Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this year's AGUA Day. We're delighted to have you with us. Please note that today's call is being recorded. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the environment as we currently see it, and there may be certain risks and uncertainties associated with them. The company has no intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Now, let's go over today's agenda. We'll start with a keynote address from David Ruiz, Head of Data Analytics and AI from Google Cloud, where we'll hear insights into how the agentic era is reshaping the way organizations leverage AI to automate decisions, orchestrate actions, and unlock new levels of productivity. Following this keynote, we'll hear from the Rotoplas leadership team.
First, Carlos Rojas will present the evolution of the company. Afterwards, Andrés Pliego will outline the evolution of the company's financial strategy. We'll conclude with José Luis Mantecón, who will present the new sustainability strategy and progress in the sustainability initiatives. I will give a brief introduction on each of today's speakers by order of appearance. Starting with David Ruiz, he is the Head of Data Analytics and AI for Google Cloud Mexico. He has over 25 years of experience in data, analytics, and artificial intelligence and has previously worked at IBM, MongoDB, and Salesforce. David holds a degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering and a postgraduate specialization in Operations Management. Next, we will introduce the representatives of Rotoplas. Carlos Rojas is the Chief Executive Officer and board member of Grupo Rotoplas. Carlos joined the company in 2014, and since then he has held various positions.
He was part of the international expansion and responsible for driving the Innovation and Development Department's success. Andrés Pliego is Rotoplas' Chief Financial Officer, responsible for financial planning, investor relations and sustainability, treasury, controllership, corporate legal affairs, and M&A. He joined Rotoplas in September 2024. Throughout his professional career, Andrés has held various financial roles at Discovery Americas, Grupo Coppel, and Volaris. José Luis Mantecón is Rotoplas' Chief Sustainability Officer. He joined the company in 1993 and held the position of International Operations Director for several years, where he was responsible for the expansion in Southeast Mexico and Latin America. We have an important program scheduled for this morning. To officially begin our event, please welcome our keynote speaker, David Ruiz.
Hello everyone, welcome to the AGUA Day. It is such a great honor and pleasure for me to be here. I'm thrilled to be with you in this Investors Day. As you know, we have a long-term alliance with Rotoplas, and we are so happy to be here. Next slide, please. I have been already introduced. I wanted to give you the most warm welcome to the agentic era, and I have very little time today to share about this, but this is the first time as humankind that we are in such a strong position to be accompanied by robots and other systems that are intelligent. You already know this, but we are the first generation in our time that we have all the information in the world at hand. We have all the information of Rotoplas at hand.
We also have assistance to do pretty much everything that we do in our day-to-day job with this assistance. The agents, as we call it, are assistants that can help us to do pretty much whatever you want. I wanted to start with this image, and I obviously created this with a prompt in AI, but I wanted to share a couple of things about the image. First thing is that you see the human in the right-hand side, and he's happy, and I wanted to share that he's happy because he's leaving this part of having assistance to do the jobs that he's supposed to be doing, and in the left-hand side, you see the robot, and behind the robot, you see a tree, and this is very important for us.
As you can see in the presentation today for the AGUA Day, the sustainability is something very important, and it is very important for Google too, and we have a special mission to be neutral in our footprint for CO2 in the world, and we are very good in the way to be doing this by 2030, and we are doing this by doing three things. The first is that we are building our own chips. You maybe know this, but Google is one of the largest hardware suppliers in the world. We build our own servers, and within the servers, it exists a specific chip that is called a GPU, and this is for AI training. We build this specific chip so we can spend less time and less energy for AI training.
You might have heard in the last days that AI training is something that is taking a lot of energy and a lot of water for training, but not with Google. We are building chips that are specialized for training, and with this, we are doing a very good thing for water and energy in the world. The second thing that we are doing is that we are building AI agents that we are making now for everybody to use. So if you are not as good for training models, it wouldn't matter because we have assistance for you. So if you have this assistance, then you will need more, excuse me, less time, less energy, less water. So we are on the way to do that.
And the third thing that we did is that we created models that are suitable for maybe 80% of the use case that we have around the world. So if you have a company as large as Google building the models, maybe you don't have to build another model specific for one thing. So if you don't need to build the models, you use less energy, less water. So we are in this specific time of the world, the history of the world, that we have assistance, and we also have a company like Google and Rotoplas that we are taking care of the environment overall. So this is a very good time to be alive, and this is a very good time to do this specific long-term relationship and specifically with Rotoplas. So next slide, please.
I have very little time today, but I wanted to share with you some of the things that we at Google are seeing overall where companies worldwide are using artificial intelligence. It's very important to know that we have a lot of things happening in the AI world since, as you heard in my presentation, I've been in the AI world since pretty much the beginning of the century, in the year 2000, and I've been working along with companies trying to transform them to use their data and now artificial intelligence to be doing things. We are now at the phase that we have the latest version of the artificial intelligence, and we are unleashing the power of the data. Let's hear about five small trends that we have overall in the world for this. The first one is using multimodal context.
This might be a little bit complex to explain, but the truth of the matter is with this capability, artificial intelligence can use pretty much whatever you have at hand. So if you have maybe a picture or a video, or you have a GPS data, or you have pretty much whatever you have, it's good to use with artificial intelligence. So your assistants can start working in use cases that can be used pretty much whatever data they need. Let's say that we have the customers of Rotoplas, and they only have their cell phones at hand. So they can use maybe a picture, they can set up text, they can send a voice note, whatever they have, and they can start using all this information with artificial intelligence for specific things. So now we are no longer attached to one specific kind of data.
We will be using whatever data is needed, and we will be using data that is trustable because it's data that is coming from sources that you trust. The second trend is that we are, let's say, putting away the chatbots. Pretty much everyone is talking about chatbots from a number of years now, but these chatbots were not ready for the time. Now we are changing these chatbots to multi-agent systems. And with this, what I mean is that we will have like a father agent that has sons' agents, then the father agents will be doing a multi-purpose connection, and then we will have sons' agents that will be specific purpose connection. With this, we are able now to be working with workloads that have different kinds of sources and different kinds of purposes, and they can be all together tied via, let's call it, father agent.
