Good morning, everybody. Welcome to this press conference where we're going to be introducing our earnings for 2023. I would also wish to welcome those of you connected through streaming platforms. 2023 was a year of excellent results for Inditex. Thanks to the commitment and dedication of all our team members, we have been able to make the most of all the opportunities that we had across all our formats in all the different markets, both in physical stores and online. I will speak about the main figures of 2023, but I would also like to share with you some of the initiatives that we have implemented in 2024, which are going to make it possible for us to still harness all the opportunities ahead of us. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Now, starting by 2023, 2023 was a year of growth.
This is what is shown by the evolution of our sales, which reached over EUR 35 billion, a growth of 10.4% with respect to 2022, which would be 14% if we exclude the FX effect. The evolution of sales has been highly positive across all our formats. All of them increased their sales by double digits, and it has also been positive both in physical stores and online. In terms of online, our sales exceeded EUR 9 billion, 16% higher than the online sales of 2022, and this was very positively impacted by our 251 million followers in the social media and the over 6.5 billion visits to our online platforms, 16 million visits each day. The evolution was also very positive across the different geographies. Spain accounted for 14.8% of sales, the rest of Europe 48.7%, the Americas 19.6%, and Asia and the rest of the world 16.9%.
Our growth was also a very efficient growth. I would like to share with you three indicators related with the efficiency of our growth. The first one is the gross margin. In 2023, it exceeded EUR 20 billion. In terms of gross profit margin ratio, it was 57.8%. This is 77 basis points above our gross profit margin ratio of 2022. We also maintained our financial discipline in the control of costs. This means that the increase in our operating expenses was 10%, which is lower than the growth in our sales. And finally, thanks to the success of our collections and to the normalization of our supply chain, our inventory has fully normalized, and in 2023, at the end of 2023, it was lower than what it was at the end of 2022. So positive growth, efficient growth, and profitable growth.
Our net earnings reached EUR 5.3 billion, 30% higher than the figure for 2022. Also, our financial position also evolved positively, 13% higher. It was that solid financial position that is going to allow us to keep investing as much money as necessary to guarantee the future growth of the group, and it will also make it possible to keep up our attractive shareholder remuneration. The board will make a proposal to the AGM for a dividend of EUR 1.54 per share, 28% higher than in 2022. So efficient growth, profitable growth, and responsible growth. Our total tax bill stood at EUR 8.6 billion with an effective tax rate of 21.5%. In the case of Spain, our effective contribution, our tax contribution exceeded EUR 2.23 billion. It represented over 25% of the total tax bill of the group.
We maintain a very close collaboration with our over 6,600 suppliers in Spain who have billed us over EUR 6.9 billion, and of course, we are still striving to be high-quality employers across all the markets where we operate. In Spain, our payroll exceeded 47,000 employees, 1,600 more than in 2022. We still offer them high-quality jobs. 87% of our staff have permanent contracts and professional development opportunities. 2023 was a year of highly positive results where we were capable of achieving very sustainable, efficient, profitable, and responsible growth. Let me now turn to 2024, a year which also started very positively for us, and this happened although the environment around us is very complex. The growth was still moderate across our markets. There was a high inflation rate, and the geopolitical situation was highly unstable.
Our sales between the 1st of February and the 11th of March 2024, with the corresponding adjustments for the leap year, increased by 11% with respect to our sales in the equivalent period of the previous year. This positive evolution makes us keep developing initiatives that may allow us to make the most of all the opportunities ahead of us and which are focused on promoting, strengthening, and developing the four pillars, the four fundamental drivers of our business model: a single-fashion proposal, a better customer experience, a firm commitment with sustainability, talent, and commitment with all our staff members.
In terms of the single-fashion proposal, all our formats are going to keep offering our customers collections inspired on quality and creativity, and that is thanks to the effort and the hard work of our over 700 designers and our pattern designers who help us pay great attention to detail and, at the same time, produce on a global scale for millions of customers. In terms of our customer experience, our projects are both for our physical stores and for our online platforms. We're going to be devoting EUR 1.8 billion in ordinary investment during 2024. As regards to physical stores, we are going to keep exploring new markets. On the 29th of February, we opened our first stores in Uzbekistan. Some of our formats are going to open physical stores in markets where they were not present as yet.
