El precio de Maotai sube doblemente en contra de la tendencia, señal de que la industria de licores blancos vuelve a encontrar un piso

21st Century Business Herald reporter Xiao Xia

The long-awaited price increase for Moutai investors has finally arrived.

On the evening of March 30, Guizhou Moutai issued an announcement stating that, after research, starting from March 31, the Company will adjust the sales contract price of Feitian 53%vol 500ml Kweichow Moutai Liquor (2026) from 1169 yuan per bottle to 1269 yuan per bottle, and adjust its self-operated system’s retail price from 1499 yuan per bottle to 1539 yuan per bottle.

**This is another increase in the distributors’ contract price since December 2023, and it is the first time the retail price of Moutai liquor has been raised since January 2018—after eight years.****21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that this time the contract price increase in the distributor system is about 8.55%, while the self-operated system’s retail price rose by about 2.7%. **

There is no doubt that this will directly thicken the profit space of Kweichow Moutai starting from this year’s second quarter, and at the same time will again guide the market price of Moutai liquor. Some Moutai investors gave positive remarks to 21st Century Business Herald reporter, saying, “Finally rolled out!”

With both the contract price and the retail price increased at the same time, the background is that since Moutai launched market-oriented reforms at the beginning of the year, demand-side momentum has sparked a broad range of potential customer groups. Against the trend, Moutai liquor has been selling hot, and iMoutai has fully activated a large number of end users that had previously been unable to reach due to channel barriers, giving Moutai a more direct and quantifiable basis for the real consumer prices. Broker research generally expects that during this year’s Spring Festival, Moutai will see double-digit year-on-year growth.

Achieving this growth against the trend is related to the channel reform that Moutai has systemically carried out this year.

In the 《2026 Kweichow Moutai Liquor Market-Oriented Operation Plan》 announced by Kweichow Moutai on January 14 this year, it proposed that, with the market as the orientation, a dynamic adjustment mechanism for retail prices in the self-operated system of “pricing in line with the market, relatively stable,” would be established. For the distribution model, based on the operating costs, operating difficulty, operating risks, service capabilities, and so on for different products and different channels, scientific and reasonable calculations will be used to determine the corresponding sales contract price and adjust it dynamically.

Regarding this adjustment, 21st Century Business Herald previously conducted detailed analysis，it changed the original price system that took the ex-factory price of distributors as the anchor, and instead took the retail price in Moutai’s self-operated system as the anchor, thereby returning the pricing power to Moutai.

As was said at the time, after only two and a half months, the self-operated system’s retail price was adjusted for the first time, and the distributors’ sales contract prices also changed accordingly.

For this round of adjustments to the Feitian Moutai prices, Moutai will again follow market rules. This will help reduce the arbitrage space for speculative demand, and various forms of price speculation in the market will be further curbed.

During the process of adjusting the pricing system, Moutai also re-sorted the positioning of various channels, proposing that under the distribution model, based on the operating costs, operating difficulty, operating risks, service capabilities, and so on for different products and different channels, scientific and reasonable calculations will be used to determine the corresponding sales contract price and adjust it dynamically. In addition, the introduction of the “agency sales” model allows distributors to play the role of “service providers.” A series of policies significantly reduced distributors’ capital costs, resolved inventory risk, and at the same time ensured their profit space.

Moutai hopes that establishing a truly market-demand-oriented pricing system will help bring Moutai liquor back to its attribute as a consumer product rather than a speculative product, and safeguard that genuine consumers can buy Moutai liquor fairly and with authenticity assurance.

After major system-wide reforms were smoothly implemented, Moutai has managed to sell hot against the trend and successfully raise prices. This is not only good news that Moutai investors would welcome; for the liquor industry it is also a rare positive signal.

Looking back at the previous cycle, Moutai also raised a batch of prices and terminal retail prices in 2015. After that, it was widely viewed as a landmark event marking the bottoming out and stabilization of the liquor industry in the previous cycle.