Good morning, and thank you for joining Becle's fourth quarter unaudited financial results call. During this call, you may hear certain forward-looking statements. These statements may relate to our future prospects, developments, and business strategies, and may be identified by our use of terms and phrases such as: anticipate, believe, could, estimate, expect, intend, and similar terms and phrases, and may include references to assumptions. Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy, and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, by their nature, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. Our actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements.
Before we begin, we would like to remind you that the figures discussed on this call were prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS, and published in the Mexican Stock Exchange. The information for the fourth quarter of 2025 is preliminary and is provided with the understanding that once financial statements are available, updated information will be shared in the appropriate electronic formats. At this time, we would like to remind participants that your lines will be in listen-only mode until the question and answer session. I will pass the call on to Becle's CEO, Mr. Juan Domingo Beckmann.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today as we discuss Becle's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. 2025 was a year of navigating challenges across our key markets. However, we defended or expanded our leadership position in tequila across our main regions, protected pricing better than the industry average by leveraging our strong brand equity, and delivered solid financial performance, supported by decisive actions and disciplined execution. We are proactively assessing market conditions to reinforce our strong foundation for sustained long-term growth. At the same time, it is important to put the current environment into perspective. Spirits continue to take share from other alcoholic beverages, underscoring the structural strength of the segment. Within that context, tequila continues to outperform other full-strength spirits categories, with solid price mix growth and a premiumization trends remaining intact, favoring our core strengths.
Cautious of shifting consumption trends, we believe the current slowdown is mostly cyclical, driven by macroeconomic headwinds and inflationary pressures. We expect demand to recover as consumers' confidence improves. In the U.S. and Canada, we're implementing changes to better capture both portfolio and route-to-market opportunities. We recently announced a full realignment of our U.S. distribution network, with the transition beginning on February 1st . In Mexico, we continue to advance premiumization, strengthen our on-premise capabilities, and sharpen marketing through innovation. Even in a cautious demand environment, we remain confident in our ability to defend our market leadership and compete effectively. In rest of the world, we are focusing on our core brands and strengthening our premium portfolio.
We continue to execute with discipline as we navigate evolving consumer behavior and macro conditions, we continue to capture a relevant position in strategic growth markets in the region. 2025 evidenced an unusually complex global spirit sector, likely to remain in 2026. However, we've consistently shown that we can drive competitive advantage through uncertain times by focusing on what matters most: the strength of our brands, the discipline of our strategy, and the quality of our people. We are entering 2026 with a healthy mix of realism and optimism, as we anticipate that the years ahead will continue to require bold adjustments to position us better for 2027 and beyond. Thank you. With that, I'll turn it over to Mauricio to discuss our U.S. and Canada results.
Thank you, Juan. Good morning, everyone. Our fourth quarter performance in the U.S. and Canada region reflected a combination of continued industry-wide headwinds and deliberate commercial actions taken to position the business for long-term success. As full-strength spirits demand decelerated through the back of the half year, we remain focused on the areas firmly within our control: execution, disciplined pricing, targeted investment behind our brands, and a thoughtful management of shipments and inventory across the system. U.S. spirits trends deteriorated sequentially in 2025, with a slowdown particularly evident toward year-end. Against this backdrop, tequila continues to stand out as the most resilient full-strength spirits category, delivering volume growth of 2.3% in the year, according to Nielsen data.
While growth in the broader spirits market has skewed towards prepared cocktails, tequila has transitioned from a high-growth phase to a more normalized stabilization phase. It remains an attractive category and continues to outperform other spirits. Within this environment, our own portfolio continues to outperform the market. Excluding prepared cocktails, SipSource data for the three-month period ending in November shows that Proximo continued to outperform the broader industry in value growth within full-strength spirits, and more specifically, within the tequila category. Nielsen data for 2025 further supports this performance, showing that Proximo's volume declined 2.5%, outperforming the overall market by approximately 100 basis points. Pricing discipline remained a defining feature of our approach in the quarter. As demand moderated, competitive behavior intensified, with the overall tequila category experiencing a price decline of approximately 9.2%.
By contrast, our average pricing decline was limited to 5.1%. While this discipline can create short-term volume pressure, we believe avoiding aggressive discounting is critical to protecting long-term brand equity and margin integrity, particularly in an environment where several competitors have leaned more heavily into aggressive pricing actions. At the same time, we continue to invest behind our brands. Our advertising and marketing investment as a % of sales remains above peer levels, reflecting our conviction and sustained brand support is essential in periods of category softness. These investments are tightly focused on expanding points of distribution, opening new on-premise accounts, and improving in-store performance. From a category standpoint, strengthening our leadership position in tequila continues to be our top priority. At the same time, RTDs represent one of the most attractive growth opportunities where we are currently underrepresented.