For example, Oysho will open its first store in Germany in Hamburg. Bershka and Zara Home are going to open their first stores in India, in Mumbai and Bangalore. Finally, after a very positive evolution of online sales, Massimo Dutti is going to open its first physical store in Aventura Mall in Miami, in the United States. As we announced a few days ago, we will soon resume our operations in Ukraine with the aim of reaching a total of 50 stores at the end of the year. Also, to improve customer experience, we're going to keep improving our projects and extending our projects in the best locations of the world. I would particularly like to mention the new Zara store in the Caesars Palace of Las Vegas, The Grove in Los Angeles, and Palazzo Verospi in Rome.
We are also going to stage a very impactful opening for Pull&Bear in Rotterdam, and after a significant refurbishing project, our new Stradivarius store in Madrid is also going to cut a big dash. Also, we are going to keep improving our customers' experience online. After weekly live streaming broadcasts in China through the Douyin platform, we are going to extend this experience to the United States and the U.K., and our goal is to also extend this to new markets throughout the year. We will keep exploring new ways of interacting with our younger customers. This is the case of projects such as Bershka Members or Pull&Bear Shuffle. Our customer experience goes beyond the physical store or doing our best with our online platforms because we need to be in a position to offer our customers what they want, where, how, and when they want it.
That is why this morning we announced our logistics expansion plan, which is going to entail an investment of over EUR 900 million in both 2024 and 2025 to extend our logistics capabilities to make the most of the new business opportunities that may arise in the future. This morning, we were saying that this logistics investment plan, 90% of which is going to be devoted to Spain, is going to be based on projects such as the extension of our logistics capacity in the Lelystad logistics hub in the Netherlands, the construction of two new logistics hubs in Valencia for Bershka and Tempe, and also the construction of a logistics hub for Zara in Zaragoza. It will be the second one in Zaragoza.
All of these logistic hubs and all of these projects will be equipped with the highest standards in terms of sustainability and technology, and they will start being operational at the end of 2025. Let me now refer to some of our initiatives in the realm of sustainability. In our last AGM, we announced a series of commitments which had to do with an increased ambition in terms of our sustainable transformation and the sustainable transformation of all our industry. I would like to share with you three projects. One of them has to do with innovation because we don't believe that sustainability is possible without innovation, and innovation is not possible without the engagement of the different players in the industry.
In our case, through our Sustainability Innovation Hub, we are collaborating with over 350 startups to develop a series of very interesting projects, and some of them have already materialized from a commercial point of view. This is the case of a recently launched collection based on a kind of polyamide, which is based on textile residues. And we have also announced the strengthening of our commitment with Infinited Fiber, taking a stake of 11% in their share capital. The second project in terms of sustainability has to do with circularity. We have a platform called Zara Pre-Owned through which we offer customers different alternatives through the repair or donation of clothes. And, well, this platform is already present in 16 European markets, including Spain. In 2024, Zara Pre-Owned will arrive in the United States.
The third project I would like to mention today is that amongst the projects that we announced during our AGM, we mentioned that we wanted to reach over 10 million beneficiaries of our sustainability plans between 2023 and 2025. In 2023, we invested EUR 112 million, and we managed to benefit 4.3 million people in areas such as health, education, environment, and humanitarian help in emergency situations. Obviously, none of these initiatives, none of these projects, none of these initiatives for physical stores and online, none of these logistic efforts, none of these efforts in the realm of sustainability would be possible without the effort, the dedication, and the commitment of our teams. Over 161 professionals in Inditex that I feel tremendously proud of every day. We are all propelled by this eagerness to keep improving.
We are all propelled by this Maverick spirit that has allowed us to present these spectacular results of 2023 and which will help us make the most of the opportunities that may present to us in the future to keep walking along the path that we have been walking along since the company was founded.
Thank you. We are now going to start with our Q&A session. Please raise your hands if you want to have the microphone. Before you ask your question, please say who you are. We will be devoting about 35-40 minutes to this Q&A session.