With this, we are moving from the chatbot era to the agent systems era, and this is very much better, I promise. You will love it when you see it. The third trend is the assisted search. At Google, Google was founded to make the information available universally to everybody that needed it. Every day, we index the whole internet to make it available for whoever is needing it. Now we are putting the same power in the hands of people that are working inside their companies. So let's say that you have your own Google inside your organization. And with this, it means that you can start looking for specific concepts, but you can start also looking for specific intelligence. We are really working on unlocking the knowledge in your company.
You might have heard in the past, like maybe some 10 years ago, that we have these things called knowledge management systems. Well, this advance, let's put it in a fast-forward machine, and now we are really using all the information that you have and wherever you need, you have the information. Maybe you know this already, but almost all companies have all the knowledge that they own in three systems. One is spreadsheets, the second is email, and the third one is the institutional chat systems. So how can we get out of that systems, the knowledge? Well, now we can do it with artificial intelligence and agents that will be able to, let's say, read and hear and understand whatever it is that you are having in your spreadsheets, on your emails, on your voice notes, or whatever the information is.
You have your own Google now, and you can start using it inside your company. The fourth trend is regarding having this wow factor for companies. The AI-powered customer experience, it's now like talking with a human. So you can start having, even if that is for your outside customers or your inside customers, your collaborators, agents that will help you to find the information. And like I was saying, it will help you to find whatever it's needed to complete your job, or it will find the information that is needed for a customer to have the information they need to have a perfect service. We are now in the era of the wow service, and this is the wow factor that all the companies are looking for through artificial intelligence.
And the fifth one, the latest trend that we have, is, of course, as AI has been advancing so much, also the bad guys are using artificial intelligence. So we are using artificial intelligence to prevent any customer organization from being attacked. We are detecting three important things. First one, if somebody impersonated someone, so it is easier now through artificial intelligence to understand an image or a video that has been fake or is being produced by artificial intelligence through a digital footprint that makes you understand that this was created by artificial intelligence. The second thing is that we are using artificial intelligence to learn about all the data that is happening in all the operational systems of a company. That is a lot of data, and you most likely will need help through artificial intelligence to understand.
So now we can understand patterns, and with these patterns, we will understand if it is possible that we have some vulnerability or there is some attack happening. So we'll start doing preemptive actions to prevent this attack from happening. And the third one, and this is not only for companies, but also for individuals, is that we are starting to use artificial intelligence to let everybody know that some information that is running on the internet is fake. So Google is taking care of the whole internet to understand if some information that you're reading about having sharks in a river or maybe having the Pope dressed as a musician, it is fake, right? So this is the fifth trend that we are using in the AI today. There's a lot more to share, but I have little time today.
But I believe that with this, we can start the call for the AGUA Day. Thank you very much for having me here. I am very thankful for everyone. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much, David. We truly appreciate your valuable and insightful participation. Now, before we move on to the Rotoplas speakers, we have a quick poll. Just one second. So which area do you believe AI agents will transform the most in the next five years? And the options you have are customer service and user support, operations and supply chain, innovation and product development, decision-making and forecasting, sustainability, and resource optimization. We'll give you a quick moment to answer. And the most popular answer was customer service and user support, with 34%. Now, we'll go to Carlos. Thank you for your participation, Carlos, and the floor is yours.
Thank you for your very interesting insights, David.
Thank you for joining us at AGUA Day 2025. We're very excited to go into this AI era with the partnership with Google. We're very thankful to Google in general as well. Today, we reflect on the evolution of Rotoplas since 2020, a period in which we transformed our capabilities, strengthened our portfolio, and reaffirmed our leadership in delivering more and better water. It has been a chapter that reshaped the company in ways few could have imagined. Back in 2020, we were strong, but the environment was changing faster than our industry. Inflation, supply chain disruption, climate volatility were redefining what households, communities, and industries needed for water solutions. Water itself was becoming more scarce and more unpredictable. We had to ask ourselves, were we prepared for the world that was coming? The honest answer was not yet.
That answer is exactly what triggered this transformation period in the history of Rotoplas. What I want to share today is the story of how we evolved from the company we were back then to the company we are today, and why that evolution positions us to continue leading the future of water in the region. Five years ago, our manufacturing processes were reliable, but based on legacy technologies that required more water, more energy, and more manual intervention than a climate-constrained world could sustain. Our portfolio was solid, but our products needed to adapt themselves to this changing world and operate with more visibility or intelligence. Services were early stage. Treatment was focused on retail. Bebbia was a promising yet newly launched service, and Riego didn't exist yet. Digitalization was not yet part of our operating rhythm. We didn't work with AI. No one did.
Our data was still fragmented, and we didn't have e-commerce or connected devices generating insights for the business. As a group, we were less integrated. Capabilities differed. The best practices moved slowly across borders. That was Rotoplas then, strong, but not fully prepared for the accelerating world around us. Today, that company no longer exists. Let me walk you through what changed. Our manufacturing network is fundamentally different. Our new Tinaco + process allows us to produce with over 90% less water, 70% faster cycle times, and up to 40% recycled content, reincorporating 100% of scrap material. These aren't incremental improvements. They set a new standard for efficiency in our storage category. Water savings are now structural, and circularity is built into the process.
As a group, because of this and all other improvements achieved in our processes, we successfully reduced our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 11%. Now, let me show you something we're truly proud of, a glimpse of what's next for Rotoplas, where our team's hard work is bringing IoT innovation to life.
At Rotoplas, the future of water is connected. Our IoT strategy is currently built on three clear pillars: generating differentiation in our products, improving our operational efficiency, and enabling new monetization models. Today, we present the tangible achievements of this transformation. We begin with our core business, and we can proudly say that we are pulling ahead of the competition. By integrating level sensors directly into our tank and cistern portfolio, we've redefined our right to win. This is not a pilot.
This is a clear competitive edge that takes a winning product to the market. And the market has responded. In 2025, 25% of our sales in this portfolio already include this differentiation. Regarding data, this B2C connection is possible thanks to our intelligence platform, the National Monitoring System. We've leveraged this direct connection with the consumer to build a powerful pipeline of experiments and innovation, conducting market research that supports our deep knowledge of the industry. And this intelligence drives sales. We use data to launch geolocated marketing campaigns where we detect water stress, ensuring our distributor network is ready with the right inventory. Our second pillar is efficiency. We are using IoT to internally transform our Bebbia services business. We are currently executing a key technological migration to 3.0.
