China Resources Beer has announced its 2025 financial results, revealing a continued decline in both revenue and net profit. Net profit fell by nearly 30%, while the company's liquor business recorded a net loss of 3.354 billion yuan.
Board Chairman Zhao Chunwu responded to the performance for the first time, stating that the liquor industry is currently facing unprecedented challenges, with significant market volatility that is difficult to predict. He emphasized that it is still too early to question or consider adjusting the company’s strategy after only three years.
China Resources Beer’s liquor portfolio includes Jingzhi, Jinzhongzi, and Jinsha distilleries. A source close to Jinsha Liquor revealed that to boost performance, the company is restructuring its approach. This year, it will focus on developing several key regional markets, including Yichang in Hubei province, each with independent operational teams and adequate resource allocation. At the same time, Jinsha will abandon its nationwide expansion strategy and instead prioritize cultivating regional markets step by step.
As the only liquor subsidiary fully consolidated into the group’s financial statements, Jinsha has also attracted the personal involvement of Chairman Zhao Chunwu in product quality improvements. Its premium soy-sauce aroma liquor, "Summary," aims to match the quality benchmarks of products such as Moutai 1935, Qinghualang, and Junpin Xijiu.
This marks the second consecutive year of decline in both revenue and net profit for China Resources Beer. In 2025, the company reported revenue of 37.985 billion yuan, down 1.68% year-on-year, while net profit dropped 28.87% to 3.371 billion yuan. Although the decline in revenue moderated slightly compared to the previous year, net profit accelerated at a double-digit rate.
In its core beer business, revenue remained largely stable at 36.489 billion yuan. Beer sales volume reached 11.03 million kiloliters, up 1.4% year-on-year. Sales of premium and super-premium beer products grew at a mid-to-high single-digit rate, accounting for nearly 25% of total sales volume. Meanwhile, mainstream and above beer sales increased by close to 10 percentage points.
Regionally, performance varied significantly. While the eastern and southern regions saw slight revenue growth of 0.5%, the central region experienced a 1.4% decline.
During the earnings conference, Chairman Zhao Chunwu noted that the premiumization trend in China’s beer market remains intact. He pointed out that although high-end product sales have not declined across listed beer companies, the premiumization process is entering a new phase. The market structure is shifting from a traditional pyramid model to a more balanced development pattern, consistent with trends previously observed in Japanese and Korean markets. Based on those experiences, he projected that beer premiumization in China will continue over the next five years.
In contrast to the stable beer performance, the liquor segment became a major drag on earnings. Liquor revenue fell sharply by 30.77% to 1.496 billion yuan in 2025, while the segment swung from a net profit of 121 million yuan in 2024 to a net loss of 3.354 billion yuan.
Between 2021 and 2023, China Resources Beer acquired Jingzhi, Jinzhongzi, and Jinsha, aiming to build a dual-engine strategy combining beer and liquor. However, industry observers note that this strategy has faced significant challenges.
First, Jingzhi’s annual revenue remains below 1 billion yuan. Despite being the first liquor company acquired by China Resources in 2021, it has not publicly disclosed specific revenue figures in the past four years.
Second, Jinzhongzi has accumulated losses totaling 467 million yuan since 2022. Despite management changes led by China Resources executives, the company continued to report losses, leading to the resignation of General Manager He Xiuxia in July last year.
Third, Jinsha Liquor, the largest acquisition in the liquor segment, saw revenue plunge over 30% year-on-year in 2025, falling far short of its earlier goal of reaching 10 billion yuan in three years.
According to a source, Jinsha is adjusting its strategy by focusing on key regional markets and abandoning its nationwide expansion approach. Although the company has long aimed to build a dual-brand strategy centered on "Summary" and "Jinsha Huisha," it has yet to achieve success. Chairman Zhao Chunwu is now personally overseeing product quality upgrades for Jinsha.
Zhao, who officially took over as chairman in September last year, addressed doubts about the "beer + liquor" strategy during the earnings conference. He acknowledged the severe challenges facing the liquor industry but defended the company’s limited diversification into白酒. Compared to other alcoholic beverages like wine or whiskey, he argued,白酒 remains a relatively sound choice.
He emphasized that while China Resources has over three decades of experience in beer, its foray into白酒 is only three years old. It is premature, he insisted, to judge or alter the strategy based on such a short timeframe, especially amid industry-wide fluctuations.
Industry analyst Zhu Danpeng commented that China’s liquor industry entered a adjustment phase starting in 2024. He suggested that China Resources entered the market too late to capitalize on earlier growth opportunities, making current losses inevitable.
Another白酒 expert, Cai Xuefei, described the "beer + liquor" strategy as facing a gap between ambition and reality. While the idea of leveraging beer distribution networks and seasonal sales patterns seemed logical in theory, in practice, the operational differences between beer—characterized by frequent, low-value transactions—and liquor, which relies heavily on brand building and social gifting, have proven difficult to bridge. He noted that brands like Jinsha and Jinzhongzi also face challenges such as high inventory, price inversion, and stalled national expansion.
However, Cai also pointed out that China Resources is not giving up. Instead, it is evolving its approach from simple channel integration to deeper resource coordination, including exploring synergies with China Resources Mixc Lifestyle commercial properties. This "beer + liquor + commercial" model may help白酒 brands access high-end enclosed channels. With further organizational and strategic refinement, Cai expressed optimism that performance may gradually improve, supporting brand repositioning and market recovery.
Comments