Hello. Good morning. I'm Javier Romera from El Economista newspaper. The total investment is going to be over EUR 3.2 billion if you consider the logistic plan in the next two years.
This is one of the greatest investments of the company that the company has made in the last few years, isn't it? And then I wanted to ask you about sales in Spain, particularly at the beginning of this year, 2024, because we have seen that some companies in the sector are going through some difficulties. One of your competitors has announced the closing down of some stores and some redundancy schemes. I would like to know what Inditex thinks about all this.
Thank you very much, Javier. To answer your first question, what we are announcing today is indeed an investment of EUR 1.8 billion, basically geared towards improving our customers' experience both in physical stores and online, improving our platforms, keeping up our integration between physical stores and our online platforms.
We were also announcing this logistics expansion plan for EUR 900 million every year in 2024 and 2025. This investment has to do with having identified very strong growth opportunities across all our formats, both online and in the physical stores and across all our markets. This is an investment that is going to make it possible for us to keep harnessing all of those opportunities. Spain is still the most significant market in the group. In 2023, it accounted for over 18% of sales. The evolution of sales last year was very positive, above the group's average. The beginning of this year, today, we were sharing our trading update, which revealed an 11% growth between the 1st of February and the 11th of March 2024, already adjusted for the effect of the leap year. So this allows us to be optimistic.
Of course, we are always very cautious. Our aspiration, our goal, our ambition is to be able to execute our business model day after day and still try and make the most of all the opportunities that may arise. And we still want to keep exciting our customers and offering them the best experience possible and keep developing format by format, market by market, our business model. Thank you.
Javier Garcia Ropero for El PAIS newspaper. Now, also about Spain. The Spanish market, well, ended up with 68 fewer stores than the previous year. So the number of stores closed has been higher than the previous year. So the number of stores is more or less what it was 20 years ago. So have you established a minimum number of stores, or are you still trying to close down more stores?
Then you also established a target to increase your sales surfaces for 2025. Is this also going to affect Spain or not?
Well, in general, we have been making an effort to reinforce and optimize our commercial presence across all the different geographies. This year, our gross sales surface increased by 4.5%, and our net surface grew by 2.2%. Of course, there has been a lower amount of stores. So what we do is we identify the best locations that make it possible for us to make available to our customers the whole breadth of our product offering. New store designs are offering specific spaces for footwear, cosmetics, etc. And this is the path that we're still going to keep walking down.
In the case of Spain, well, the case of Seville was a very good example of what we are doing and what we have done this year. This is an approach we're also developing in other cities. In Seville, we made a very significant opening in Plaza del Duque. It's really flagship stores available to all our customers in the area. It has allowed us to telescope some other sales areas which, because of the surface, did not really meet the criteria that we wanted to implement. This concept in Seville, in Plaza del Duque, has really been very successful with our customers and, therefore, with the evolution of our sales. Our strategy is to keep going for those better and better spaces in the best locations. In 2024 and 2026, there's going to be a gross increase in our surface area of around 5%.
Our ultimate goal is, as I said, to offer our customers the best spaces possible to promote a wonderful customer experience.
Corina Pons from Reuters. You've said that in January, inventories have dropped by 7%, and some analysts have believed that this is proof of the fact that Inditex has not been affected by the Red Sea scenario. I'd like to know whether Inditex has taken any measures to ensure that its supply chain be affected by these disruptions. If indeed, as analysts say, you're using more air freight and these logistical centers that you're growing in Spain, is that a response also, another measure to improve your supply chain alternative and use aircraft for the distribution of your articles? And I have a follow-up question, which is, has Inditex foreseen sharing the list of suppliers in every country in the world where it actually manufactures?
What other companies do? Other Spanish companies do this. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Corina. As regards your second question, we have a traceability model which is up to the most demanding standard in the market. We share all of that information with some stakeholders such as industrial and other stakeholders, and we are always open to answer any question or address any questions about the origin of our products. Now, as regards the impact on our supply chain, we closed the year with a fully normalized situation. The inventory was 7% less than in 2022. And, of course, there are changes between one campaign and another, and this, of course, depends on the commercial decisions our teams make. But we have our proximity production around 50%. For us, proximity means Spain, Portugal, Morocco, and Turkey.