This is a fundamental strategic step to build a more robust platform that allows us to optimize routes and increase technician productivity. And third, we are creating new monetization models. Our Schools with Water project has been a resounding success. We've validated that corporations are willing to pay for data and insights to meet their sustainability goals. We don't just sell products. We have proven a high-value B2B intelligence market. Of course, this journey brings learnings. Unusual rainfall patterns have been a barrier to commercializing information with public entities, while we've identified improvement opportunities in our first IoT meter batches that we are now addressing and refocusing. All our achievements, product differentiation, data intelligence, efficiency in Bebbia, and B2B success now converge in our next major step, the Rotoplas Super App. Differentiation, efficiency, and new business models. Rotoplas' IoT strategy is not a promise. It's tangible progress today.
Five years ago, most products performed a single function. Today, many are smart and connected. They sense, they measure, they notify, and they enable prevention rather than reaction. IoT has become a differentiator. Predictive maintenance, once inspirational, is now part of our service model, and this shift expands both margins and lifetime value. In Mexico, larger-scale rainwater harvesting systems didn't exist five years ago. Today, in partnership with the Coca-Cola Foundation and Isla Urbana, we operate systems in almost 1,000 schools where school staff can view water availability from real-time dashboards. In communities where lack of water once meant missed school days, increased health risks, and deeper educational and gender gaps, these systems now directly support attendance and continuity. We have also commercialized tanks and cisterns with integrated level indicators, simple, functional, and data-enabled, helping us build an ecosystem of real-world water use information.
Services show one of the clearest before-and-after stories. TICSA has undergone a full transformation. Five years ago, treatment was mostly retail-oriented. Today, TICSA delivers industrial-grade solutions across food and beverage, manufacturing, hospitality, agro-industry, and urban systems. We strengthened the engineering, compliance, automation, and service quality, given the business structure, discipline, and true national reach. This evolution is reflected in a growing portfolio of industrial clients, consistent water efficiency gains, and a steadily increasing volume of treated and reused water each year. Acqualimp in Brazil followed a similar trajectory. From zero presence, it now operates as a technical, standardized, and increasingly efficient platform. The number of projects grew, supported by remotely operated plants, expanded capabilities in well water solutions, cost reduction projects, and consultative selling. For the first time, we entered new industrial verticals, and today we participate in Brazil's most relevant tenders for the industry.
Riego, being a company that was created over five years ago, is giving us a strategic position in agriculture. The business now covers over 55,000 hectares and delivers between 35%-40% average water savings through high-precision irrigation projects, allowing us to participate in one of the most water-intensive sectors with a high-impact value proposition. Bebbia is one of our clearest transformations. Five years ago, it was a small pilot with limited coverage. Today, it is a nationwide subscription platform with more than 159,000 subscribers and a fully professionalized field services operation. We moved from 10 days installation to just about three days while building a technical footprint that sets a clear competitive distance in our favor. The technology behind the services has also evolved radically. Today, Bebbia runs on a fully digital customer journey: online contracting, automated communication Flows, WhatsApp service, and the AI-enabled support layer.
Users receive real-time updates, including the name of the technician arriving to their home. And connected devices allow us to monitor performance, anticipate maintenance needs, and deliver a more reliable and proactive experience. We've also introduced new IoT capabilities and digital tools that help our agents and technicians serve faster, close sales, and resolve issues with greater precision. Today, the clearest examples of this digital evolution and a perfect reflection of our strategic priority around digitalization is the video you're about to see, showcasing how an AI agent now handles customer service calls.
[Foreign language] Hola, soy Silvia, tu asistente virtual de Bebbia, y puedo ofrecerte información sobre nuestros servicios. ¿Cómo puedo ayudarte el día de hoy? ¿Me puedes platicar en qué consiste el servicio? Bebbia es un servicio de purificación de agua por suscripción mensual que te proporciona agua de calidad directamente en tu hogar.
Incluye la instalación, el mantenimiento y el reemplazo de filtros para que no tengas que preocuparte por nada. ¿Te gustaría contratar una suscripción de Bebbia o tienes alguna otra pregunta? ¿En qué consiste la instalación? La instalación de Bebbia es un proceso sencillo y rápido que dura entre 40 y 60 minutos. Un técnico certificado acudirá a tu domicilio para instalar el sistema. Esto incluye perforaciones pequeñas en la tarja y el drenaje, si eliges ósmosis inversa, la instalación de una válvula de paso y la conexión a un contacto eléctrico. ¿Te gustaría contratar una suscripción de Bebbia para disfrutar de agua purificada en casa o tienes alguna otra pregunta? ¿Cómo funciona el mantenimiento? El mantenimiento de tu purificador Bebbia está incluido en tu suscripción mensual y se realiza cada seis meses.
Nuestros técnicos especialistas se encargarán de cambiar los cartuchos y limpiar el sistema cuando sea necesario, así tú no tienes que preocuparte por nada. ¿Te gustaría contratar una suscripción de Bebbia para disfrutar de agua pura sin preocupaciones o tienes alguna otra pregunta? Sí, quisiera contratar. Excelente. Nos entusiasma mucho que quieras contratar Bebbia. Para poder instalar tu purificador de agua, es importante que cumplas con los siguientes cuatro requisitos indispensables: 1. Espacio suficiente para instalar el purificador, dimensiones de 46 por 38 por 46 centímetros. 2. Toma de agua en el lugar exacto de instalación. 3. No hay inconveniente con que se perfore la superficie para instalar el grifo. Nuestro instalador está capacitado para hacerlo de forma segura. 4. Cuenta con una toma de corriente o conexión eléctrica en el lugar de instalación. ¿Confirmas que cumples con estos cuatro requisitos? Sí, confirmo. Perfecto.
Para continuar, por favor indícame tu código postal. 11560. Excelente. Ya estamos listos para que contrates Bebbia. Te he enviado por WhatsApp el link para que te suscribas. ¿Hay algo más en lo que pueda ayudarte? Nada, muchas gracias.
Five years ago, digitalization was something we talked about. Today, it defines how we work. AI supports customer service, routing, field services, demand planning, supply chain modeling, and internal processes. In 2025, we trained all our administrative staff in different AI topics. Over the last six months, we've seen a strong increase in AI adoption and usage per employee. Today, 86% of our administrative staff are leveraging AI regularly, with top performers setting the pace and driving this adoption across the organization. The measurable impact is significant. In October alone, AI was used to compose, summarize, or review over 30,000 emails.
