CITIC Securities: Accelerated Clearing in Liquor Industry, Beer Expected to Benefit from Peak Season Catalysis.

CITIC Securities research report believes that the bottom of the liquor industry has arrived, with top liquor enterprises accelerating clearance of inventory, price stabilization, proactive supply contraction, improvement in channel ecology, low market expectations and other bottom characteristics gradually emerging. Since the beginning of this year, positive signals at the macro level have been gradually accumulating from multiple dimensions. The overall year-on-year decline in liquor industry sales has narrowed to a certain extent. If future demand gradually stabilizes, considering the base effect in 2025, it is expected that the performance of liquor companies will improve to a certain extent starting from the second quarter of 2026. Although the timing and pace of domestic demand recovery is difficult to predict, the long-term trend is clear. Considering that the bottom of the liquor industry has arrived and top liquor companies are continuously improving shareholder returns through increased dividends, buybacks, and shareholdings, they provide a good investment safety margin. CITIC Securities continues to recommend allocation to top liquor companies. As for beer, CITIC Securities predicts that the beer industry will experience a moderate recovery trend in 2026. Looking forward to the entire year of 2026, it is expected that with the peak season approaching, the beer sector will experience a certain degree of catalysis, with industry players maintaining inventory pace, continually promoting product structure optimization, and industry prices may stabilize and gradually recover.