China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are losing some shine amid a slowing economy.

In the first 10 months of 2011, SOEs raked in a combined profit of 1.87 trillion yuan ($294.54 billion), representing an increase of 16 percent year on year, said the Ministry of Finance. Of this total, central SOEs earned 1.27 trillion yuan ($199.2 billion), with the remainder going to local ones.

But in October alone, SOEs' profits dropped 12.4 percent from September, the biggest month-on-month decrease so far this year. This also marked the fourth straight month of slowdowns.

SOEs' revenues totaled 30.15 trillion yuan ($4.75 trillion) from January to October, climbing 23.9 percent from a year ago. But the figure for October went down 4.4 percent from September.

The SOEs also reported a fall in profitability as their profit-to-sales ratio came in at 4.7 percent, 0.4 percentage points lower than the same period last year. The worst performers in October were steel, petrochemical, tobacco, nonferrous metals and petroleum industries, which experienced a slump in profits.

"The state firms are facing some headwinds due to cost inflation and withering overseas markets," said Liu Zhiyi, an analyst with the Beijing-based China Securities Co. Ltd. "However, they still boast stronger profitability than private firms thanks to government's support and easier access to financing."