This adoption resulted in an estimated 1,800 hours saved, equivalent to the time it would take to fill 1,500 Rotoplas water tanks. E-commerce didn't exist five years ago. Today, our first B2B, B2B2C, and B2C platforms in Mexico give us a direct channel to customers and help us understand their needs better to serve them in a more efficient and effective way. Partnerships with Google Cloud accelerated our migration to a modern tech architecture, improving data governance, automation, and model deployment with infrastructure optimization across the company. Digitalization also transformed how we operate internally. We've been talking about flow for a couple of years now. This way of operating helped us move from centralized decision-making to empower teams with clearer accountability. Now, these new digital tools have helped us to lead flow in an even more efficient way. Leadership evolved toward collaboration and capability building.
We invested deliberately in digital skills across logistics, marketing, commercial, HR, and operations. Five years ago, AI was something we observed. Today, we are ahead of many peers in how actively we integrate it into our day-to-day work. These digital capabilities have helped us evolve across every aspect of our operations. Before we continue, I'd like to show you how our customer service experience has transformed.
Throughout 2025, efficiency has been our top priority. We achieved a 40% reduction in the monthly payroll expense for customer service. We achieved this efficiency through a reduction in incoming calls per month, going from 6,700 calls down to just 3,800. This was possible through automation and the enablement of self-service in several processes, including the redesign of our contact page. We also deployed direct support via WhatsApp, a channel that now represents 23% of our total contacts.
In this channel, our customers can easily self-manage tasks such as reporting an issue or tracking a service ticket. The failure reporting system requests and processes essential information, including the customer's full details and the precise address for a visit, if required. In our internal automations, we successfully scaled the order capture agent. This agent transcribes orders submitted by advisors and customers via email directly into SAP. This has improved our channel efficiency. The agent captures 14% of total orders, combined with 8% from B2B e-commerce, 21% from direct integrations, and 23% from Telynet. And most importantly, we achieved a 98% first contact resolution, avoiding second calls thanks to training and tools such as Dialpad and HubSpot. Dialpad, powered by artificial intelligence, allows us to monitor in real time, understand call sentiment, generate transcriptions, and identify improvement opportunities.
For 2026, our goal is to increase AI coverage so that half of the 1,600 monthly calls from end customers are handled by our conversational AI agents. Additionally, we will be deploying AI text agents on our e-commerce platform. Here is a preview. Hi, I'm Silvia, and I can help you find the perfect solution for your problem. AI provides precise recommendations, highlighting that our products, such as those made with high-quality polyethylene, offer a long, useful life.
Before I close this section, I want to share with you the evolution of our corporate strategy and update the four pillars that have guided our agenda. Over the last years, we executed our strategic plan. We observed something essential. The pace of changing water, sustainability, technology, and consumer behavior accelerated, and so did we. The learning made one thing clear: to lead, we must continuously evolve.
Later, José Luis will walk you through how this evolution connects with our updated sustainability strategy, setting the foundation for the next stage of impact. Today, we are introducing the renewed pillars of our corporate strategy: a sharper, more actionable framework built around four strategic outcomes. One, profitable growth and core expansion. Two, water innovation and market disruption. Three, tech and talent enablement. And lastly, four, sustainable impact and efficiency. These four outcomes integrate everything we have built in recent years: our financial discipline and strength of our products portfolio, our innovation muscle, and our ability to rethink solutions, our advances in digital analytics and talent capabilities, and our commitment to sustainability, circularity, and climate action. This refined strategic framework does not replace our previous agenda. It elevates it. It gives our team clearer direction, aligns our business and sustainability targets, and equips us with greater discipline.
Above all, it reinforces a truth at the center of who we are: everything we do, every capability we build, every decision we make has one purpose: to bring more and better water to people. When I look back at these five years, what I see is a company that has changed fundamentally. A company that modernized its operations, expanded its technological edge, scaled new businesses, became more efficient, became more digital, unified its capabilities, and strengthened its discipline. Most importantly, I see a company that is ready for what comes next, for the next strategic cycle, and ready for the next decade. Thank you for joining us as we shape the next chapter of Rotoplas. The best of our journey is ahead. I'll now hand the call over to Andrés.
Thank you, Charlie. It's a pleasure to be with all of you once again.
I'd like to run a parallel exercise to Charlie's, but focus on our financial and operational evolution over the past five years, a period defined by volatility but also by resilience. Here's a brief recap of that journey. 2020 was a record-breaking year in sales, driven by the pandemic as people stayed home and demand for water storage solutions soared. It was also the year we launched Riego, marking the expansion of our platform into agricultural water solutions. In 2021, global supply chain disruptions and rising raw materials prices created pressure on operations and margins. In 2022, we had another record year, this time due to severe drought conditions in northern Mexico, which significantly boosted demands for our solutions. In 2023, macroeconomic, political, and climate-related headwinds affected multiple countries. The strengthening of the Mexican peso, the so-called super peso, also impacted our reported international revenue once converted back to pesos.
This was the year Bebbia surpassed 100,000 active subscribers, a major milestone that confirmed the scalability of our recurring revenue model. 2024 was a mixed year. We saw a strong first half in Mexico across products and services due to drought conditions, but profitability was impacted by Argentina's deep economic crisis and currency devaluation. From a services perspective, we enhanced our digital offering with the launch of Bebbia Smart. In 2025, we experienced a challenging environment overall. Depressed demand in Argentina and excessive rainfall in Mexico limited top-line growth and put pressure on margins. Even under these conditions, our services platform continued to expand its customer base and consistently improved its profitability, with losses narrowing throughout the year. Since the end of 2023, the most significant external headwind has been Argentina's macroeconomic environment.
Finally, while annual sales continue to grow, continue to be primarily driven by products, it's important to highlight that services expanded meaningfully over the period, led by Bebbia, which grew at a 56% compounded annual growth rate and helped lift the overall services portfolio to a 12% annual growth rate. As a result, services increased their contribution from 7% to 10% of total sales, reinforcing the strategic relevance and scalability of our solutions platform. Since last year, we focused on two priorities: reversing debt that trend and strengthening free cash flow. On reversing debt that trend, we continued to implement cost and expense reductions across all business units, with strong emphasis on operational and administrative efficiency. Throughout 2025, these actions resulted in a leaner, more disciplined cost structure, positioning us to expand margins as market conditions normalized. As of September, this translated into a 4% year-on-year reduction in total expenses.
