It coincides with the off-season of liquor, the pressure of social inventory is high, and the volume of Xunfeng liquor is concentrated......
Affected by factors such as the off-season of liquor, the pressure of social inventory, and the concentrated volume of Xunfeng wine, the price of Moutai 53 degrees Feitian has been "falling endlessly" recently, and it has recently rushed to the hot search because it fell below 2,600 yuan.
It is worth noting that since late March, there has been news of Feitian Moutai's price cuts. On April 8, Kweichow Moutai's share price fell by 2.82%, and the total market value evaporated by 60.9 billion yuan in one day. Even so, Moutai still has the most systematic advantage in high-end liquor consumption, and the current batch price fluctuations have not directly affected the expectations of consumers. However, its "rejuvenation strategy" has been accused of being "superficially lively" and has not really captured the hearts of young people.
■Liao Muxing/Picture
1 The price drop for consecutive days is related to the off-season and inventory
No matter whether Moutai rises or falls, it has not affected its status as the "king" of the liquor industry. In 2023, the company will achieve a total operating income of 150.560 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.04%, and a total profit of 103.663 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.20%, achieving the goal of "double 100 billion" in revenue and profit for the first time, and continuing to refresh the historical record.
However, after the Spring Festival in 2024, the price of Feitian Moutai has continued to fall, and has fallen below 2,600 yuan per bottle, approaching 2,500 yuan, which is known as the "line of life and death" by dealers, which has caused great repercussions in the industry.
According to public information, since the beginning of 2022, the terminal market price of Feitian Moutai has been in a price reduction cycle, and after the Spring Festival, it is also the "price depression" of Feitian Moutai. Among them, the fluctuation in 2021 is the largest, the highest batch price of Feitian Moutai (scatter) has dropped to 480 yuan/bottle, and the highest batch price of Feitian Moutai (whole) has dropped to 600 yuan/bottle; after the Spring Festival in 2021, the price of Feitian Moutai (scattered) has dropped at about 2400 yuan/bottle;After the Spring Festival in 2022, the highest batch price of Feitian Moutai (whole) has dropped by more than 500 yuan/bottle.
According to today's liquor price data, the wholesale price of Feitian Moutai bulk bottle market fell below 2,600 yuan per bottle on April 7, and continued to fall to 2,560 yuan per bottle on April 8, while on April 7, 2023, the batch price reference price of Feitian Moutai in 2023 was 2,755 yuan, a decrease of more than 100 yuan per bottle compared with the same period last year. On April 9, the wholesale reference price of bulk 53 degrees/500ml Feitian Moutai in 2024 fell again, reaching 2,510 yuan/bottle. After more than 10 days of ups and downs, the price of bulk 53 degrees/500ml Feitian Moutai on April 22 was 2,570 yuan.
The reporter visited the tobacco and alcohol stores near Kexin Road in Tianhe District and found that the price of most stores was 2,600 yuan, and the price of some stores rose to 2,700 yuan. The relevant person in charge of Guangzhou Juntao Famous Tobacco and Liquor Chain Company said that the price of the store yesterday in 2024 Feitian Moutai was 2,780 yuan.
Therefore, some dealers believe that the price change of Feitian Moutai is a normal phenomenon. The general speculation in the outside world is related to the volume of Xunfeng wine, which has also been denied by Moutai officials.
The 375ml Xunfeng Moutai is a "digital-real fusion" product launched by Kweichow Moutai at the end of last year, targeting the young market, and is only sold in the "Xunfeng Digital World" (a metaverse app jointly developed by Moutai and NetEase). Moutai announced that from March 28, users who hold relevant materials in the APP can follow the corresponding steps to synthesize the corresponding materials and complete the exercise, and can complete the delivery of Xunfeng Moutai in offline stores.
Although the capacity is slightly smaller than that of the 500ml Feitian Moutai, its taste and quality are consistent with it, and the price is 1498 yuan per bottle. If converted according to this, it is equivalent to 1997 yuan to buy a 500ml bottle of Feitian Moutai, which is indeed much cheaper than the current market wholesale price of about 2600 yuan.
Therefore, there are market rumors that the first batch of Xunfeng Moutai is 200,000 bottles, and the rumors of an annual output of 2,000 tons are superimposed, and dealers are worried that it will squeeze the demand for Feitian Moutai and cause the price of the channel to fall. However, Kweichow Moutai said that the planned volume of Xunfeng Liquor accounts for a small proportion of the annual volume of Moutai, which will not have an impact on the existing price system of Moutai, and the current sales of Moutai are good.
Some media said that during the sugar and wine fair, many channel dealers had expected that the Feitian batch price in March and April may appear 2500+, but it is difficult to be lower than 2500 yuan, mainly because the average minimum cost of Feitian hoarded by dealers in previous years was 2300-2400 yuan, and if the batch price was lower than 2500 yuan, panic selling.
Regarding the decline in the price of Feitian Moutai for many days, liquor analyst Cai Xuefei said in an interview with the media that in addition to the normal off-season reason for the market, it is also related to factors such as large social inventory in the early stage.
