Packaged Water Business Continues to Face Pressure, China Resources Beverage Net Profit Expected to Drop 40%

Beijing News (Reporter Wang Ziyang) reported on March 12 that CR Beverage (Holdings) Limited, the parent company of the bottled water brand, issued a profit warning. Based on a preliminary assessment of the company’s unaudited consolidated management accounts and other existing data for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025, CR Beverage’s attributable profit for 2025 is expected to decrease by approximately 40% compared to the same period in 2024. In 2024, CR Beverage’s net profit was 1.637 billion yuan, so the estimated net profit for 2025 is about 980 million yuan.

In October 2024, CR Beverage officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, becoming the 18th listed company under China Resources Group. In its first annual report after listing, CR Beverage reported revenue of 13.521 billion yuan in 2024, a slight increase of 0.05% year-on-year; net profit was 1.661 billion yuan, up 24.7%. However, in 2025, the company’s performance declined. In the first half of 2025, CR Beverage achieved total revenue of 6.206 billion yuan, down 18.5% year-on-year, the largest decline since listing; net profit attributable to shareholders was 805 million yuan, down 28.7%, with profit margin dropping from 15.2% in the same period in 2024 to 13.3%. As the core business of CR Beverage, the bottled water segment still accounted for 84.6% of revenue, but this segment declined by 23.1% year-on-year in the first half of 2025, with revenue only reaching 5.251 billion yuan.

In the profit warning announcement for the first half of 2025, CR Beverage stated that, based on its medium- and long-term development plan, it strategically increased marketing resource investment in the first half of 2025, adjusted product mix, and gradually promoted channel restructuring, which had a phased impact on profit performance. The company explained that the overall decline in net profit for 2025 was mainly due to: focusing on medium- and long-term development, the company continued to actively increase marketing efforts, adjust product structure, and promote channel reforms. The bottled water business remained under pressure, and the beverage business grew slower than expected, which had a temporary impact on this year’s profit performance.

Starting in 2026, CR Beverage entered a period of management changes. In mid-January, CR Beverage announced that Chairman Zhang Weitong had stepped down due to work adjustments, and 52-year-old Gao Li, General Manager of the Finance Department of China Resources Group, succeeded him with a three-year term. On February 13, CR Beverage announced that Huang Hu was appointed as Chief Financial Officer, effective from February 13, 2026. Despite performance pressures after listing, the leadership change during this critical transformation phase demonstrates CR Beverage’s determination to transform. How the new leadership will steer CR Beverage is highly anticipated.

Editor: Tang Zheng

Proofreader: Zhao Lin