Second, on strengthening free cash flow, we prioritized working capital optimization, particularly through inventory reductions in Mexico and Argentina, generating MXN 173 million in cash flow while maintaining a strict CapEx discipline. We adopted a more selective, cherry-picking approach to capital expenditures. Maintenance CapEx is prioritized to ensure product performance and capitalize on core market opportunities. Discretionary CapEx now undergoes monthly review and is subject to stricter approval criteria, and in the services division, we're following a pay-as-you-grow investment strategy, allocating resources to contracts with secure revenues and strong returns. Roughly 70% of our CapEx, which totals around 4% of revenue, is allocated to services. Between 2022 and 2024, we made significant investments to modernize storage manufacturing in Mexico and to advance our digital transformation. Our focus is now fully on capturing the values from those investments.
About the debt strategy, in the coming months, we will also focus on the refinancing of our AGUA Sustainable Bond, which matures in June 2027. We still have ample time, but our intention is to secure strong options well before the debt becomes short-term. Moving on to regional performance over the past five years, the group has undergone a fundamental shift. We moved from countries operating independently, with uneven capabilities and limited scale, to one integrated Rotoplas, more aligned through common digital operational and leadership frameworks. This unification strengthened our execution. Speed increased, alignment deepened, and financial discipline became part of our daily rhythm. And at the same time, each country retained the autonomy it needed to compete locally. Mexico is a clear example of this evolution. The business shifted from a product-centric mindset to a portfolio strategy grounded in data, customer insight, and faster innovation cycles.
This enabled the launch of pressure storage, rainwater harvesting solutions, and the IoT-enabled devices, all supported by standardized group frameworks in quality, pricing, and marketing. Operationally, we upgraded all water storage manufacturing plants in Mexico, opened a new Ixtapaluca facility, expanded production capacity in central Mexico, and designed it to be water-positive, capable of capturing and reusing more water than its annual consumption. Embedded IoT technology across products and services, expanded digital channels such as e-commerce and WhatsApp, deployed AI-powered agents to improve speed and user interaction. And finally, we have integrated Mexico and Central America into one single operational management region, unlocking synergies and scale. Looking ahead, our priorities include expanding pressure solution, enhancing Bebbia's IoT capabilities, strengthening our AI service agents and building a unified super app, and launching the Bebbia Life ecosystem, including a water cooling faucet, pet water accessories, and electrolyte models.
Argentina evolved from three separate businesses into a unified company with one market approach and culture. We launched new product lines, pumps, faucets, water heaters, purifiers, modernized manufacturing, and maintained strict cash discipline despite operating under one of the most complex macroeconomic environments in the region. We navigated a wide range of macroeconomic scenarios: high inflation with strong demand, high inflation with devaluation with low demand, currency stability with stagnant demand, and shifting trade restrictions and limitations on foreign payments. Going forward, demand recovery will depend on Argentina's political and economic path. While we wait for macro stabilization, we remain focused on operational efficiency, product engineering, strategic sourcing, and commercial discipline. So we're ready when demand returns, supported by the country's housing deficit and eventual credit expansion. In 2021, the U.S. surpassed 10% of consolidated revenue, and we began reporting it as a separate segment.
Since then, performance has been shaped by several external factors: pandemic-driven do-it-yourself activity, California's recurring drought cycles, periods of heavy rainfall, and more recent headwinds in agricultural and farming, all contributing to top-line variability. Despite that, we made significant progress. We expanded our branch network from eight to 13 locations, consolidated three separate legacy e-commerce engines into one fully integrated e-commerce platform, introduced new products in water storage, advanced septics, and rainwater harvesting markets, and simplified operations with discipline focused on profitability and network score. Looking ahead, we're strengthening our commercial strategy with dedicated teams for each vertical: industrial, chemical, residential, wastewater, and more, to deliver expanded solutions and services to our customers. We will continue shifting towards delivering elevated value through integrated solutions over standalone products, expand our branch network, and evolve our sales force into a fully consultative, solutions-driven team.
Peru transitioned from a storage-focused business to a diversified platform that now includes pipes and water heaters, grounded in discipline, innovation, and strong customer focus. Processes became clearer execution and strength, and the team now launches new products every year. Today, eight out of 10 heaters are installed under 24 hours, supported by hybrid physical-digital models that create direct contacts with users. In essence, this is how we operate today as a group: shared capabilities, unified standards, disciplined leadership, and the autonomy to win locally, all working together to build a stronger, more resilient, and more integrated company. Before closing, I'd like to highlight how the role of finance of the finance organization has evolved over the past years. Today, finance operates with a broader mandate and a far more strategic scope. The CFO function now works jointly with the CSO in driving the company's sustainability agenda.
Also, we redesigned our structure to empower and strengthen each business unit, assigning dedicated business planners who bring financial expertise closer to the operation. This has increased agility, improved decision-making, and ensured that every business has its own tailored financial planning support. We also accelerated the digitalization and automatization of our processes by enhancing data quality and speeding up data processing. We have shortened closing and reporting cycles, giving the organization faster and more reliable access to financial information. This has enabled us to operate in a more predictive, analytical, and insight-driven manner. In addition, our CapEx control tower now evaluates investment decisions not only on financial returns but also on their ESG contribution, strengthening the way we prioritize and deploy capital.
Finance has evolved from a traditional control and reporting function into a strategic business partner, providing forward-looking insights, disciplined capital allocation, and an integrated view of performance and impact across the company. This evolution also strengthens our alignment with sustainability, ensuring that financial decisions incorporate environmental and social considerations while supporting long-term value creation. With these financial priorities and clear regional focuses, we're well-positioned to improve both top-line growth and profitability as market cycles shift by staying disciplined and focused on what we can control. We're confident that we operate in the right industry with the right strategy and the right team. Thank you all for your continued trust and partnership. Now I will hand it over to José Luis.
Thank you, Andrés. I'm very happy to be here with you today.
