In the industry winter, how does "Northwest King" Jin Hui Liquor break through the difficulties with steady performance?

The Baijiu industry is undergoing a period of deep adjustment. While most companies face downward pressure on performance, Northwest regional liquor company Jinhui Liquor has produced a countercyclical, value-preserving performance result. According to the latest disclosed financial data, in 2025 the company achieved operating revenue of 2.918 billion yuan and net profit of 354.4 million yuan. Although its year-over-year figures declined by 3.4% and 8.7%, respectively, against the backdrop of the overall industry downturn, the magnitude of its performance fluctuations was significantly lower than the industry average among peers. Even more worth attention, the company’s revenue from high-end products priced above 300 yuan increased by 25.21% year over year to 709 million yuan, demonstrating clear results from optimization of its product mix.

This long-established liquor company traces its origins to the Western Han dynasty. After multiple rounds of institutional reforms, it became Gansu Province’s first listed Baijiu enterprise in 2016. During Fosun Group’s takeover in 2020, the company’s strategy was upgraded from “Deeply Rooted in Northwest” to “National Layout.” Although two years later the controlling stake returned to the original shareholders, this period of capital operations brought increased market attention and accumulated experience in nationwide expansion. Data shows that from 2023 to 2024, the company’s revenue continued to maintain double-digit growth for two consecutive years; in 2024, it recorded historical highs with revenue of 3.021 billion yuan and net profit of 388.1 million yuan.

The core supporting its resilience in performance lies in a precise market positioning strategy. In the local Gansu market, the company uses products such as “Soft H3” and “Soft H6” to precisely lock in the 100–300 yuan price band, perfectly capturing the province’s consumption upgrade trend. In the surrounding Gansu region, it mainly promotes the “Positive Energy” series in the 100–400 yuan range. In the East China market, it has laid out the “Jinhui Laojiao” series in the 300–900 yuan range. This differentiated layout enabled its high-end products to grow against the trend in 2025, while revenue from low-end products below 100 yuan fell sharply by 36.88%, highlighting the effectiveness of its product-structure upgrade.

However, slow progress in the nationwide expansion process remains a key bottleneck constraining development. The 2025 financial report shows that the Gansu Province market contributed 72.38% of revenue, while the share from outside the province was only 22.79%. Even more concerning is that the number of external distributors net decreased by 91 compared with the previous year, and the average production/output efficiency of distributors was only one-sixth of that within the province. This imbalance in regional development reflects that its channel construction outside the province has not yet formed an effective scale.

Inventory pressure and idle production capacity are also issues that cannot be ignored. As of the end of 2025, the company’s inventory book value reached 2.002 billion yuan, accounting for 37.93% of total assets, a record high. The finished liquor inventory volume increased by 39.13% year over year, with products across different price segments showing varying degrees of backlog. As a result, the capacity utilization rate of the packaging workshop fell to 58.78%. Although this was higher than the 45.76% in 2022, it still remains at a relatively low level in the industry. This “increasing production without increasing revenue” phenomenon exposes a mismatch between its pace of market expansion and the expansion of its production scale.

Facing the industry’s downturn cycle, Jinhui Liquor has built a defensive system through product-structure upgrades and deep cultivation of regional markets. However, its lag in the national layout, low inventory turnover efficiency, and insufficient capacity utilization still constitute potential operating risks. Against the backdrop of steadily increasing concentration in the Baijiu market, whether this regional liquor company can break through its development bottlenecks—turning its phased anti-downturn ability into sustained growth momentum—still needs to be tested by the market.