Guizhou Maotai Liquor Co., Ltd. (Maotai) reported a net profit attributable to shareholders of 45.403 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, up by 8.89% year on year. Despite the increase in net profit, this marks the first time in nearly a decade that Maotai’s performance has shown single-digit growth.
On August 13th, Maotai released its “2025 Interim Report”. The report revealed that in the first half of 2025, Maotai’s operating income was 89.389 billion yuan, an increase of 9.10% year on year, while the net profit attributable to shareholders was 45.403 billion yuan, an increase of 8.89% year on year. This signals the first time in nearly a decade that Maotai’s performance has shown single-digit growth, indicating that while Maotai’s scale has increased, its growth rate has slowed.
According to a report by Hexun Real Estate on August 14th, Maotai’s semi-annual reports over the past six years showed that in the first half of 2020 during the initial outbreak of the pandemic, the company achieved operating income of 43.953 billion yuan, an increase of 11.31% year on year, with subsequent performance growth rates consistently remaining above 10%. In the first half of 2023, the performance increased by 20.76% year on year, and in 2024, it also maintained growth of over 17%.
However, in the first half of 2025, the growth rate slowed to around 9%, indicating that Maotai’s performance growth speed is even lower than during the pandemic period. At the same time, data shows that Maotai’s net profit in the second quarter was 18.540 billion yuan, up by 5.23% year on year, indicating a significant decrease in performance growth in the second quarter.
Furthermore, as of the first half of this year, Maotai’s contractual liabilities amounted to 5.507 billion yuan, a decrease of 42.59% compared to the same period in 2024. Contractual liabilities are often seen as the “reservoir” of liquor enterprises. The industry generally adopts a “payment before delivery” model, where distributors need to pay in advance, and once the liquor company receives the payment, it is recorded as “contractual liabilities”. A larger contractual liability indicates a higher level of distributor payment enthusiasm, reflecting the confidence of channels in liquor enterprises’ products and optimistic future sales expectations, otherwise the opposite.
The impact of the “Regulations on Thrift and Anti-Waste of Party and Government Agencies” issued in May cannot be underestimated. In the first quarter before the issuance of the regulation, Maotai’s total revenue was 51.443 billion, an increase of 11.07% year on year, operating income was 50.6 billion, an increase of 10.54%, and net profit was 26.847 billion, an increase of 11.56%.
In the second quarter, Maotai’s total revenue was 39.65 billion yuan, an increase of 7.26%; operating income was 32.033 billion, up 10.99%; and net profit was 18.54 billion, up 5.23%. The impact of the off-season for liquor sales and alcohol bans has also led to a significant decrease in performance growth in the second quarter.
It’s not just Maotai; the performance of other Chinese liquor companies has also plummeted significantly. According to a report by Gelonghui on August 13th, in the second quarter, several liquor companies are expected to see a significant decline in net profit or even losses in the first half of the year. Among them, Huan Tai Liquor Industry is expected to incur a net loss of between 4.5 million yuan and 6.5 million yuan in the first half of the year, with a 52.73 million yuan to 252.73 million yuan increase in losses compared to the same period last year; Jiugui Liquor anticipates achieving a net profit of 8 million to 12 million yuan in the first half of the year, a drop of 90.08% to 93.39% year on year, already on the brink of losses; and Jinzongzi Liquor expects a net loss of 60 million to 90 million yuan in the first half of the year, a decrease of 910.96% to 640.64% year on year.
According to the “2025 China Liquor Market Mid-term Research Report” jointly released by the China National Association of Liquor and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the liquor industry is currently undergoing a period of deep adjustment with the convergence of the three stages of “policy adjustment, consumption structure transformation, and stock competition”. Consumer scenarios and pricing systems are facing restructuring challenges.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China shows that from January to June, the cumulative output of large-scale liquor enterprises in China was 1.916 million kiloliters, a decrease of 5.8% year on year. In the stock market, the liquor sector has been declining for two consecutive months.
Industry experts have analyzed that, as a basic consumer goods, the liquor industry exhibits clear cyclical characteristics. This round of adjustments is not driven by a single factor but by a combination of factors such as declining purchasing power, high production capacity, and inventory. It will take at least two years to digest the inventory and eliminate a batch of liquor enterprises with insufficient competitiveness.