Reporter Dang Peng reports from Chengdu
Recently, the revenue data of liquor companies in 2023 has been released one after another. According to the financial report, the 20 liquor companies will achieve a total operating income of 409.243 billion yuan in 2023 and a sales volume of 1.1524 million tons. In addition, according to the data disclosed by the China Liquor Industry Association, in 2023, the national liquor enterprises will achieve a revenue of 756.3 billion yuan and an output of 6.29 million kiloliters (the difference between the tonnage of liquor and the thousand liters is ignored here). It can be seen that the revenue and sales volume of the 20 listed liquor companies account for about 54.11% and 18.32% of the industry respectively.
The reporter of "China Business Daily" noticed that the inventory announced by 20 listed liquor companies in 2023 includes a total of 3.62 million tons of finished and semi-finished liquor, most of which are semi-finished liquor, that is, base liquor. In addition, this data does not include the inventory of domestic unlisted enterprises such as Langjiu and Jiannanchun. And wine companies including Jiannanchun and Xifeng Liquor are still expanding their production capacity.
"With the continuous rise of China's alcohol consumption structure and the continuous release of consumer demand for high-quality products, wine companies are actively expanding production capacity and energy storage, by improving the annual value and scarcity of products, preparing for enhancing product prices, and cooperating with the upgrading of the product structure of enterprises. Cai Xuefei, an expert in the liquor industry, believes that the head liquor has multiple advantages such as brand, production area and technology, and the corresponding production capacity premium is high.
The industry has entered the era of shrinkage and involution competition
Among the listed liquor companies, the head enterprises such as Moutai, Wuliangye, Yanghe, Luzhou Laojiao, etc. use tonnage calculation, and Shanxi Fenjiu, Shunxin Agriculture (Niulanshan) and other enterprises use kiloliter calculation. Ignoring this difference here, it is uniformly regarded as tonnage.
Relevant statistics show that among the 20 mainstream liquor listed companies, the inventory of finished liquor and semi-finished products in 2023 will be 3.62 million tons, of which semi-finished products are mainly base liquor. According to the industry-wide output of 6.29 million tons in 2023, accounting for 57.55%.
According to the data, Yanghe shares with 650,000 tons of base wine and nearly 40,000 tons of finished wine ranked first in the industry, Luzhou Laojiao ranked second with 470,000 tons, Kouzijiao ranked third with 290,000 tons, Kweichow Moutai ranked fourth, and the remaining more than 200,000 tons of Shanxi Fenjiu, Wuliangye, Yingjia Tribute Liquor, Gujing Tribute Liquor, more than 100,000 tons of grades have Shunxin Agriculture (Niulanshan), Jinshiyuan, Shede and Laobai dry wine, and the lowest inventory is Rock Shares (Shanghai Guijiu) and Huangtai Liquor. The combined inventory of the two companies is 13,000 tons.
The reporter noted that the data released by Yanghe Co., Ltd. showed that it currently has more than 600,000 tons of original pulp aged wine of different years, and the wine storage capacity can reach up to 1 million tons, of which the high-end vintage wine stored in the pottery jar has reached 230,000 tons.
Xiao Zhuqing, an expert in the liquor industry, believes that the liquor industry has entered the era of competition in shrinkage and involution, and more mainstream liquor companies attach great importance to the expansion of production capacity and the expansion of base liquor, and the purpose of capacity expansion is to take its essence section to bottle high-end liquor. The bottling of high-end liquor must be supported by old liquor of sufficient years, for example, Moutai Feitian wants five-year-old liquor, Langjiu publicly promises to bottle six-year-old liquor, and many wine companies promise to bottle old liquor. This series of methods proves that China's liquor industry was an era of extensive and quantity-seeking in the past, and the future is an era of seeking quality and winning by quality.
Xiao Zhuqing found that some large-scale wineries have launched bottles to store old wines, or many wineries are promising real vintage wines, which caters to consumer perceptions. "Storing enough old wine is to support the quality of high-quality high-end wine, because only high quality can support high prices."
Build a wine enterprise "high city and deep pool"
As experts say, from the perspective of enterprises, the high inventory of wine companies is not a bad thing, and old wine can support product quality. Based on this, many brands are expanding production capacity and energy storage. Among them, including the three major brands of Zhenjiu Lidu. Wu Xiangdong, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of Zhenjiu Li Du, said that production capacity plays a crucial role in making high-end soy sauce wine brands stand out from the competition. The production capacity advantage can establish a "high city and deep pool" for liquor companies, and it cannot be overtaken in the short term. The advantage of production capacity also translates into a huge competitive advantage in terms of product strength.