I'd like to take a moment to reflect on how far we have come, not just in metrics, but in mindset. Let me walk you through Rotoplas' ESG journey, the progress we have made, and where we are heading next. As Charlie and Andrés emphasized, Rotoplas in 2025 is a fundamentally different company from the one we were in 2020. We have undergone a strategic and cultural transformation, embedding sustainability into how we operate, innovate, and govern. Our journey has included the adoption of international ESG frameworks such as SASB, TCFD, and CDP, the significant expansion of our ESG disclosures aligning with investor expectations and global best practices, and the implementation of sustainability best practices across our value chain and operations. In 2021, we conducted our first double materiality assessment, integrating both investor perspectives and stakeholder priorities into our sustainability strategy.
In 2022, we formally made sustainability a shared executive responsibility between the CFO and myself, embedding it deeper into business decision-making. In 2023, we completed our first human rights risk assessment, identifying and addressing potential impacts across our operations and value chains. We built partnerships with organizations such as Pride Connection and Éntrale to strengthen our efforts on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We participated in UN Global Compact Accelerators on gender equality and climate ambition, enhancing leadership alignment. We adopted the Corporate Sustainability Assessment, CSA, by S&P Global as a key ESG KPI. Since 2022, we have been featured in S&P Global, consistently ranked in the top 15% of the global building products industry. Since 2023, through our strategic partnership with Google Cloud, we have implemented an environmental performance dashboard that automates our Scope 1 and 2 GHG inventory and enables facility-level tracking of environmental KPIs.
In 2024, we published our first environmental product declaration, EPD, for the Tinaco + , a third-party verified document that qualifies the product's environmental impact across its life cycle, reinforcing our commitment to transparency, circularity, and sustainable product design. Also, in 2024, we proudly became the first company in Latin America to publish an SDG impact disclosure in collaboration with JPMorgan, demonstrating how our business model contributes to the 2030 agenda. We also published our climate risk and opportunity assessment, aligned with the TCFD framework, and our emissions reduction targets were officially validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative. This year, we published our first biodiversity impact assessment and released our second EPD, this time for Turbo +.
Also, we have reactivated our PAZA Water for Affected Areas program on several locations to support communities in crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic with handwashing stations across multiple locations after Hurricane Otis in Acapulco during 2023 and most recently this year in Puebla and Veracruz. We have worked to integrate sustainability into our internal performance evaluation systems. Over the past few years, we have expanded the number of leaders and teams whose performance dashboards include ESG-related objectives. Today, 26% of our employees with measurable development dashboards have a sustainability KPI, and many have variable compensation tied to ESG progress. Our progress has been consistently recognized through awards, including HSBC and EY leading companies in Sustainable Innovation Awards in 2022 for governance, in 2023 for social innovation, and this year for environmental leadership.
Furthermore, Rotoplas was included in the CDP Supplier Engagement Leadership A List for 2024, recognized by CONAGUA, Mexico's National Water Authority, as a water-responsible company. And Grupo Rotoplas maintained presence in the BMV Total Mexico ESG Index and the Dow Jones Sustainability Index MILA Pacific Alliance these five years. And in 2025, the company was listed among Newsweek's Most Trustworthy Companies in the World. We are approaching the end of our sustainability roadmap to 2025, and we are on track to meet nearly all of our goals. The most challenging target has been increasing the representation of women in the workforce. While we have made progress, our industrial and field-intensive operations make this a longer-term cultural shift. On the other hand, we have made remarkable progress on environmental metrics. Water intensity decreased by 25% per ton of material processed. Scope 1 and 2 CO2 intensity dropped by 11%.
Renewable energy usage increased from 2% to 28% of electricity consumption. Waste recycling improved by 7%. We also improved our ESG ratings. Our corporate sustainability assessment score from S&P Global increased from 61 to 71. Our CDP water security rating improved from C to B. We closed the 2021-2025 cycle with solid progress and learnings. The global context is rapidly shifting, compelling sustainability leaders to move decisively beyond traditional ESG frameworks. Rotoplas is poised and ready to lead this new paradigm. Our future is defined by a single, powerful, and resonant word: Agua. Agua embodies who we are, representing water as a symbol of life, transformation, and impact. It is our ticker in the Mexican Bolsa and a living concept that connects every area and stakeholder, guided by our double materiality assessment, focusing precisely where we create the most value.
This evolved strategy is designed to strengthen innovation, accountability, and our internal culture. Enhanced collaboration with customers, users, plumbers, and communities aligns purpose, profitability, and positive impact through to who we are: AGUA. The four pillars of the strategy are: A. Action for the environment. We will promote robust initiatives to mitigate and adapt to climate change, responsibly manage water and waste in our operations, and increase the circularity of our products. Key focus areas are energy and fuel efficiency, water management, biodiversity, waste management, and life cycle assessments. G. Generation of value. We will pursue the creation of enduring economic, environmental, and social value for all of our stakeholders and throughout our value chain. Focus areas include supplier engagement, risk management, cybersecurity, ethics and compliance, and alignment with international disclosure standards. U. Uplifting well-being.
We are committed to promoting the well-being of our employees, the communities we serve, and the people within our stakeholder ecosystem. Through unique teamwork, we strive to ensure fair working conditions, equal opportunities, and a discrimination-free environment while fostering dignity, respect, and shared prosperity. Focus areas: diversity and inclusion, human rights, occupational health and safety, and training and development. A. Allyship in sustainability. We will position ourselves as a strategic partner, driving the transition towards a sustainable future by working with industries, communities, governments, business partners, and end users. Key priorities include water stewardship, circular water economy, WASH, water sanitation and hygiene, and social initiatives. To ensure our initiatives translate into tangible, measurable results, we have set the following targets for 2030: reduce Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 42% and Scope 3 emissions by 25%. Reduce freshwater extraction by 15% per ton produced.
Recycle 70% of non-hazardous waste generated in our manufacturing sites. Engage 80% of critical suppliers in sustainability. Allocate 30% of the company's CapEx to sustainable projects. Reach 40% of women in management positions at a group level. Purify the equivalent of 150 million 20-liter water jugs through Bebbia. Treat 35 million cubic meters of wastewater. Benefit over 1.5 million people with access to sanitation through our biodigesters. Our strategy is not merely a plan. It is our comprehensive vision where purpose, profitability, and positive impact converge to drive the next chapter of Rotoplas Sustainable Value Creation. Rotoplas has always been about transforming water into well-being. Today, our sustainability strategy is also transforming our business into a more resilient, inclusive, and trusted company. Thank you for your continued confidence in our journey and for walking it with us.
