Jinzhongzi, once one of Anhui’s celebrated baijiu brands, is slipping further into distress as the company forecast another annual loss for 2025. On January 28 the listed unit disclosed an expected net loss attributable to shareholders of between RMB 150 million and RMB 190 million, marking the fifth consecutive year of negative net profit since 2021.
The figures expose structural weaknesses: in the first three quarters of 2025 the firm’s liquor division recorded just RMB 512 million in revenue, with low-end products (≤RMB100 per bottle) accounting for RMB 330 million or 64.5% of that total. Mid- and high-end segments remain marginal, contributing RMB 131 million (25.6%) and RMB 51.3 million (10%) respectively, leaving Jinzhongzi trapped between declining mass-market volumes and an inability to break into premium channels.
Geography compounds the problem. The company still draws more than four-fifths of its sales from Anhui Province—RMB 419 million or 81.8% in the first three quarters—while out-of-province revenues remain under RMB 100 million. That narrow footprint has left Jinzhongzi hemmed in by larger domestic rivals such as Gujinggong, Yingjia and Kouzijiao, which have expanded both within and beyond Anhui.
Jinzhongzi’s troubles are also managerial. In July 2025 the company’s general manager, who had run operations for nearly three years following a 2022 mixed-ownership deal, abruptly resigned. The position has been vacant since, with a deputy acting in the role—an unresolved leadership question that investors have treated with weary resignation during an industry downturn.
The firm’s decline is partly historical. Jinzhongzi has deep local roots in Fuyang and a fermentation tradition stretching back centuries, and the business once grew rapidly after refocusing on spirits in the mid-2000s. Revenue peaked in the early 2010s, but the company failed to execute the nationwide premiumisation and brand-building strategies that propelled other Chinese baijiu makers.
A 2022 mixed-ownership reform brought China Resources in as a 49% shareholder of the parent group and led to a wave of management changes and new investment. Yet those interventions have not reversed the slide. Management changes, heavy investments in consumer cultivation and channel restructuring produced only partial gains in 2025, and continuing industry-wide contraction and shifting distribution dynamics kept the company loss-making.
Why this matters extends beyond one provincial brand. Jinzhongzi’s plight underscores broader pressures across China’s liquor market: slower consumption, channel disruption, rapid premiumisation that leaves low-end reliant brands exposed, and the limits of state-backed restructuring in delivering quick turnarounds. For investors and policymakers, the company’s path forward—whether a sharper shift upmarket, deeper cost rationalisation, renewed geographic expansion, or further consolidation—will be an indicator of how mid-tier regional spirits brands can survive China’s consolidating beverage landscape.