On April 28, Wuliangye released its 2023 annual report and 2024 first quarter report. In 2023, the company achieved operating income of 83.272 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.58%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 30.211 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.19%. In the first quarter of 2024, the company achieved operating income of 34.833 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.86%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 14.045 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.98%.
Continued to maintain a steady development momentum with double-digit growth in revenue and net profit for 7 consecutive years
Statistics show that since 2016, Wuliangye has maintained a double-digit growth rate in revenue every year, while net profit has maintained a double-digit growth rate since 2017, and by 2023, Wuliangye has maintained double-digit growth in revenue and net profit for 7 consecutive years.
From the perspective of revenue growth, Wuliangye's revenue in 2017 was 30.18 billion yuan, while in 2023, the company's revenue will be 83.272 billion yuan, achieving more than 2 times growth, and net profit will increase from 9.673 billion yuan in 2017 to 30.211 billion yuan, achieving a three-fold growth.
It can be said that since 2017, Wuliangye has maintained a steady growth trend, highlighting the comprehensive strength of leading enterprises. Today, Wuliangye's revenue has entered the 80 billion club, and during the reporting period, the company's flagship products continued to grow steadily and led high-quality development.
It is understood that in 2023, the stable growth of Wuliangye's main operating indicators is mainly due to the further deepening of marketing. The product system continued to improve, and the new purple gas came to Wuliangye from the east, and completed the product development and sales of 18 cultural liquors such as Wanshoutan and Panda Shaped Liquor throughout the year, among which a bottle of Zodiac wine in the Year of the Dragon was hard to find, and the market cultivation of classic Wuliangye continued to be strengthened, and the dynamic sales of 39 degrees and 1618 Wuliangye achieved good growth.
In addition to the impact of the deepening of the product structure, Wuliangye has systematically sorted out the sales strategy, put forward the strategy of "headquarters grasping the general and regional main battle", strengthened the hierarchical authorization, control balance and service sinking of the regional main battle, and promoted the digital transformation of marketing in depth, so that the company's response speed to market changes will continue to improve.
According to the relevant person in charge of Wuliangye, in 2023, the company will continue to deepen in consumption cultivation and make every effort to build eight highland markets such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, and Hefei. In addition, the company also cooperated with dealers to "go out" and visited a total of 8,000 large development enterprises, and cooperated with the marketing area to "invite in" to carry out 815 trips to Wuliang and the United States, directly covering more than 24,000 person-times.
While deepening the domestic market and achieving steady growth in performance through omni-channel coverage, it will extend its tentacles to foreign markets and "go global" to explore new growth points. This is the true portrayal of Wuliangye at the moment.
It is reported that Wuliangye is comprehensively promoting the construction of the international market, signing a strategic cooperation agreement with the world's largest cocktail brand Jin Bali, launching a new cooperative product "Wugu Ronnie" to express Chinese liquor in a more international and fashionable way, launching the "Hemei Global Tour" to empower the brand from the cultural level, and realizing the full coverage of the main stores of the duty-free channel of China Duty Free Group. Driven by brands such as Wuliangye, the market sales of strong flavor wine products have also increased against the trend, hitting a record high.
For the above-mentioned performance of Wuliangye, Cai Xuefei, an analyst in the liquor industry and general manager of Zhiqu Consulting, said that firstly, it is the result of the continuous highlighting of Wuliangye's high-end brand value and the continuous strengthening of market appeal; secondly, Wuliangye's product structure continues to be optimized, and the product matrix effect is significant, which greatly improves the diversity of revenue, and the national marketing reform has been fruitful, the channel has been sinking, and the quality of market intensive cultivation has been greatly improved, thus ensuring the stable growth of the enterprise. In addition, under the industry adjustment cycle, Wuliangye continued to focus on brand IP activities such as "Hemei Cultural Festival" and "12.18 Super Fan Festival" around consumer value, and made new breakthroughs in new fields such as Internet digitalization, thus helping it gain new growth poles in the stock market.