Coincidentally. Xifeng wine is also in the process of expansion. According to the prospectus previously released by Xifeng, from 2015 to 2017, the number of base wines purchased by the company was 21,238.24 tons, 18,179.56 tons and 19,439.12 tons, respectively, and the proportion of purchased base wines was 68.03%, 67.36% and 70.31% respectively. In addition, on March 27 this year, the 70,000-ton koji-making building of Xifeng Liquor's 100,000-ton high-quality base liquor and supporting production project was capped. "We currently buy less than half of the base wines, and they are declining rapidly." The senior management of Xifeng Wine revealed to reporters.
In addition, Jian Nanchun's liquor project in the Datang National Liquor Ecological Park in Mianzhu, Deyang is speeding up the construction, and it is planned to build 10 new koji liquor workshops and gradually increase the production capacity of koji liquor by more than 50,000 tons/year.
In this regard, Xiao Zhuqing said: "The increase in production of famous wine companies may be mainly due to two factors. The first is to increase the production of high-end liquor, and the pure grain liquor making process pays attention to 'segmented wine and graded storage', and only about 10% of the essence of the basic liquor can be made into high-end liquor. Second, major wine companies need to enrich product lines, full price bands, full product forms and full product concepts in order to have a full product matrix, respond to the industry involution competition with more product lines and increase efficiency. ”
"The market generally believes that although there is overcapacity in the industry, high-quality production capacity is still scarce, and the production capacity of famous wines based on location ecology is even more insufficient. In addition, for the industry with the characteristics of ultra-long shelf life of liquor, the expansion of production capacity has continuity and value-added, optimistically, the expansion of the head of the famous wine is the effective use of resources in the production area, which is conducive to the improvement of the consumption quality of the entire industry. Cai Xuefei said that many wine companies expand because they are famous wines, but also famous wines in the production area, and the expansion is to increase the reserve of old wine and the production capacity of high-quality wine, so as to upgrade the product structure of the enterprise and make a basic guarantee for the development of the national market.
Destocking is still an industry problem
Although the sales in 2023 and the first quarter of this year are good for leading wine companies, for second- and third-tier wine companies, the squeeze on the market is becoming more and more serious, and high inventory, inverted prices, and insufficient sales have become the keywords of this year. A number of dealers said that the current social inventory pressure is too great, and they are wary of becoming a "dammed lake".
According to the financial reports of listed liquor companies in the first quarter of this year, there have been 4 liquor companies with negative revenue growth, of which the year-on-year growth rates of alcoholic liquor and rock shares were -48.80% and -71.94% respectively; In addition, there are 3 wine companies with single-digit revenue growth.
The reporter noticed that a "notification letter" from Xijiu pointed out the current channel risks more bluntly: because the inventory is higher than the warning line, the supply of some distributors in the second quarter will be suspended.
"From the perspective of the industry, the current squeezed stock competition situation of the mainland liquor industry is continuing to evolve, the pattern of industry competition is accelerating the reshaping, the effective demand for alcohol is insufficient, the consumption is weak, overcapacity, and high inventory are common problems in the industry." Shuijingfang said that at present, the inventory of the company's dealers is controlled within 2 months, and the company will promote the sale of inventory and improve the turnover speed of store inventory.
"The inventory problem is caused by the imbalance between supply and demand in the industry, such as excessive supply, insufficient demand, and reduced sales rate. At present, the complex internal and external economic environment has superimposed the industry adjustment cycle, and destocking is still an industry problem. Cai Xuefei believes that with the continuous sinking of famous wine channels and squeezing the second and third-tier markets, many regional wine companies that were originally low-price-oriented have the problem of unsalable and suspended production, which also aggravates the industry inventory, and these local inventories are becoming an unstable factor in the development of the industry, and consumers have strong demand for high-quality wines, which leads to a shortage of high-quality inventory in production areas and categories. It should be said that at present, China's wine industry is facing such an inventory problem.
"This round of excess inventory needs a period of time to recover, but positively, wine inventory needs time to digest, often accompanied by industry reshuffle, in the social economy continues to recover, after the industry enters a new round of development cycle, the inventory problem is expected to be alleviated, and enter a new stage dominated by high-quality inventory in the production area and famous wine inventory." Cai Xuefei emphasized.
Xiao Zhuqing's research found that strong brands rely on high-end wine to obtain sufficient profits, rely on mid-range wine to grab market share and consumption scenarios, and rely on low-end wine to fight price wars to penetrate the market. "Many brands are relying on the market dominance of strong brands, all categories, all price bands, all packaging forms, all product concepts across the board, and even in different specifications there will be many varieties, so as to seize dealer resources and channel funds. In this way, it can occupy more terminal display positions, occupy more consumers' mental resources, expand the results, and squeeze the living space of regional wine. ”
(Editor: Yu Haixia Review: Li Lin Proofreader: Yan Jingning)