First Automotive Works (FAW), one of China's three largest automakers, estimated that its net profit in the July-September quarter fell about 5 percent from a year earlier. In the third quarter of last year, the company made a profit of 356.5 million Yuan ($52.2 million).

FAW did not give a reason for the third-quarter profit drop. But a slowing economy has hit Chinese auto demand hard in recent months; countrywide passenger car sales shrank from a year earlier for a second month in a row in September.

FAW Group is a global leader in the vehicle manufacturing industry with a 50-year history of innovation. Founded in 1953, FAW employs 133,000 people around the world and sells products in over 70 countries. FAW is a diversified maker of quality light, medium, and heavy-duty trucks, automobiles, municipal buses and luxury tourist coaches, custom bus chassis, and mini-vehicles with total sales in excess of 7 million vehicles worldwide.