成本上升，毛利率下滑。2024 年前三季度，公司的营业成本同比增长28.85%，增幅较同期收入高出9.99 个百分点。相对收入而言，成本增加过多。我们认为，中高档白酒收入增长大幅放缓，导致生产的固定成本增加是成本上升的主要原因。由于成本相对上升，本期毛利率同比下降1.99 个百分点至74.27%，是2020 年以来的首次下滑。Key investment points:
Revenue growth has slowed quite a bit. In the third quarter of 2024, the company achieved revenue of 2.636 billion yuan, an increase of 10.12% over the previous year. The year-on-year increase narrowed by 17.92 and 11.4 percentage points, respectively.
In the first three quarters of 2024, the company achieved total revenue of 9.941 billion yuan, an increase of 18.86% over the previous year, and the increase was 9.49 percentage points narrower than the same period last year. In addition, cash from product sales in the third quarter decreased by 1.8% year over year. Since 2024, the company's revenue growth has slowed: judging from the medium-term situation, sales growth in the provincial and overseas markets fell 6.27 and 4.05 percentage points, respectively; furthermore, sales growth of Class A and Class A liquor fell 10.81 and 14.02 percentage points, respectively, and sales growth of high-end liquor slowed a lot.
Costs are rising and gross margins are falling. In the first three quarters of 2024, the company's operating costs increased by 28.85% year-on-year, 9.99 percentage points higher than revenue during the same period. Costs have increased too much in relation to revenue. We believe that the sharp slowdown in revenue growth for high-end liquor has led to an increase in fixed costs of production, which is the main reason for the increase in costs. Due to the relative rise in costs, gross margin for the current period fell 1.99 percentage points year over year to 74.27%, the first decline since 2020.
Costs have been reduced, and sales investment has been reduced. In the first three quarters of 2024, the company's sales expenses increased by 3.36% year on year, which is lower than the revenue growth for the same period; the sales expenses ratio decreased 2.3 percentage points year on year to 15.35%. The relative decline in sales investment is a reflection of operators' expectations about the market outlook.
Investment advice: We forecast the company's earnings per share for 2024, 2025, and 2026 to be 2.8, 3.16, and 3.54 yuan, respectively. Referring to the closing price of 47.56 yuan on December 5, the corresponding price-earnings ratios were 16.97, 15.06, and 13.44 times, respectively, and downgraded the company's rating to “prudent increase in holdings.”
Risk warning: Liquor consumption is highly correlated with the macroeconomy. During the economic downturn, the growth trend of the liquor market narrows or even shows negative growth.