To a certain extent, this allows us to be more resilient vis-à-vis potential tensions in terms of the impacts that transport fluctuations may have. But, of course, this is a situation we keep monitoring. We have logistics and distribution teams that are hugely professional. We've always been characterized by flexibility and by a huge capacity to adapt. And we have very long-term agreements with different partners, amongst them freight companies. And we are going to make the decisions that each situation may require. Our investment in logistics is based upon this need to, well, take advantage of the different opportunities we may see across our different formats and across our different markets.
Hello. I'm Victor Osorio from Expansión newspaper. I have a couple of questions. The first one is related with the dividend.
The group announced the highest dividend in its history, about EUR 4.8 billion to be distributed, equivalent to 89% of the profit figure. This coincides with an increase in investments, as you mentioned. I wanted to know what kind of reflection has been made by the board when deciding to launch both initiatives at the same time and how that dividend is going to be financed. Are you going to use the group's cash flow? Now, it's been announced that Massimo Dutti is going to open its first store in the United States. I wanted to ask you how many Massimo Dutti stores you expect to open and whether other formats are also going to enter the United States. Thank you very much.
In terms of the dividend and investment decisions, the debate that has always been made at the level of the board always takes into account the financial situation of the company and has always tried, and this year is no exception, to meet two goals. First one, invest as much as necessary to guarantee the future growth of the group, and this is something that has characterized Inditex from its beginning, and also to be in a position to offer our shareholders an attractive remuneration. As you know, our policy to remunerate shareholders is based upon 60% of the profits of the previous year plus an extraordinary dividend, which is decided by the board taking into consideration the expectations of the year and the investments to be made. We believe that we have a solid financial position.
We believe that this is the right time to make the ordinary investments I announced together with the logistic expansion plan I also announced. And we believe that the evolution of the business is going to respond to those investments, and we're still going to be in a position to keep remunerating our shareholders with an attractive dividend. The United States is still a strategic market for the Inditex group. Last year, we announced 30 projects for Zara, which included openings, enlargements, refurbishments, relocations. And some of them have already materialized in 2023 in terms of openings, for example, in Baton Rouge or a new store in San Antonio, Texas, and very important refurbishment projects such as the one in Fillmore next to New York. In 2024, we also have new projects. This morning, I was referring to two new stores.
One in Las Vegas and the other one in Los Angeles. We are also going to open a store in Cambridge, Massachusetts, very close to Boston. We are also going to carry out some refurbishments in some of our flagship stores such as the one in Lincoln Road in Miami. We believe we are in a position to keep improving our customers' experience, but also with the profitability of our operations in mind. We also announced the opening of the first Massimo Dutti store in the Aventura Mall in Miami. This investment took into account the very positive, excellent, I would say, evolution of our online sales for Massimo Dutti in the United States, both through its own platform and through zara.com.
We are always exploring new alternatives, not just for Zara or Massimo Dutti, but trying to analyze whether any other of our commercial formats might succeed in the American market. I announced earlier on that our development in physical stores is something that is extremely important also for online sales. As far as online sales are concerned, those live streaming broadcasts that we're going to be initiating both in the United States and the U.K. attest to this. We are also going to promote our pre-owned platform, which is going to arrive in the United States in 2024. Thank you.
Good morning. Thank you. Yes, to your left, here I am from Capital Radio. I'd like to ask about the share. Are you concerned about these maximum numbers because of the expectations?
Because this affects you when you think about room for growth in Inditex and then technology. You're using or you will be using or are you going to consider using Gen AI for photographs of models or videos in order to save cut costs in view of the number of garments that you launch every day, every week? And Rosalía last week visited. Are you working on something with Rosalía? Thank you.
Thank you, Lara. Our position with respect to the evolution of the share price never changes with respect to things that we said at other times. Even when the share price was lower than what it is today, we are just focused on executing our business model, and we're just focused on generating value: financial value, environmental value, sustainability values. For all our stakeholders, including, of course, our shareholders, we believe that we are a positive investment.
