In 2025, Shede Wine Industry, as one of the six golden flowers in Sichuan, set its worst profit growth rate in the past decade. According to the latest financial report, Shede's revenue fell by 24.41% year-on-year in 2024, and the net profit attributable to shareholders plummeted by 80.46%; the performance in the first quarter of 2025 continued to deteriorate, with revenue falling by 25.14% and net profit falling by 37.10%.
But with the release of the 2025 semi-annual report, Shede Wine Industry's revenue in the first half of the year was 2.701 billion yuan, and its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 443 million yuan. Among them, the performance was outstanding in the second quarter: revenue was 1.125 billion yuan, basically the same year-on-year, and the decline was significantly narrowed from the first quarter; net profit attributable to shareholders was 97.17 million yuan, a significant increase of 139.5% year-on-year.
1. Be willing to use "old wine" to create an era
In the territory of Chinese liquor, Shede wine industry has risen rapidly at an astonishing speed. From 2019 to 2023, this Sichuan liquor "Jinhua" achieved a leap from 2.65 billion yuan to 7.081 billion yuan, with an increase of 167.2%, and is recognized by the industry as the strongest reserve force of the "10 billion club".
The secret to its success is to be able to open up a differentiated track with its unique "old wine strategy".
Time returns to 2019-2023, when it is the peak period of "sauce wine fever", and all the concepts about "old wine" and "vintage wine" are almost monopolized by the sauce-flavored category. Shede Wine Industry, as a representative of strong fragrance, took the lead in launching the "old wine strategy", successfully providing an excellent choice for consumers who prefer strong flavor but pursue the quality of old wine, and opened up their own blue ocean from the fanatical wave of sauce wine.
In addition, the success of the "old wine strategy" is naturally inseparable from the support of real old wine resources. At that time, Shede Wine Industry had hundreds of thousands of tons of old wine reserves, which was the confidence that it dared to propose this strategy in the market. This makes its advertising slogan not empty talk, but well-documented hard power.
It is understandable that you are willing to use the powerful tool of "old wine" to create an era!
2. Be willing to give up, and are facing the "three-fold dilemma"
Success is Xiao He, failure is Xiao He.
In 2024, Shede Wine Industry suffered a "Waterloo", and both revenue and profits declined sharply. Although the liquor industry is facing pressure from cyclical adjustments and weak consumption, and most liquor companies have declined to varying degrees, the problems it exposes are far more than the impact of the overall environment, and reflect the deeper strategic dilemma behind it.
First, the foundation of the "old wine" strategy was shaken.
The "Old Wine Strategy" was once the core engine that pushed Shede to the peak, but there was a fundamental contradiction between "quantity" and "quality".
"Every bottle is an old wine" is willing to promise value and quality to consumers. It is an advantage when the company is small, but it becomes a shackle when it reaches the goal of 10 billion. Because the resources of old wine are limited and scarce, it requires time to accumulate for a long time. However, in order to meet the sales demand brought by rapid growth, Shede will inevitably face two choices: either lower the mixing standards of "old wine" or overdraw the future old wine reserves. No matter which option is eroding the integrity foundation of the brand strategy.
In particular, market and research institutions have repeatedly questioned their old wine reserves: "Can the old wine reserves of Shede support Shede's sales?", and the market's trust crisis followed one after another. When consumers begin to doubt that "every bottle is old wine", there is a crack in the value building of the entire brand.
More key is:More key is:Old wine is a concept that is difficult to quantify in both "year" and "perception". Just like all Maotai Town sauce wines have begun to gain relatives with Maotai, the value of Maotai Town sauce wines will inevitably be rapidly weakened, and the sauce flavor heat will inevitably fade.
Old wine is also difficult to falsify. When Yanghe Mengzhilan handicraft class produces a "real year", when almost all wine companies start telling the story of "old wine", the uniqueness of the Shede Lao wine strategy will inevitably disappear. In terms of brand power and product price, Shide cannot compete with giants such as Moutai and Wuliangye, and must be squeezed by local wine companies on the battlefield of "cost-performance ratio". Like other second-tier old famous wines, she has been in awkward middle ground.
After years of white wine education,After years of white wine education,"Old wine does not equal the best wine" has become the rational perception of more and more consumers. In this process, Shede failed to continuously inject new value into the "old wine strategy", resulting in the continuous dilution of this core strategic competitiveness.
Secondly, the brand strategy is out of focus.
Shede culture itself is an extremely "empty" part of Chinese culture, and the old wine strategy represents the reality of the quality of Shide. The brand operation strategy focuses on strengthening the real existence of the Shede culture with the way of virtual and real, which should be the optimal solution to the Shede strategy.
But as we all know, Tuopai Quli Company has always pursued a multi-brand strategy in its operations, perhaps to "shede" In addition to "stood", the company has also launched brands such as "六", "六文", and "六文六" with the intention of creating a mid-to-high-end matrix. This multi-brand operation strategy not only disperses corporate resources, but also blurs the brand image, making it impossible for consumers to form a clear and stable understanding of "being willing to give up".
Third, management frequently replaces people.
