Finance Association, April 8 (Reporter Chen Kang) The “rejuvenation” of rice wine has had some results online. At the Huijishan (601579.SH) 2023 performance briefing held today, company director Jin Xuequan said that the “smoke once a day” sparkling rice wine launched by the company had sales of more than 4 million yuan on Douyin last year, striving to achieve a further breakthrough in sales this year.

Some investors claim that “new products such as sparkling rice wine cannot be purchased at offline channels such as supermarkets and convenience stores.” Yang Gang, general manager of the company, responded, “In the early stages, sparkling rice wine laid out a comprehensive e-commerce circuit, and in the future, a viable plan for offline channel expansion will be considered.” In other words, the new category will focus on online channels for the time being.

In August of last year, “One Smoked a Day” sparkling rice wine appeared on the live broadcast of the official Douyin flagship store in Huijishan. The prices for 12 and 24 bottles were 159 yuan and 259 yuan, respectively.

The company believes that online sales will help the company's nationwide market expansion and consumer cultivation efforts, and that sparkling rice wine will expand e-commerce cooperation methods in the early stages in order to break the rice wine category. In the annual report, the company also mentioned turning the e-commerce business into a strong fulcrum for the company's business growth.

Huijishan's nationwide market expansion is still in its early stages in 2023. Regional markets other than Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai (excluding international markets) account for only 7.93% of sales revenue, while Guyue Longshan (600059.SH)'s share of sales revenue in markets other than Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai (excluding international markets) increased to 38.35% in 2023, an increase of 1.4 percentage points over the previous year.

Online e-commerce channels are an effective way for rice wine to break through the limitations of the Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai regions, and traditional rice wine sales during the off-peak season. Judging from the 2023 performance of the three A-share rice wine listed companies, the contribution of online channels is becoming more and more prominent. Huijishan's 2023 high-end rice wine achieved sales revenue of 91.0987 million yuan on online sales platforms such as online stores, WeChat stores, WeChat and Alipay applets, etc.; Guyue Longshan's online sales revenue for high-end wine and regular wine in 2023 increased 48.61% year-on-year, with a gross profit margin of 48.93%; Jinfeng Liquor (600616.SH) achieved a 2.99% year-on-year increase in sales revenue for high-end wine in online stores in 2023.

Last year, Huijishan participated in joint funding to establish an industrial investment fund. The company invested 44.5 million yuan into the fund, accounting for 89% of the fund size. Yang Gang said at the performance meeting that the fund focuses on rice wine projects and aims to promote the development of the company's main business.

The company indicated this year's main products and strategic direction to investors, including promoting Jishan 1743 on the basis of consolidating pure products for five years, developing 100 yuan leading products to expand new consumers; deploying high-end Lanting products in the high-end consumer market; and breaking through to youth and fashion in innovative products.