Our challenge is to do things better and better true to that Maverick spirit I was mentioning earlier. Our philosophy has been key in the development of Inditex throughout its history. At each point in time, we always used the latest technology to improve our business and improve our decision-making processes. For us, AI is an opportunity. It is a lever that should allow us to improve the work of our different teams. We are collaborating with different players. We are, for example, part of the IndesIA Forum. We collaborate with different academic institutions and with technological players that go from large technological companies to smaller startups. At present, we offer all our teams the possibility to test the application of AI technology in safe environments.
But we have no doubt that AI is going to be a good support to the work that we do here in Inditex, but using human intelligence because our business is based on appealing to our customers' emotions. And we've said it in the past, our business goes beyond selling garments. Fashion is a looking glass through which we can reflect our hopes and our emotions. And those emotions and those hopes can certainly not be replaced by artificial intelligence. AI will just be a tool which will allow our teams to do their work, but it will never replace human intelligence. The other day, well, we were delighted to receive and welcome Rosalía. And we always have the ambition to have the help of the best.
Hello. Hello from La Vanguardia. Thank you. I wanted to ask about wages, basically the employees, the saleswomen in stores.
Have you foreseen a wage increase this year? And as members of the business association, are you expecting a collective agreement for this year? And a follow-up, could you talk about Lefties a little bit? I'm not sure what plans you have in mind. More openings? No? Other markets? Thank you.
Now, ARTE is the main retail company in Spain. Its goal is to interact with public authorities and promote a better understanding to help and drive a positive transformation of our industry and reach minimum standards for the whole industry in Spain, although, of course, each company or each group can establish specific improvements for their own workers. As far as Lefties is concerned, it is a business line that integrates its data with Zara's systems. It has been designing collections for men, women, and children for 20 years.
It uses the same business model as other formats in the group. As far as our own staff members are concerned, not just in the stores but elsewhere, of course, our store staff members are very important. They account for 86% of our staff. Our ambition is to keep being a role model in terms of employment. Last year, we reached a very important agreement to improve the working conditions of our store staff members in Spain. Our ambition is still going to keep being role models. I was saying that 87% of our contracts are permanent contracts. Of course, we want to promote the professional development of all our teams.
Hello from EL MUNDO. Last year, during this same press conference, we talked about Ferrovial's decision to move its headquarters from Spain. They addressed the tax amounts paid in Spain. So the headquarters effect.
And you said that Inditex was keen to keep its headquarters here. Now, this year, taxes are over EUR 2 billion. I wanted to know whether you still decided to maintain headquarters here. And I would like to know also the government's intention to modify the corporate tax so that large companies actually be further taxed in Spain. Thank you.
Thank you, Cristina. Yes. The tax contribution of the group was over EUR 2.2 billion in 2023, which is 20% of the total tax contribution. And it's 29% of all taxes paid. And that is directly related to the headquarters effect. Sales account for 14.8% of the whole group. And this is where we have all the parent companies of all our formats and our main logistic platforms.
In my presentation, I was saying that almost nearly 90% of the logistic investment associated to our logistic expansion plan for 2024 and 2025 was going to be directed to Spain. This is the market where we started off. I will not speculate about what may happen in the future.
Good morning. Thank you. I'm from Radio Cruz, Cadena SER. I'd like to ask whether you have plans in place. I imagine, yes, you have plans for Inditex and Arteixo. And secondly, with regards to the logistics center in Zaragoza, you said before that there were plans to enlarge. Could you elaborate, please?
Thank you, Isabel. I mentioned the four fundamental projects that the logistic expansion plan envisioned. There's two for the distribution centers of Bershka and Tempe, the enlargement of our hub in Lelystad in the Netherlands and the new distribution hub in Zaragoza.
But the rest of our logistics platforms will benefit from this EUR 1.8 billion included in our logistics expansion plan. The new logistics hub in Zaragoza, it will be called Zaragoza 2. Like the other centers, it will be equipped with the latest technology. It will meet the highest sustainability standards. We have made efforts to optimize processes for a long time. This has allowed us to be on the cutting edge of logistics development. These are centers that are going to be gradually deployed. We are going to be increasing the capacity of these new centers. They will start becoming operational at the end of 2025.
