84 billion yuan while overseas films took in an additional 3.74 billion yuan during the period.

Award-winning director James Cameron's 3D sci-fi movie "Avatar" topped the box office, garnering a record 1.3 billion yuan (195.6 million U.S. dollars) at the beginning of the year in China.

"Aftershock" was the biggest-grossing hit among local movies, taking in 660 million yuan.

Tong Gang, director of the film bureau, forecast in July that China's box office would reach 10 billion yuan in 2010.

Last Wednesday, the China Film Producers Association estimated that the country's movie market would become the world's second-largest, earning up to 40 billion yuan in box office revenues by 2015.

The association also estimated that the number of cinema screens nationwide would nearly triple to 12,000 by 2015 from its number last year.

The movie market in the world's second-largest economy has witnessed strong growth in recent years as the Chinese increasingly watch movies on the big screen. In 2009, box office earnings surged to 6.2 billion yuan from less than 1 billion yuan in 2003.