Jinzhongzi, an Anhui-born baijiu maker once counted among the province’s “four flowers” of liquor, has signalled another year of losses, underscoring how hard China’s mid-tier spirit makers are finding it to survive a sector-wide correction. On January 28 the listed company warned that 2025 net profit attributable to shareholders will be negative ¥150–190 million, marking the fifth consecutive year of losses since 2021 and extending a multi-year decline that has erased much of the company’s earlier momentum.
The company attributed the setback to a deep, ongoing industry adjustment: shrinking volumes, faster channel disruption and continued pressure on sales. Jinzhongzi said it had reworked its business and expense models and invested in consumer development, but those efforts were not enough to return the business to profit in a year when demand and distribution in the low- to mid-price bands have been especially weak.
Underlying the headline figures is a blunt picture of where the business stands. In the first three quarters of 2025 Jinzhongzi’s baijiu revenue totalled ¥512 million, of which low-end bottles priced at ¥100 or less accounted for ¥330 million (64%), mid-range product for ¥131 million (26%) and premium bottles above ¥500 generated only about ¥51 million. The company remains overwhelmingly provincial: 81.8% of sales came from Anhui and less than ¥100 million from outside the home province.
That geographic and price-concentration helps explain why Jinzhongzi has been squeezed from both directions. National heavyweights and peer distillers such as Yanghe, Shuanggou and Gujinggong have expanded into Anhui, while local rivals including Gujinggong, Yingjia Gong and Kouzijiao have tightened their hold, leaving Jinzhongzi largely restricted to Fuyang and surrounding counties. The brand’s failure to scale mid- and high-end sales has left it exposed as consumers trade down or consolidate purchases around better-known names.
Jinzhongzi’s struggles also highlight the limits of mixed-ownership reform as a cure-all. In 2022 Fuyang Investment transferred a 49% stake in Jinzhongzi Group to state investor China Resources, which installed a number of managers and assumed operational control of the listed unit. Yet the hoped-for turnaround did not materialise. The company slipped into deeper losses under the China Resources management team, and in July 2025 the general manager, He Xiuxia — who had been in charge of operations for roughly three years — abruptly resigned.
The leadership vacuum has persisted. Vice president Liu Fubi is acting as interim general manager, but six months on the top executive seat remains formally vacant. For investors and industry watchers, the unanswered question is not just whether Jinzhongzi can return to profit but who will be trusted to steer a turnaround and whether China Resources will commit more capital, restructure the brand or pursue alternative strategies such as partnership, merger or asset disposal.
Jinzhongzi’s decline is striking against its history. The brand traces its distilling roots back more than five centuries and was a listed pioneer in Anhui — its predecessor company listed in 1998 and refocused on liquor after a near-delisting in the early 2000s. Between 2006 and 2012 the company grew rapidly, peaking in 2012 with ¥22.9 billion in revenue and a ¥561 million net profit. But it missed the industry’s later premiumisation and national expansion waves, and incremental product and channel changes since 2019 have failed to restore momentum.
What this episode signifies for the wider industry is twofold. First, the baijiu market is no longer a guaranteed growth story for regional names that lack a coherent premium strategy and national distribution. Second, state-backed investors stepping in via mixed-ownership reform — as with China Resources — face hard choices: allow a slow retrenchment to a regional niche, double down with fresh investment and a decisive management change, or seek exits that may crystallise losses. For Jinzhongzi, the next moves by management and its major shareholders will determine whether the company stabilises as a provincial player or continues its drift toward deeper consolidation or potential restructuring.