Good morning, Bloomberg's. I have two questions. I would like to ask you, what results have been obtained? You're thinking about implementing a new technology in stores. And could you give us numbers regarding the degree of efficiency that's being achieved?
So, for instance, time devoted to collection. And my second question has to do with one of the objectives that you have set forth. I'm talking about sustainability here. New material, new textiles. It is a difficult moment, right? We've seen that one of your suppliers, one of the leading companies in the sector, is aspiring to having a scalable plant. And I wanted to ask you, how is the group preparing for the potential dearth of these textiles? Above and beyond the collections, the announcement last week of your investment, how is Inditex going to guarantee availability of those textiles in order to make good on its objectives? Thank you.
Clara. Thank you, Clara. As regards to your first question, we started deploying that new technology in 2023.
At the end of 2024, all our Zara stores and all the products we offer our customers will be equipped with the new alarm systems. For us, this, as we said last year, it's a very important project because it's going to make it possible for us to carry out payment processes much swifter. The evolution has been very good. The feedback that we have received from our customers is very positive. This has been already embedded in our business model. We want to extend it to all our other formats in a gradual way. Now, as regards to fibers, in the last AGM, one of the commitments that we made was that by 2030, our goal was that 100% of our fibers should be more sustainable by 2030. That is, 25% coming from organic crops and 25% coming from other sustainable sources.
I think that the evolution in the use of sustainable raw materials in the group has been evolving highly positively. That is why I was saying that the whole of the projects we are carrying out, well, are being very successful. We are collaborating with different companies and different institutions in order to accelerate all this. Our commitments in the area of innovation can materialize in different ways, sometimes in the form of joint ventures with other companies. For example, last year, we partnered with BSF, a German chemistry company. We launched a detergent that reduced the emissions of microfibers during washing processes by 80%. We also developed 6.0 polyamide, which is sourced entirely from textile residues.
On other occasions, the way in which we promote innovation in sustainability, as far as raw materials are concerned, is through purchasing agreements, which make it possible for the companies that we work with to access financing. Recently, with Ambercycle, we announced a commitment to buy their cycora product, which is extremely innovative. And sometimes, another type of commitment is through Infinited Fiber, which is really very important because it combines two of these types of commitments. We committed to buy 30% of their Infinna product. And then last week, we announced that we were going to take 11% of their share capital of Infinited Fiber.
So in different ways, that is, through the development of joint projects with companies or through offtake commitments or by just buying part of a company's share capital, we will still promote these projects because we believe that they are indispensable for the transformation of our industry. We believe that it will allow us to reach that target of 100% sustainable materials by 2030.
Hello, good morning. From Colpisa News Agency, I would like to ask about your forecast for this fiscal year. Could you tell us what your thoughts are about future consumption? We're still looking at inflation. Many of us have become very demanding. When the time comes to go shopping, we go to one store. We go to another. We look at the prices very carefully.
Could you talk to us a little bit about the possible evolution of Zara Pre-Owned in Spain, these first months of Pre-Owned functioning? I don't know whether you have information regarding volumes, numbers of users. Thank you for that.
Thank you, Clara. As regards to your first question, we always say that we are not a good proxy of the macroeconomic situation. But, of course, the context also affects our business. We believe that as a result of the economic situation and as a result of the behavior of our consumers, it is more and more important to offer them a different product, a unique product. And part of this is offering our customers a better and better customer experience through quality and creativity, but always maintaining an affordable price.
During my presentation, I mentioned something that I keep emphasizing, which is the work of our 700 designers, our patent designers, which allow us to make our quality well. They allow us to make quality compatible with production on a global scale. So we want to offer customers high quality and a high level of creativity. Now, as regards to our pre-owned program, it started in the fall of 2022 in the United States. Then it was taken to France and then to Spain. It is a service that offers our customers different types of alternatives to extend the lifecycle of their Zara products: donations, repairs, or even sales to third parties. It is consistent with our approach to the circularity of our industry. It is a project that we are going to be enhancing.
It is a project with respect to which we have a very long-term approach. The feedback from our customers has been extremely positive with respect to the quality of the offered software, with respect to the quality of the service offered. This has encouraged us to extend the service to other markets.
