Institutions: The current Baijiu industry is in a stage of structural bottoming out.

Open-source Securities believes that the current liquor (baijiu) industry is in a structural bottoming-out phase, with clear differentiation across price tiers, and that the industry as a whole remains in a “strong at both ends, weak in the middle” pattern. With the effect of a low base in 2025, together with the gradual drawdown of channel inventories, it is expected that in the second half of 2026 the liquor industry overall will have the potential to stabilize, and marginal improvements will gradually become evident. The liquor industry will continue to adhere to the principle of certainty.

Oriental Securities believes that industry-wide clearing is accelerating, but it is not uniform in nature. The industry still broadly agrees on “pressure on the demand side in the first half of 2026.” Given the base effects, the broader industry is relatively optimistic about the second half of 2026. At the same time, considering that prices are still in a period of bottoming out, channels generally adopt conservative cooperation strategies, with resources continuing to concentrate on leading single products and leading brands. At the corporate level, currently all liquor companies have completed the shift in their operating philosophies—from “performance-only” to “relative ranking.” However, clearing is still not uniform: second- and third-tier liquor companies generally have entered the low-base period, while leading liquor companies have not yet adjusted sufficiently on the apparent and channel fronts, and in the first half of 2026 they will still face substantial inventory reduction pressure.