/PRZWT/BEIJING, March 21, 2024 - Since the liberalization of epidemic control, China's overall market environment has been steadily improving, and the beer market has gradually recovered. As a leading domestic beer brand, China Resources Beer recently released its financial report for 2023, achieving operating income of 38.932 billion yuan, an increase of 10.4% from 2022. Net profit of 5.153 billion yuan, an increase of 18.6% year-on-year.
During the reporting period, China Resources Beer continued to promote the "decisive high-end" strategy, and continued to cultivate and promote key high-end brands through various theme promotion and channel marketing activities. The sales volume of sub-high-end and above beers was about 2.50 million thousand liters, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of "Heineken ®", "Snowflake Junsheng", "Lao Xue" and "Red Jue" all achieved rapid double-digit growth year-on-year. At the same time, the product structure of China Resources Beer continued to improve, driving the overall average sales price to increase by 4.0% year-on-year. In addition, China Resources Beer continues to actively expand more regions and end point sales, and with the help of the Champions League event, launched the Champions League theme marketing campaign, and launched the first high-end non-alcoholic beer "Heineken ® 0.0" new products, driving Heineken ® brand beer sales in 2023 to achieve a strong growth of nearly 60.0% year-on-year, successfully achieving the first five-year plan of China Resources Beer and Heineken ® cooperation - Heineken ® brand beer sales to achieve 600,000 thousand liters.
The continued high-end development has led to an increase in overall beer sales and turnover, while some packaging costs have declined, causing the gross profit margin of the beer business to increase by 1.7 percentage points to 40.2% in 2023 compared with last year, further enhancing profitability.
In terms of the future development of the beer business, China Resources Beer said that it will continue to deepen the growth of high-end business, consolidate the business and scale of mid-range and other segments, invest in brand, product, channel and marketing, and explore opportunities in challenges. It will continue to deepen the secondary transformation of the organization, improve management performance, further consolidate the high-end competitive advantage, and continue to lead the development of Chinese beer in the global beer industry, becoming a more leading and influential force.
