The revenue of some leading Chinese real estate companies will hit CNY500 billion this year, and the industry will be further consolidated as competition intensifies, according to a research report by the China Index Academy, the Development Research Center of the State Council and Tsinghua University. It said their average growth rate would exceed 40% in 2017, boosted by the rosy market, sufficient land reserves and solid cash flow. Guangdong-based property developers Evergrande Group and Country Garden Holdings both aim to realize a sales target of CNY500 billion this year, while Greenland Group and China Overseas Property Group expected to see their sales exceed CNY300 billion in 2017. The report added that the trend of further consolidation and concentration among the biggest players in the property sector continued with the top 100 property developers gaining a market share of 40.8% last year, up 4.7 percentage points and reaching a record high. First-tier cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and second-tier and mainly provincial capital cities remained the development focus of the major real estate companies. The report said these cities contributed nearly 80% to their total profits, the China Daily reports.