Moutai Revenue Rises 3.08% to 40.267 Billion Yuan in Third Quarter
Key Facts
Kweichow Moutai reported revenue of 40.267 billion yuan for the three months ended September 30, 2026, up 3.08% year on year, while net profit attributable to the company’s shareholders rose 3.78% to 19.951 billion yuan. The quarterly results showed both measures returning to growth after contracting in the second quarter. Profit excluding non-recurring items was 19.861 billion yuan, up 2.96% from the same period. The company released its results in its third-quarter report, which covers the period through September 30. The figures show an improved quarter, but on their own do not mean that demand for premium beverages or Chinese consumption more broadly has recovered.
In the second quarter of 2026, Moutai revenue fell 5.2% to 37.6 billion yuan and net profit declined 6% to 17.2 billion yuan, according to a Reuters report published on Reddit. Compared with that quarter, revenue rose in the third quarter, and its year-on-year rate of change shifted from contraction to growth. The nine-month results nevertheless show that revenue growth has not yet translated into similar profit growth. Revenue from the start of the year through the end of September was 130.971 billion yuan, up 1.96% year on year. Net profit attributable to shareholders was 64.467 billion yuan, down 0.25% from the same period a year earlier.
The company describes the market as undergoing a deep adjustment. In a statement on its first-half results published on August 21, 2026, it said the sector was undergoing a deep adjustment and consumer demand had been weak at the end of 2025. In the same statement, Moutai said it began a marketing reform in early 2026 that puts consumers and demand at its center. The changes it cited included the product structure, pricing, business model, channels and supply-chain organization. The company said it would continue adapting its measures to market conditions and improving a system that matches supply and demand for its core Moutai products and other products. This context places third-quarter growth within the company’s efforts to manage its business in a changing market, without proving that the recovery has spread across the sector as a whole.
The sales breakdown reported for the nine months shows the role of different channels and products in revenue. Direct sales totaled 73.774 billion yuan, compared with 57.120 billion yuan in sales through wholesale agents. Beverage sales through the digital i Moutai platform were 58.562 billion yuan, before value-added tax. By product, Moutai’s core beverage generated 112.925 billion yuan in main business revenue during the period, while revenue from series beverages was 17.969 billion yuan. These figures show the revenue mix between the core product and other products, as well as between direct sales, sales through agents and the digital platform.
The company made changes to its domestic distributor network during the year. It had 2,285 distributors at the end of September, after adding 220 and removing 288 since the start of the year. Moutai said domestic changes in distributor numbers during the period were focused mainly on distributors of its series products. These steps came alongside the marketing reform, which the company said responds to market conditions and includes distribution channels and the product structure. The company also said its net profit margin in the first half was 49.89%, describing it as within a reasonable range. These indicators alone do not detail the effect of distributor-network changes on quarterly sales, but they illustrate some of the operational measures the group announced.
The fourth-quarter results and 2026 annual report are the next milestones for assessing the course of revenue and profit after the figures reported through September 30. In its August statement, the company said it would adjust its marketing measures according to market conditions while continuing to work on matching supply and demand for its core products and series products. The annual results will allow comparison of performance in the final months of the year with the nine-month trend, which combined higher revenue with a slight decline in profit attributable to shareholders. Until those results are released, the data in the current report remain limited to the period ended September 30, 2026. The report provided here did not include a specific date for publication of the annual report.