In recent years, in order to improve performance and seize the market, wine companies have continued to expand production and pressure a large number of goods to channels and society. In 2023, liquor inventory has become a common crisis for the entire industry and has triggered a serious price inversion. At the end of last year, Liu Zhenguo, deputy secretary-general of the China Liquor Industry Association, said in an interview with the media, "Overcapacity is a problem in the liquor industry, and the expected weak capacity reduction, the reduction of consumption expectations in the external environment of liquor, and the high inventory are all more truly reflected in the liquor industry." ”
According to the data, in the first three quarters of 2023, the total inventory of A-share liquor listed companies was 136.35 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.6%. In comparison, in 2020, the total inventory of listed liquor companies was 98.5 billion yuan. From the perspective of the inventory amount of enterprises in total assets, 19 of the 20 A-share liquor companies have increased their inventory.
2 Moutai's "rejuvenation strategy" has been controversial
According to the "Young People's Liquor" report released by Rees Strategic Positioning Consulting in 2022, only 13% of young people choose liquor, and only 11.2% of young people prefer liquor with an alcohol content of more than 30 degrees.
Faced with the dilemma of the liquor industry, Ding Xiongjun, the new head of Moutai, said: "The current young people are the main consumers of the future, and whether Moutai's products and services can meet the needs of the main consumers in the future is a major challenge for us." Based on this, Moutai put forward the strategic goals of improving the quality and rejuvenation of new products, diversifying and flattening new channels, and layering and internationalization of new markets.
It can be said that behind Moutai's "rejuvenation strategy" is the desire to connect with young people, which is also Moutai's sense of crisis.
Recently, Zeng Yu, a well-known collector of aged liquor, said: "The current Moutai has no collection value. Moutai has made a lot of moves, and the Moutai Collection Museum has opened so many houses, which are actually dams, and the water in the dammed lake is getting higher and higher. The corkage rate of Moutai is definitely less than half, and the social inventory is so large, it is necessary to increase production capacity......"
"If you had a bottle of Feitian Moutai, would you drink it or collect it?" the reporter randomly interviewed 20 male consumers on the street, and 16 of them said, "Sell it for cash." "Most people just want to make a price difference.
Reese Strategic Positioning Consulting announced a data at this year's "Spring Sugar Fair": China's liquor production capacity has been declining for three consecutive years, but revenue and profit have maintained high growth.
On the one hand, the interest of young people in high-grade liquor is far less than that of the previous generation of consumers, and on the other hand, young people are no longer obsessed with the brand effect of high-end liquor, and therefore, high-end liquor such as Moutai and Wuliangye are mainly concentrated in business banquets or gift giving scenes.
Therefore, Moutai's "rejuvenation" strategy is tied to young people. In May 2022, Moutai and Mengniu cooperated to launch Moutai ice cream for the first time, and in just three months, Moutai opened the store in Shanghai. Moutai recently said that the operating income (including tax) of ice cream in the first quarter of 2024 increased by 239.62% year-on-year, and 35 flagship stores have been opened across the country, a year-on-year increase of 48%.
Immediately in 2023, Moutai and Luckin "Sauce Coffee", Dove "Wine Heart Chocolate" and "Guizhou Taste" series of cocktails, Moutai's strategic layout of rejuvenation will continue to accelerate.
The co-branded measures have brought waves of traffic to Moutai, but they have also caused a lot of controversy. For example, the co-branding with Luckin is said to be "self-lowering the price and hurting the brand value"; the 28 yuan cup of Moutai coffee also contains 1.8ml of 53 degrees Feitian Moutai liquor, but it did not make much noise; in addition, there is also an unofficially authorized "traffic" behavior, and the Fliggy platform has put on the shelves the "sauce fragrance big bed room" room type of a hotel, although Fliggy finally ended the farce with an apology, but it also made netizens think that Moutai's frequent co-branding has made the brand lose its scarcity.
In this regard, Moutai announced at the "Mao Xiaoling Wine Heart Chocolate" event that it would stop the development of "+ Moutai" peripheral products. After the co-branding twice a month, and the freshness was rapidly consumed, Moutai may really want to stop crossing.
Ding Xiongjun emphasized Moutai's current predicament at the 2023 annual market work conference: "Young people today are the main consumers of the future, and whether Moutai's products and services can meet the needs of the main consumer groups in the future is a major challenge we are facing."
Entering 2024, during the 110th National Sugar and Wine Fair, Moutai Group focused on launching the "UMEET Blueberry Sparkling Wine" with a specification of 375ml/bottle, which is priced at 118 yuan/bottle and has an alcohol content of 6 degrees.
Relevant data show that the market size of mainland fruit wine has reached 100 billion yuan in 2022 and is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan by 2025. In this field, Jiang Xiaobai, who had already laid out "Meijian" earlier, Wuliangye, which launched fruit wines such as Bingpo 43 and Xianlin Qingmei Wine, and Luzhou Laojiao, which was a "leader in Chinese fruit winemaking" as early as 2019 and a brand proposition of "Happiness in Brewing Fresh Fruits", launched fruit wines such as "Qingyu", "Flowers", "Shiguang" and "Ladies Illustrated Green Plum Fruit Wine", which were familiar to consumers earlier.
Whether it is taking advantage of the "co-branding" to develop peripherals, or the "375ml Xunfeng Moutai" from the perspective of games, or the development of the "slightly drunk market", Moutai's actions continue to point to the "younger route", but how to get closer to young people and try to please young people who may just want to try it is an important challenge for Moutai.
Written by: New Express reporter Chen Fuxiang