Thank you, José Luis.
Before we open the Q&A session, we have a quick poll for you with two questions. I will read the first question and then give you a moment to select your answer. The first question is, which area of Rotoplas transformation do you see as the most strategically important? One, portfolio evolution. Two, digital and AI acceleration. Three, operational efficiency. Four, sustainability integration. And five, regional execution and go-to-market. Just wait a minute until we show you the questions on your screen. And the most popular answer for this question was portfolio evolution, products, and services. Now, the second question is, which factor will be most critical in driving Rotoplas value creation in the coming years? The first option is consistent cash flow generation, margin expansion, growth in services, ESG leadership, and digital and operational excellence. We'll give you some time to answer.
And the most popular answer was consistent cash flow generation. Thank you for the participation. We'll now begin the Q&A session. Please include your name and company and submit your questions through the Zoom Q&A feature. We'll just give you a minute to submit your questions. We have a first question from Martín Lara from Miranda Global Research. Good morning and thank you for your presentation. I have the following questions. Could you please give us an update on Argentina, the U.S., and other countries' operations? If you will, I'll read the second question after you answer the first one.
Hello, Martín. Thanks for joining this morning. Yes, happy to do so. Starting with Argentina, we had our earnings call last time just before the elections. And then I think we had what I would think is good news from the elections.
As we feel there's going to be continuity in the transformation Argentina is going through, it has been very tough for our market during this period, but we do think that in the long term, this will be a much more sustainable country with sustained results. The market has still been somewhat slow, but there have been indicators that tell us that construction will be growing more, and so Argentina has not yet had a strong recovery, but there are indicators that show that that's likely to start happening in 2026. Anything regarding Argentina, Andrés?
Yes, I mean, just complementing. I think we're here for the long term in terms of Argentina, and we're waiting for the market to recover. Hopefully, next year, we'll see some recovery after what Charlie mentioned of the continuity of the macro plan.
So yeah, we're hopeful we continue to see improvements during the next year.
The U.S. is a market where we have seen great turnaround in terms of profitability. We're very focused on being disciplined on profitable growth. And the team has done a phenomenal job at getting the business above break-even. And then very cautiously looking for opportunities to serve the water space in the U.S., which are very interesting, but we want to make sure that we do it in a profitable way. Anything else regarding the U.S., Andrés?
No. Thank you.
And then the last.
Thank you both.
The last market was which one?
The last market was other countries' operations, so in general,
I think the other countries' operations, Central America is doing very well. It has performed very, very well this year.
Mexico's construction and water situations posed a challenging year for us, but I think that will start changing again in 2026. Anything else, Andrés?
No. Probably, Yeah, the smaller markets. I mean, Peru is running really well. Brazil is still small, but growing at a good performance. So generally speaking, other countries are performing well.
Thank you. The second question from Martín is, what percentage of your CapEx was aimed at digitalization in 2025, and what can we expect in 2026?
Thank you, Martín. It was actually a small percent, I would say, probably less than 10%. That has been happening beforehand. So we've been investing in digitalization, I would say, 2023, 2024, and less so in 2025, and we expect less so in 2026. So I think we have done the investments already, and now we should harvest from those investments.
So in terms of percentage, it's less than 10%.
Thank you, Andrés. Orlando Alcántara from BTG Pactual says, "Hi, thanks for the questions. You mentioned sharper ROIC focus on lower digital spending. Where should we expect ROIC levels for the next 12 months?"
Thank you, Orlando. So we don't have a specific guidance for ROIC, but we do expect to continue improvement in our LTM indicators, particularly ROIC and net debt to EBITDA, as we progress from a more challenging last 12 months and, I would say, last 18 months to a more, I would say, more recuperating environment in the future. So we should see ROIC improving in the coming months. I don't know, Charlie, if you want to add anything.
No.
Thank you, Andrés. Fernando Quinzanos asks, "Which of your business units is more profitable in Mexico?"
Go ahead, Andrés.
No, no, I was going to say we don't disclose all of the business units' profitability. I mean, I would say our traditional product lines are the ones that we have the most experience and are the ones that are the most mature. So I mean, as a more mature business, it has been, generally speaking, the most profitable, but we don't disclose profitability of each of the services businesses in general.
Thank you, Andrés. I'll read the fourth question from Rodrigo Salazar from AM Advisors. "Thank you for the update. Excited for the next five years, and congratulations on the last five. I'd like to continue on the five-year agenda. As you mentioned, things have been changing dramatically during the period, and I want to better understand the numbers.
In 2021 to 2022, results were very strong, driven by a much stronger Mexico product segment and a very different scenario in Argentina, partially offset by losses in the U.S. and in services. My question is, what is the goal or expectation for results to potentially return to levels similar to 2021, 2022, and what will be the key drivers to get there? I assume services will play a significant role as well as the U.S. as losses turn into gains, and what should we expect from Mexico and Argentina given that weather hasn't been favorable and competition appears tougher?
Thank you very much for your question, Rodrigo. Thanks for joining. Yeah, great question. 2021, 2022, 2023 was still a very strong year. Like you said, Argentina was a big contributor to the EBITDA, and that went away completely. We do not see that Argentina is going to disappear.
We do expect to recover, to have a strong recovery in Argentina whenever the market comes back in terms of building. The country still needs huge investments for their needs in terms of construction and water infrastructure. So we're positive at some point, Argentina is going to come back. Some of it should start happening in 2026, and definitely not all of it by 2026. It should just be the beginning. It will take some years for Argentina to recover. But like you said, back then, some other businesses like services and the U.S. were not profitable, and now they're at those levels of breaking even and then becoming more profitable.
So when we have a year where Argentina has recovered and then we have strong results in services and the U.S., and we have also a year where we have more challenging situations in terms of water scarcity in Mexico and stronger construction in Mexico, it's going to be definitely a very, very strong result for us. But as you remember, we've not given guidance as there has been such uncertainty on these aspects. And so we know that we have built the capabilities, that we compete with tremendous efficiency, and that we are focusing on the customer in a way and leveraging technology in a way that we are delivering solutions that are needed with the most competitive conditions, with the best experience.
We're very comfortable that the results will be very strong in the future for Rotoplas and that we have the best years for Rotoplas to come in the following years. Andrés, anything else that you'd like to share?
Not really, Charlie. I agree completely.