Good morning from La Voz de Galicia Daily. I would like to know if you could be a little bit more specific. If I didn't misread you at the beginning of your presentation, you talked about economic difficulties, which we may run into in Spain. I would furthermore like to ask whether, in the optimized stores, can you actually calculate the increase in sales resulting from investments in those stores? Do you plan to open logistics centers in other countries, in other continents, in the upcoming five years, say?
What is the relationship like with Marta Ortega? It's been two years now since she chairs. Thank you.
Thank you. I will start by the end. The relationship is personal appreciation, collaboration. It's a very close relationship. We are all very satisfied with. As regards to the situation of the economy, I was mentioning at the beginning that we are in a situation where growth is still very moderate in the majority of markets. There's still high inflation rates. And the geopolitical situation around us is marked by instability. And this affects all our markets. But our business model is still focused on offering the best of ourselves every day, thanks to the effort of our teams, carefully listening to our customers and being more and more competitive and trying to do a better job every day.
With respect to optimization of our business in the different stores, as compared with 2019, our current estimates indicate that sales have increased by 40% in each store and around 20% by square meter. So it's a very positive evolution, as I was saying, even taking into account the evolution of sales in 2023 in the stores, which was an increase of 8%. This was achieved with 2% fewer stores and also with fewer square meters. And also, with that vision, we are going to still move forward. And let me emphasize those four projects I mentioned. We are still developing projects to optimize processes and using the latest technologies. And the evolution of our logistics platforms will be very much aligned with the evolution of our business. We want to offer our customers what they need, when, how, and where they need it.
Logistics will have to be adapted to the evolution of our business and to the decisions that need to be made, which will involve not just investments in the enlargement of square meters, but also optimization of processes and using of the latest technologies. We are reaching the end of the time available for this press conference. We're just going to have two more questions. We don't have time for more.
I'm Diego Molpeceres from El Independiente newspaper. Could you give us some details about the evolution of online sales? Sales grew by 16%. And they apparently account for 25% of total sales. I would like to know if you could share what target you have for 2024 in terms of online sales. And I would also like to know if you could give us an appraisal of online returns. Have they increased or not?
Thank you, Diego.
Well, yeah, you gave the right figure. The growth in our online sales was 16% over EUR 9 billion. Our vision with respect to our business model is to have a single channel. So today, because the journey of our customers may start on the screen and end up in a physical store or vice versa. So it's very difficult to explain the evolution of our online sales without considering the logistic support they receive from our physical stores. And same goes for our physical stores. I mean, they are no doubt influenced by that 251 million followers we have on the social media. What we need to keep doing is offer our customers the best customer experience and focus on growing our sales and making sure that this growth happens efficiently and responsibly.
In terms of returns, if our customers want to have a courier pick up their clothes home, well, this is something we offer. It is consistent with our sustainability strategy because we keep trying to reduce emissions of CO2. This initiative has been very well received by customers across all our markets. This has also promoted that single channel approach because most of our customers use the physical stores as the venue where they return the clothes they will not be needing.
Yes, from elDiario.es, you've talked about the tension and inflation this year and last year. Could you perhaps add a little bit of information regarding the increase in prices in the last fiscal year and your forecast for this year? Thank you for that.
Thank you, Cristina. Our policy in the last few years has been based on keeping prices stable.
Of course, when there is a depreciation or a severe depreciation of a currency or significant tensions, we might make certain adjustments. But those adjustments are not made across the board. We look at the different markets, the different formats, and the different products. And 2023 has been no exception. We keep striving to offer high-quality fashion, creative fashion at affordable prices to one and all, trying, of course, at the same time, to keep up our margins. And in 2023, we have succeeded in doing that. And in 2024, we will be doing the same thing. We will keep a very stable pricing policy. So this brings us to the end of this press conference. Raúl Estradera and the whole of our PR team will be at your disposal for any clarification you may need.
I would like to thank you all of you here for having joined us here in Arteixo. I would also like to thank those of you who have joined us online. Those of you here, I wish you a safe trip back. And I hope to see you all very, very soon. Thank you.