Financial Services Association, October 25 (Reporter Zhu Wanping) The three-quarter results announced by Kweichow Moutai (600519.SH) tonight are basically in line with expectations, and the revenue growth rate has also exceeded full-year guidelines. However, the interim dividend matters that investors are concerned about and when to hold a shareholders' meeting to consider share repurchases are still uncertain.

According to the announcement, in the first three quarters of this year, Kweichow Moutai achieved operating income of 120.776 billion yuan, an increase of 16.95% over the previous year; net profit to mother was 60.828 billion yuan, an increase of 15.04% over the previous year.

Previously, Kweichow Moutai's business target for this year was a year-on-year increase in revenue of about 15%.

(Photo by Finance Association reporter Zhu Wanping at the Kweichow Moutai booth)

On a quarterly basis, Kweichow Moutai's revenue in Q3 this year was 39.671 billion yuan, up 15.56% year on year; net profit to mother was 19.132 billion yuan, up 13.23% year on year. This is basically in line with the expectations of major brokerage firms.

According to statistics from the Financial Federation reporter, a total of 13 brokerage firms, including Zheshang Securities, Guotai Junan, China Merchants Securities, GF Securities, and Huachuang Securities, have predicted Kweichow Moutai's Q3 net profit. It is generally expected that Q3 net profit will increase by 12%-16% year on year.

By product, in the first three quarters of this year, Maotai liquor achieved revenue of 101.126 billion yuan, up 15.88% year on year. Maotai series wine achieved revenue of 19.393 billion yuan, an increase of 24.36% year on year. The growth rate of Maotai series wine exceeded the company's overall revenue growth rate, and the share of Maotai series wine in revenue also increased to about 16.1%.

By channel, Kweichow Moutai's direct sales channel (note: self-operated and “iMoutai” e-commerce platform) achieved revenue of 51.989 billion yuan in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of 12.51% over the previous year, while the wholesale agency channel achieved revenue of 68.529 billion yuan, an increase of 20.96% over the previous year. The share of direct sales channels declined slightly.

The decline in the share of direct sales is related to the poor performance of the company's direct sales platform “i Maotai”.

Financial reports show that in the first three quarters of this year, iMaotai achieved income of 14.766 billion yuan without tax on alcohol, a slight decrease over the previous year. However, iMaotai's sales did not increase but declined, which dragged down the company's overall direct sales channel growth performance.

Why is iMaotai experiencing negative growth? This is mainly related to the continued decline in the prices of Kweichow Moutai's main products against the backdrop of weak consumption. Take the Year of the Dragon Maotai Zodiac Liquor (53 degrees 500ml) as an example. In the third quarter of this year, the wholesale reference price of Dragon Mao continued to drop, basically approaching the guide price of 2,499 yuan/bottle. Meanwhile, as prices continue to drop, “scalpers” in many parts of the country say they are no longer recycling “dragon mao.” Currently, the wholesale reference price of Longmao is about 2,500 yuan/bottle, and there is almost no market premium. These have all curtailed speculative demand on iMaotai.

Another example is Maotai 1935 (53 degrees 500 ml), which sold over 10 billion dollars last year. It is still sold on iMaotai according to the official guide price of 1,188 yuan/bottle. However, the price of Maotai 1935 on e-commerce platforms such as Pinduoduo is less than 710 yuan/bottle, which is seriously “inverse” with the official guide price. “Even considering the factory price, currently being a Maotai 1935 dealer is hardly profitable.” A Maotai series dealer revealed to the Financial Federation reporter.

In addition to Maotai's third quarterly results, investors are currently paying considerable attention to two other matters in Kweichow Moutai. The first is the matter of interim dividends; the second is when to hold an extraordinary shareholders' meeting to consider the share repurchase plan. In August of this year, when announcing its mid-term earnings report, Kweichow Moutai made it clear to the outside world for the next three years that total annual cash dividends will not be less than 75% of the net profit returned to mother for that year, and will pay annual and mid-term dividends twice a year. Since this year, hundreds of A-share companies have announced their mid-term dividend plans. The details of Kweichow Moutai's mid-term dividend plan have attracted much attention.

Meanwhile, on September 21 of this year, Kweichow Moutai announced that it plans to use its own funds to repurchase shares through centralized bidding transactions, to cancel and reduce registered capital. The repurchase price will not exceed 1795.78 yuan/share (inclusive), and the repurchase amount is 3 billion yuan (inclusive) to -6 billion yuan. The above repurchase matters need to be reviewed and approved by the shareholders' meeting before implementation. Now that more than a month has passed, Kweichow Moutai still hasn't decided when to hold a shareholders' meeting to consider the above matters. This also means that Kweichow Moutai's first repurchase in 23 years since its listing is still uncertain when it will finally be implemented.

As far as the capital market is concerned, another focus of attention is on Kweichow Moutai's performance guidelines next year. In the current context of weak consumption, will Kweichow Moutai's business goals slow down next year? If you slow down, to what extent will it be reduced? “We expect Kweichow Moutai's performance growth guide to 2025 may be lowered slightly.” A food and beverage analyst, who asked not to be named, told the Financial Services Association reporter.

Since this year, Kweichow Moutai's stock price has dropped by around 8%. At a time when the overall stock price was weakening, Kweichow Moutai held several institutional investor exchanges during the year, and the company management also shouted to the outside world many times: Maotai is an adherent of quality. It has deep roots and can withstand the droughts and ups and downs of the market, and called on investors to have firm confidence in Maotai's development.