-- Wuliangye Yibin's (SHE:000858) first-quarter attributable profit surged 83% from the year-ago period on higher revenue despite surging sales costs.
The baijiu distillery logged an attributable profit of 8.06 billion yuan during the three months through March 31, higher than 4.42 billion yuan recorded in the year-ago period, according to an after-hours filing on Thursday.
The company also attributed the higher profit to a lower base in the year-ago period.
First-quarter profit nearly topped the profit recorded for the whole of 2025 at 8.95 billion yuan, down 72% from 31.9 billion yuan in the year-ago period.
Singapore-based investment intelligence platform Smartkarma estimated a net profit of 11.16 billion yuan.
Q1 earnings per share jumped 83% to 2.0772 yuan from 1.1378 yuan.
Wuliangye Yibin's revenue grew 34% to 22.8 billion yuan from 17.1 billion yuan in the prior-year period.
Total operating costs jumped 11% to 12.2 billion yuan from nearly 11 billion yuan a year earlier, the baijiu manufacturer said in its filing.
Sales costs surged 145% to 3.67 billion yuan from 1.49 billion yuan.
The jump could mean Wuliangye is either actively increasing channel development investment and brand promotion or subsidizing dealers facing pricing pressures, Futu said in its digital platform, Futubull.
Net cash flow from operating activities turned to a negative 2.54 billion yuan from positive inflows of 15.8 billion yuan in the year-ago period.
A high volume of collected bills due to market changes caused the negative cash flow, Futu said, citing Wuliangye.
Cash and cash equivalents stayed at 1.3 times higher than the annual revenue, Futu said.
Meanwhile, the wine maker plans to repurchase between 8 billion yuan and 10 billion yuan of shares for up to 153.59 yuan apiece, according to a separate disclosure.