The dividend rate has reached a new high, and the cumulative dividend is expected to exceed 94 billion yuan
Rewarding investors is the most important social responsibility of listed companies, and the most direct embodiment of being responsible for investors is cash dividends. As a leading liquor enterprise, while consolidating corporate governance and improving core competitiveness, Wuliangye attaches great importance to the reasonable return of investors and shares the company's development achievements with investors.
It is reported that in 2023, Wuliangye will continue to distribute cash red envelopes in a large amount to reward shareholders vigorously, and the dividend amount will hit a record high.
According to the profit distribution plan for 2023 announced by Wuliangye, the company intends to distribute 46.70 yuan (tax included) in cash for every 10 shares, with a dividend amount of 18.127 billion yuan, and the distribution plan still needs to be submitted to the annual general meeting of shareholders for deliberation. From the perspective of dividend rate, the dividend rate of Wuliangye in 2023 will be 60%, an increase of 5 percentage points on the basis of 55% in the previous year, and the dividend amount will exceed 18 billion yuan.
In fact, in March this year, Wuliangye issued an announcement on "double improvement of quality and return", combined with the company's development strategy and actual operation, focusing on safeguarding the interests of all shareholders of the company, enhancing investor confidence, and helping the company's high-quality development. The generous dividend in 2023 fully reflects the exemplary and leading role of high-quality large-capitalization listed companies.
According to statistics, after the implementation of the dividend plan in 2023, Wuliangye has implemented a total of 22 cash dividends since its listing in 1998, which will reach 94.087 billion yuan, which is nearly 25 times the total amount of funds raised since its listing, and will continue to share the development results with consumers and investors.
It is worth mentioning that Wuliangye's dividend amount continued to hit a new high, with cash dividends exceeding 10 billion yuan for four consecutive years, which is the only listed company in Sichuan. At the same time, among the listed liquor companies, only Wuliangye and Kweichow Moutai have paid more than 10 billion dividends.
In the eyes of industry insiders, Wuliangye's generous dividends on the one hand demonstrate the responsible attitude of leading enterprises to create good returns for investors, and on the other hand, it shows the company's confidence and confidence in the sustainable and steady development in the future.
Cai Xuefei said that in the current complex capital market environment, Wuliangye's dividends not only demonstrate the company's super competitive strength and advantageous market position, but also reflect the business resilience and development potential of famous wine enterprises to a certain extent, and play a role in leading the sustainable and high-quality development of the industry.
In fact, while Wuliangye continues to create value for shareholders, the company is also strengthening cultural construction to help enhance brand value. According to the 2023 (20th) "Top 500 World Brands" list released by the World Brand Lab, Wuliangye's brand ranking has risen 12 places compared with 2022, ranking 227th, becoming the fastest rising brand in the food and beverage industry.
In addition, Wuliangye is well versed in the development trend of the industry, and the company is constantly increasing investment in research and development. Wuliangye's financial report shows that in 2023, the company's R&D expenses will be 322 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.5%, and Wuliangye's scientific and technological innovation capabilities will continue to increase by continuously increasing R&D investment. Up to now, the company has built 7 national innovation platforms, the largest number of platforms in the industry. The National Industrial Design Center successfully passed the re-evaluation of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the annual assessment of the National Enterprise Technology Center ranked first in the industry, successfully established the industry's first cultural and technological innovation center for China's liqueur industry, and built a high-level innovation source.
In the challenging year of 2023, Wuliangye has delivered a brilliant report card. In the first quarter of 2024, the company got off to a good start. The adjustment of the industry has brought development opportunities to Wuliangye and other wine companies with strong quality and brand power, and what kind of performance will Wuliangye create in 2024?
"In 2024, Wuliangye will strengthen market supervision and further improve the '1+3' product matrix, and sustained and steady growth is expected in the future. In addition, the fundamentals of Wuliangye consumers are stable, and the price of 1,000 yuan has a prominent brand advantage, maintaining a buy rating. Bank of China Securities analysts said.