Thank you both. The next question comes from Gilberto Cantú from GBM. "Regarding debt strategy, what is Rotoplas' plan going forward?"
Thank you, Gilberto. We have two types of debt, mainly. We have a short-term debt mostly used for working capital. We have plenty of lines open. We have drawn. I mean, we draw and pay constantly. The idea is to have those lines available and use them as little as we can. Next year, we should be. I mean, we have been constantly delivering from those ones, so we have been constantly decreasing the levels of those ones.
So the idea is to continue that trend. On the other hand, we have the AGUA Sustainable Bond. That's due in the summer of 2027. The idea is to refinance that next year. So the idea is to, in the first half of the year, have I mean, we've been working already, but secure some options of refinancing and have that done by the summer of next year. So well ahead of the bond due in 2027. So that's the strategy for our debt, Gilberto.
Thank you. Thank you, Andrés. The next question comes from Julio Martínez from SURA Investments. "What are the projections for revenue growth for 2026 and 2027 by implementing AI?"
We don't necessarily have a number regarding revenue growth directly tied to AI exclusively. It's multiple things that we're doing. It's AI plus processes plus e-commerce plus our culture of customer centricity.
Additionally, like I mentioned, it's not the time for us to be giving guidance for revenues going forward. It is varying very widely by things that are not under our control, such as economic performance of Argentina or rains. But like I said, I do have clarity that there's going to be growth going forward.
Thank you, Charlie. The next question comes from David Seaman from Driehaus. "Regarding Bebbia, is the 3.0 rollout complete, and is the capacity, maximum new installations per month, expected to increase as a result, or still limited by your customer acquisition cost budget? Further, what percentage of target households don't have electrical plug availability?"
Hey, David, thanks for joining. Great to have you here. 3.0 is complete. I'd like to say that that's the end of developing our platform. We've learned this is going to be something that's going to continue forever.
It is a platform that leverages new capabilities, and new capabilities are coming online all the time. So now, for instance, we're going for the next versions of this, including more and more AI capabilities. But that version 3.0 is done, and we are having better capabilities to be able to adopt or serve a bigger number of customers or being able to accelerate with demand our subscribers. In terms of the electricity plug available in homes, most homes have an electrical outlet under the sink. And if they don't, we can usually find a solution. It's very few that have a situation where it just doesn't make sense for a Bebbia solution to be implemented. But that is more of the exception. We just want customers to be aware that we'll be using an electrical outlet under the sink.
Thank you, Charlie.
We have another question from Julio Martínez from SURA Investments. "For 2026, what will the company prioritize? Revenue growth or ROIC?"
Thank you, Julio. That's a great question. I think ultimately, we prioritize return for our shareholders, right? So between those two, I would say we would prioritize ROIC. We need revenue growth to continue our increased ROIC. But as I mentioned in my remarks, reversing EBITDA is the most important financial strategy at this point and also generating free cash flow. So both of those target improving ROIC. So I would say, again, it's a good debate here in the financial strategy, but ultimately, we prioritize return for our shareholders.
And I would add that for revenues to grow, in a lot of the different businesses we have, we don't need relevant investments.
This is something that happens both we drive revenues with little investment, and that generates a higher return on invested capital. So having bigger revenues with little investments, definitely both grow in parallel.
Thank you both. The next question comes from Bernd Müllfriedel. "What are your goals for Bebbia, and when do you think Bebbia will sustainably contribute to this company's profitability?"
I'm happy to take it on. There's a market. Sorry, first of all, thanks for joining, Bernd. There's a market for Bebbia in Mexico for around a total addressable market of around five million households. So the target is to be the leading service provider in water purification in point of use. And so we would definitely like to have a big percentage of those five million homes while we have over 160,000 units today. In terms of profitability, would you like to mention anything, Andrés?
I mean, profitability has improved sequentially. So the idea is to continue that trend. Growth obviously takes a toll on profitability, but we've been managing growth and improving profitability sequentially. So that's the idea.
Thank you, Andrés. We have another question from Orlando Alcántara from BTG. "We've seen some strong efficiencies in operating expenses in the past two quarters. Should we expect similar levels of efficiencies for the following quarters, and at what level? Are there any plans for bringing efficiencies to logistics expenses given the new online delivery service?"
Thank you, Orlando. Yes. I mean, as we have mentioned in this call and in the previous calls, efficiency is one of our targets. We will continue to look at this and to make this a priority. So yeah, we should continue to see these efficiencies in the coming quarters. We've been controlling our expenses significantly.
We have reduced expenses 4% year-on-year as of September, and the idea is to continue that. So yeah, we will continue to look at those. And in terms of logistics, yeah, we're always looking at improving efficiencies in logistics. It's obviously a big expense for us, so we're always looking at how to improve that as well. I don't know, Charlie, if you want to add anything.
I agree.
Thank you. And a follow-up question from Orlando. "Where should we expect headwinds and tailwinds on OpEx from?"
Thanks for your question, Orlando. Headwinds, there's inflation. So services and labor continue to increase prices. But tailwinds, leveraging technology, that's a huge tailwind. So we continue to improve efficiency by adopting AI, by automating processes, and even physical processes with robots.
And so as there's more technology at good prices available, we will definitely continue to leverage those with very high returns on those with adopting those technologies. I don't know if you want to add anything else, Andrés.
No, I agree. I agree. I mean, yeah, the headwinds, hopefully, we knew better where will they come from. But I guess we will try to be prepared for everything with resiliency and, again, as always, controlling what we can.
But we won't be waiting for anything to surprise us to continue to make efforts and efficiencies. That's one of the things we're doing consistently.
Thank you. We have no other questions. Would you like to make a closing remark?
I would just like to be very grateful with everyone's participation today in our AGUA Day. We're very excited for the next five years. We appreciate your support very much.
Thanks for joining.
That concludes our Q&A session. If we didn't get to your question, please feel free to reach out to our investor relations team. They will be glad to support you. Thank you to our speakers and to everyone joining us today. As a small token of appreciation, you can enjoy 30% off your first six months of Bebbia using the code AGUADAY25 at Bebbia.com. We sincerely appreciate your interest in Rotoplas. We look forward to staying connected and to welcoming you again at our future events. And before we go, we'd like to share our latest Bebbia commercial. Thank you again for joining us. This concludes today's event. Have a great day.