Producer: Sina Finance Listed Company Research Institute
Author: Langtou Diet/ Hao Xian
"The liquor industry is at the most severe and complex development point in history", at the 2023 China International Famous Liquor Expo, Zeng Congqin, chairman of Wuliangye Group, made such a judgment.
Since the second quarter of last year, the liquor industry has experienced problems such as the cold spring sugar meeting, sales falling short of expectations, channel pressure on goods, distributors dumping goods, and product upside down. In this case, the industry began to carry out a new round of reshuffle, the market share concentration was further improved, the losses of small and medium-sized wine companies increased, and the performance of famous wine and large wine companies was relatively stable.
In 2023, 20 listed liquor companies will achieve revenue of 412.112 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.65%, which is the same as the total revenue growth rate of 15.13% in the previous year. The net profit was 155.146 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.88%, and the growth rate decreased by 1.45 percentage points year-on-year.
Under the overall stability, the undercurrent is surging, the growth of high-end liquor has maintained steady growth, and the nationalization of sub-high-end liquor is seriously differentiated, and many companies have obvious sluggish growth, such as the revenue of alcoholic liquor fell by 30.14%, and the revenue of Shuijingfang increased by only 6%. Due to the stable fundamentals, regional wine companies have also achieved good growth in the context of the recovery of consumer demand for public banquets. In contrast, small liquor companies that mainly focus on low-end liquor, such as Golden Seed Liquor and Huangtai Liquor, have fallen into losses.
Operating income: Shunxin's agricultural revenue fell twice in a row, and the revenue of alcoholic liquor plummeted by 30%, and Shuijingfang has not yet recovered
In 2023, 20 listed liquor companies will achieve a total revenue of 412.112 billion yuan, of which Kweichow Moutai accounts for nearly 37%. The scale of liquor enterprises with a scale of more than 30 billion yuan has expanded from 3 in the previous year to 5, and the TOP5 are Kweichow Moutai, Wuliangye, Yanghe, Shanxi Fenjiu, and Luzhou Laojiao, and the gap between Shanxi Fenjiu and Yanghe has been further narrowed.
Jinshiyuan successfully squeezed into the threshold of 10 billion yuan, which made the expansion of 10 billion yuan of liquor companies to 8, and the highest revenue growth rate of these 8 companies were Jinshiyuan (28.05%), Shanxi Fenjiu (21.8%), Gujing Gongjiu (21.18%), Luzhou Laojiao (20.34%), with a growth rate of more than 20%. The lowest revenue growth rate was Shunxin Agriculture and Yanghe, which were -9.3% and 10.04% respectively.
There are 10 wine companies with a revenue growth rate of more than 20%, accounting for half, of which 3 companies are declining in revenue in 2022, and there are 5 wine companies with a revenue growth rate of more than 20% for two consecutive years, namely Rock Shares, Jinshiyuan, Shanxi Fenjiu, Gujing Gongjiu, and Luzhou Laojiao.
There are 2 wine companies with declining revenue in 2023, namely alcoholic liquor (-30.14%) and Shunxin Agriculture (9.3%), of which Shunxin Agriculture has been declining for three consecutive years. Behind these two wine companies are Shuijingfang and Yanghe, Shuijingfang's revenue in 2022 increased slightly by 0.88%, but last year it only increased by 6%; Yanghe shares will grow by 18.76% and 10.04% in 2022 and 2023 respectively, with a significant slowdown in growth.
It can be seen that among the four companies with the worst revenue growth performance, there are three sub-high-end wine companies and one low-end wine company. Shunxin agriculture is the leader of the light bottle wine market below 30 yuan, and is currently facing the problem of unsmooth promotion of nationalization and hindered product upgrading.
Alcoholic liquor is a typical representative of the sub-high-end that lags behind. Since 2017, after sustained and rapid growth, the revenue scale of alcoholic liquor has increased from 800 million yuan to 4 billion yuan. Since the beginning of 2022, channel inventory problems have surfaced, and problems such as price inversion and channel channeling have also been exposed. In response, the company has repeatedly made big moves to stop stock. When the adjustment will be over, no one knows.
Cash-to-cash ratio & contract liabilities: The cash-to-cash ratio of Golden Seed Liquor, Shunxin Agriculture, and Shanxi Fenjiu dropped sharply, and Wuliangye's contract liabilities decreased by 5.5 billion
We use cash-to-cash ratios and advance receipts to measure the operating conditions of listed liquor companies.
Let's start with the cash-to-cash ratio, which reflects the cash flow support behind the company's main business income. The cash flow of liquor companies is generally relatively good, and many companies have a long-term cash-to-cash ratio of more than 100%, and they have an absolute right to speak downstream.
However, in the past two years, the revenue of liquor companies has declined significantly, which means that the willingness or ability of downstream channels to make payments is decreasing, reflecting the changes in the industry environment.
Last year, there were 5 companies with a cash-to-cash ratio of less than 100%, an increase of 3 from 2022, of which the cash-to-cash ratio of Alcoholic Liquor and Golden Seed Liquor was less than 90%.
There are 10 companies with a decrease in the cash-to-cash ratio, among which Golden Seed Liquor, Shunxin Agriculture, and Shanxi Fenjiu have the largest decline, and the cash-to-cash ratio of these three companies has dropped from more than 100% in the previous year to below 100%.
Looking at the contract liabilities, liquor companies generally adopt the business mode of payment before delivery, and the pre-collection of accounts plays the role of a "reservoir" of performance.
In 2023, the contract liabilities of 9 liquor companies are decreasing, and the company with the largest decline is Wuliangye, followed by Yanghe, Shunxin Agriculture, and Kweichow Moutai. Among the four companies, except for Shunxin Agriculture, the other three companies were growing in revenue last year. The increase in revenue and the decrease in contract liabilities reflect the decline in the enthusiasm of downstream dealers to make payments, which may also mean that manufacturers have relaxed their payment policies.
In addition, 11 liquor companies increased their contract liabilities, but most of them did not increase much.