The Baoding-based company, which has a joint venture with German luxury automaker BMW, said in a stock exchange filing it reported a 1.15 billion yuan (126.19 million pounds) net profit in the first half, down from a 1.52 billion yuan profit a year earlier.

Revenue for the first half fell 13% to 35.93 billion yuan.

China's overall auto sales are slowly recovering from a virus-blighted start to the year.

Sales in July climbed for a fourth consecutive month yet are still down 12.7% year to date.

Great Wall sold almost 400,000 vehicles in the first six months this year, down 13% from a year earlier.

Its sales of pickup trucks surged 38% due to new P-series models while sport-utility vehicle sales tumbled 20%.

Great Wall agreed to buy two plants in India and Thailand from General Motors and expects those transactions to be completed this year.

Rival Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd reported a 43% profit slide in the first half.

(Reporting by Yilei Sun and Brenda Goh; editing by David Evans and Jason Neely)