(Reuters) - Leading international companies, from Nissan to Caterpillar to Unilever, have warned of slowing profit growth in China as its post-COVID recovery falters.

The country's economic recovery has been limited to a handful of sectors such as the restaurant and luxury goods industries, benefiting French giant LVMH and coffee chain Starbucks, for example.

But even these powerful players refrained from raising their outlook for China, while consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble, L'Oréal and Coca-Cola adopted a cautious stance.

"What we see is a very cautious consumer in China, a declining property market and reduced export demand," said Unilever CFO Graeme Pitkethly last week on an April-June results conference call.

"In addition, unemployment is high in China, particularly among young people (...) As far as we can tell, we're at the lowest point in history for Chinese consumer confidence," he added.

Global carmakers also face increasing competition from local brands, which for the first time took the lead in the first half of the year with a market share of over 50%.

On Thursday, Germany's Volkswagen cut its annual sales target due to lower sales in China, its main market.

In the technology sector, chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix stressed that the reopening of China had failed to revive the smartphone market and that they were extending production cuts for NAND memory chips.

Even Apple, which will publish its results on Thursday, is expected to post stable iPhone sales in its third most important market.

Major mining companies and construction equipment manufacturers also suffered from the prolonged slump in the real estate sector.

"We indicated at our last earnings conference that we expected sales in China to be below our usual 5%-10%. We are now expecting further weakness, as the 10+ ton excavator sector has declined even more than we expected," Caterpillar boss Jim Umpleby said on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, Rio Tinto, the world's leading iron ore producer, is cautiously optimistic about the Chinese economy, with Beijing committed to further measures to boost growth.

"Our experience with China is that if things aren't going so well, the Chinese have a pretty impressive ability to manage the economy," Rio Tinto CEO Jacob Stausholm said last week.

LUXURY GOODS DO WELL

Restaurants and luxury goods companies were among the few beneficiaries of consumer spending following the lifting of health restrictions.

Starbucks reported a 46% rise in like-for-like sales in China in the third quarter; a rebound in line with its expectations and one that should last, company officials said at a press conference on Tuesday.

Yum China, owner in mainland China of fast-food chains KFC and Pizza Hut, reported a 25% rise in second-quarter sales, but said that per-capita spending had fallen as consumers became more "rational".

LVMH, whose 75 brands include Louis Vuitton, Dior and jeweller Tiffany, saw sales in the April-June period rise by 17%, slightly above consensus thanks to a rebound in China, but refrained from giving an outlook for the rest of the year.

"The global mood is not in the 'revenge buying' we saw in 2021 and 2022, so we're talking about normalization rather than anything else," said Group CFO Jean-Jacques Guiony. "We have no visibility, we're not pessimistic, and in China we have no reason to be."

(Kailyn Rhone in New York, Mimosa Spencer in Paris, Sophie Yu in Beijing, Brenda Goh in Shanghai, Richa Naidu in London, Melanie Burton in Melbourne, Daniel Leussink in Tokyo, Victoria Waldersee and Miranda Murray in Berlin, Rishav Chatterjee, Deborah Sophia, Ananya Mariam Rajesh and Yuvraj Malik in Bangalore; written by Miyoung Kim, French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Kate Entringer)