Selling wine is like making friends with consumers. It runs a marathon and requires long-termism the most. However, after Fosun, an out-of-industry capital, has not been able to effectively avoid strategic myopia and has always lacked foresight and long-term strategy. This is first reflected in the frequent changes in Shede Wine Industry's executives.
It is understood that since the end of 2020, the executive team of Shede Company has undergone more than 20 personnel changes, and the position of chairman has seen a rare unstable situation of "three changes in two years". Behind the frequent personnel changes, it will inevitably affect the sustainability of corporate strategy execution.
More far-reaching impact is also reflected in the channel level. In order to pursue short-term performance, management once relied on the marketing model of pressing goods to channels, resulting in high social inventory and forming a "damstone lake"-like risk accumulation. Although this move briefly pushed up book performance, it seriously overdrawed channel confidence and brand value, laying the groundwork for future performance declines.
Shede Wine Industry's inventory data
The strategic greed of willingness to "need both scale, profit, and diversification" exposes the imbalance between management's long-term strategy and short-term interests. This lack of focus not only blurs Shede's brand awareness as a liquor company, but also shakes the market's confidence in its sustainable development.
3. Be really willing to give up and be more "free"
In the context of the current in-depth adjustment of the liquor industry, the possibility that Shede Wine Industry wants to rely on the "old wine strategy" to achieve continuous growth is slim.
Because Shede's "old wine strategy" and "dual brand strategy" models (Shede + Tuopai) aim to enhance brand value and profit margins through high-end. However, in the fierce market competition (especially with ultra-high-end brands such as Moutai, Wuliangye, and Guojiao 1573), Shede's high-end foundation is neither solid nor has sufficient differentiated competitiveness. Enterprises urgently need to re-examine the connection between brands and markets and find new breakthroughs.
In consumer decision-making, "brand trust" has always been the core driving force. If Shide wants to achieve real growth, it is necessary to continue to fulfill the brand commitment, reinterpret the brand values of "Shede" and build a deep trust bond with users.
For many years, Shede Wine Industry has always taken "Shede Wisdom" as the spiritual core of the brand, and has empowered culture to build a solid brand foundation. From "She De Wisdom Lecture Hall" to "She De Wisdom Characters", a series of IP-based content has allowed "She De" to transcend product logos and sublimate into a cultural symbol that carries the traditional philosophy of life. But this "wisdom" narrative has always anchored the "traditional business elite" and conveyed the achievement-oriented life philosophy of "giving small benefits to great causes, and giving up the present to the long-term".
However, the consumption map of liquor has undergone three profound changes: on the consumer subject, Z Generations and the new middle class have gradually become the backbone. They refuse to "pay for face" and pursue the true expression of their own feelings. In terms of consumption scenarios, the proportion of business banquets has gradually shrunk, and "non-utilitarian scenarios" such as small gatherings of friends, light drinking at home, and individual drinking alone have emerged, and the demand for wine has shifted from "displaying identity" to "adaptable"; in terms of consumption values, "anti-involved", "anti-PUA", and "anti-painted cake" have become high-frequency words of the times. When they drink bottles of large kilns, they must implement the AA system. You make them "be willing to give up" and "sacrifice the present to exchange for the future", and then feel very comfortable. Isn't this "nonsense" or what?
The "light burden, true freedom" attitude towards life is impossible to coexist harmoniously with the expert education of "giving first and getting later". The culture of giving up culture and free culture are in parallel, which is exactly inconsistent with the "achievement-oriented wisdom" that he has practiced for a long time.
Faced with this irreversible consumption migration, if the Shede brand still sticks to the original narrative, it will not only be difficult to reach the new main customer base, but may even be labeled as "old" due to the lag in values and eventually fade out of the mainstream market.
The real breakthrough point is to modernize the word "good" and reconstruct the meaning of the word "good" to complete the transition from utilitarian wisdom to life philosophy. Giving up should not only be the utilitarian wisdom of "giving up the small and getting the big", but can also evolve into a life philosophy about "choosing and freedom", a kind of values of giving up complexity and being simple; giving up anxiety and being calm; giving up personality and being able to obtain true self. Only by completely breaking out of the traditional elite discourse system and truly entering the public's emotional scene can you have the opportunity to transform into a truly resonant and warm contemporary brand.
Secondly, brands must achieve "integration of knowledge and action" in strategy and actions, and reconstruct brand trust with practical actions. The key to brand building lies in the consistency of brand commitment and actions. If you still cannot let go of your immediate short-term interests and continue to fall into the greedy dilemma of "neither want, but also want," and educate consumers in advertising to "be willing to let go". This way of saying and doing one set of things is not only difficult to build trust, but also makes consumers more disgusted.
Third is that the brand should be flexible in the face of market changes and dare to make subtractions. If the "old wine strategy" is still the cornerstone of the product, the company should decisively shrink its front line, focus all its resources on the old wine category, and resolutely abandon those businesses that distract energy, consume funds and deviate from the main channel.
The real challenge of Shede Wine Industry does not come from its competitors or market environment, but from its own path dependence and cognitive limitations. Only by actively giving up the old narrative, redundant business, short-term greed, truly embrace the emotions and values of the new generation of consumers, and reach an agreement between brand behavior and user expectations, can we overcome the gap and regain the momentum of growth.
