Profits of China's major industrial firms grew 10.3 percent year on year in 2018, but lower than the 21-percent expansion for 2017, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

Combined profits at industrial firms with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan (2.96 million U.S. dollars) reached 6.64 trillion yuan last year.

Profits fell 1.9 percent year on year last December, down further from dropping 1.8 percent in November, NBS data showed.

State-owned players saw profits up 12.6 percent year on year in 2018, compared with a 45.1-percent growth in 2017, while private firms' profit growth accelerated from 11.7 percent in 2017 to 11.9 percent last year.

Profits in 32 of the 41 sectors rose compared with one year earlier, with the petroleum and natural gas mining sector posting a robust growth of 440 percent.