Moutai sees 100m yuan wine sales
Kwei Chow Moutai Distillery Group, famed for its biting Moutai spirit, said its wine sales would reach 100 million yuan by next year.
The alcohol giant last year sold 2,300 tonnes of wine worth 40 million yuan. The company began producing wine in 2002.
Moutai was a 'one industry, but multiple businesses' type of company, said Huang Wei, the group's general manager in Hong Kong.
'We want to offer a full range of alcohol products.'
Mr Huang said wine accounted for a mere 3 per cent of company sales, but the business, which offered profit margins of 50 to 60 per cent, was enormously promising.
With per capita consumption of just 500 millilitres, compared with 7.5 litres per person in developed markets, room for expansion was huge, he said.
Chinese winemakers including Dynasty, Changyu and Great Wall last year produced a combined 400,000 tonnes.
Moutai expects to sell 3,000 tonnes of wine this year, or 30 per cent more than last year's output. Of that volume, 500 tonnes will be exported to markets such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
The company's Moutai baijiu, or white spirit, accounts for 95 per cent of sales and profits. Mr Huang said profit margins for the drink, with an alcohol content of between 38 and 53 per cent, was almost 100 per cent.
Last year, Moutai's sales rose 28.29 per cent to 2.68 billion yuan, compared with 2.09 billion yuan in 2003.
Net profit jumped 39.84 per cent to 820.55 million yuan.
