Recently, the financial report released by the Supply and Marketing Grand Group Co., Ltd. (“Supply and Marketing Grand Group”), a large commercial conglomerate controlled by the China National Supply and Marketing Cooperative General Society, shows that the company’s operating situation has not improved. The cumulative losses exceeding 10 billion yuan for six consecutive years reflect the severe challenges facing the retail industry in China.
The annual report for 2024 and the first quarter report for 2025 were recently released by Supply and Marketing Grand Group. The financial statements indicate that in 2024, the net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was a loss of 1.324 billion yuan. In the first quarter of 2025, the company’s net profit was a loss of 6.2938 million yuan, indicating that operational pressures continue to persist.
On May 9, Supply and Marketing Grand Group closed at 2.65 yuan, a decrease of 3.64%, with a total market value of 47.854 billion yuan.
According to public information, Supply and Marketing Grand Group is mainly engaged in wholesale and retail trade, with Hainan Airlines Group becoming the largest shareholder of the company in 2003. At its peak in 2017, the company achieved operating income of 27.79 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.415 billion yuan, reaching its highest level since going public.
However, starting in 2018 when the China-US trade war broke out, Supply and Marketing Grand Group’s performance rapidly declined. In 2021, the company implemented bankruptcy reorganization. In April 2024, under the leadership of the State Council of the Communist Party of China, the China National Supply and Marketing Cooperative General Society became the actual controller of Supply and Marketing Grand Group. However, influenced by internal and external factors, the company has remained in a state of losses.
From 2019 to 2024, Supply and Marketing Grand Group’s net profit attributable to shareholders were losses of 1.22 billion yuan, 4.539 billion yuan, 687 million yuan, 930 million yuan, 2.52 billion yuan, and 1.324 billion yuan, with a total cumulative loss of 11.2 billion yuan over six years.
The plight of Supply and Marketing Grand Group is not an isolated case. After enduring three years of pandemic restrictions, the Chinese economy faces pressure from factors such as a sluggish macroeconomic environment, a crisis in the real estate market, and employment issues, which have all impacted the consumer industry.
Since 2024, China’s consumer performance, represented by the total retail sales of consumer goods, has been consistently weak. The growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai has been even weaker.
According to data previously released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China and the statistical bureaus of Beijing and Shanghai, in several months of 2024, the total retail sales of consumer goods showed a year-on-year decline, with November seeing a decline of over 10% in both cities. This phenomenon may be attributed to factors such as a decrease in residents’ purchasing power.