Although the purchasing limit policy is still firmly in place, the sales of China's largest property developers still saw robust growth in 2012, an industry report said.

The report, released by the China Index Academy, a Beijing-based industry research institute, said the sales of 53 Chinese property companies in 2012 has surpassed 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion).

The number of developers with sales over 100 billion yuan has grown from one to three: China Vanke Co Ltd, Poly Real Estate Group Co Ltd, and Shanghai Greenland Group.

China Vanke's sales surged 39.3 percent to 145.2 billion yuan, and its sales of floor space surged 39.7 percent to 12.16 million square meters, making it the third straight year when its sales were over 100 billion yuan.

This is the first time that Poly and Greenland join Vanke. Their sales in 2012 hit 102 billion and 101.3 billion yuan, respectively.