During the second half of 2025, we increased our focus and investment behind RTDs and delivered solid double-digit growth. To further accelerate performance in this segment, we are building a stronger innovation pipeline and evaluating route-to-market alternatives that enhance coverage and execution. Turning to shipments and inventory, we took deliberate actions during the quarter to ensure healthier alignment across the system. In response to the broader slowdown in consumer takeaway, we adopted a measured approach to shipments, with the aim of avoiding further inventory build. This resulted in shipments declining more sharply than depletions on a quarterly basis. Our inventory levels vary significantly across distributors, with our highest levels sitting in what were RNDC markets. We will actively be working on balancing inventory levels as part of the transition into our new distributors during the first half of 2026.
In the quarter, retailers continued to reduce inventory to historically low levels. In turn, distributors also actively worked to reduce their own inventory levels. In addition, we had already anticipated our planned exit from RNDC well ahead of the formal announcement. We made a conscious decision to moderate shipments into RNDC during the end of the year to facilitate a smoother transition and mitigate disruption at the time of execution. As previously announced, we have recently completed a comprehensive review of our route-to-market strategy across the United States. As a result of this evaluation, while we value the relationships and history we've built with RNDC, we decided to transition our distribution away from them in all current markets, except for Georgia and New Mexico, effective February 1st of 2026.
This decision reflects a performance-first mindset, aligning our brand with partners who demonstrate strong execution, focus on accountability. While these transitions may introduce some near-term volatility, particularly in the first half of the year, we believe this change will significantly strengthen our commercial foundation and position us to compete more effectively in an increasingly dynamic U.S. marketplace. Looking beyond current market cycles, the long-term fundamentals of the U.S. spirits market remain strong. We believe tequila is positioned to be the industry's main growth category over the next decade, a trend that directly benefits Proximo as a category leader. We continue to see durable consumer appetite for premiumization and authenticity, reinforcing our confidence in the long-term trajectory of the business. I will now turn the call over to Olga Limón to discuss Mexico and the Latin America results.
Thank you, Mauricio. Good morning, everyone. Moving to our performance in Mexico, I would like to frame our 2025 results within the context of the broader industry landscape. While the spirits industry remained in contraction, it is important to highlight that the pace of decline moderated meaningfully compared to 2024. Within this context, tequila continues to prove its status as a clear outperformer. Our brands not only held their ground, but consistently gained market share across both tequila category and total spirits. According to ISCAM data through November, our performance in Mexico clearly outpaced the industry. While total spirits volume declined 1.4%, our portfolio delivered a 2.5% volume increase. In value terms, we grew 2.0% against an industry decline of 1.6%. The tequila category specifically remains a growth engine.
While the category grew 2.5% in volume, we outperformed with 3.9% growth. These results underscore the continued strength of our portfolio and our undisputed leadership position in our home market. When evaluating our performance, it is essential to look beyond the quarterly volatility and focus on a full-year trajectory. Moving forward, to provide a more accurate reflection of our underlying business, it is important to look at results excluding the Boost brand. On a full-year basis and excluding our Boost brand, Mexico delivered a 1% volume growth, broadly in line with depletions, which decreased 1% versus the previous year. While our fourth quarter volumes decreased by 10.3%, depletions declined 7.1%. These figures follow an exceptionally strong third quarter, where depletions grew by 5.2%.
We evaluated on, when evaluated on a second half basis, shipments increased 0.5%, while depletions decreased by 2.5%. It is also important to note that we are lapping a particularly strong fourth quarter seen in 2024, which created a high bar for comparison. In response to softer depletions observed late this year, we intentionally moderated shipments to ensure we close 2025 with healthy inventory levels across the system. This disciplined approach to inventory management provides us with a clean runway as we enter 2026. Throughout the year, our shipments and depletions remain well aligned, confirming that the underlying consumer demand for our brands remains robust. Looking at the global picture, Mexico continues to be one of the best performing regions for tequila and for the company as a whole.
Overall, our leadership in tequila and our ability to gain share in a challenging market gives us great confidence. By prioritizing disciplined execution and protecting the long-term health of our equity, we believe we are well positioned to continue building value in Mexico and across the region. I will now turn the call over to Shane Hoyne, Managing Director of EMEA and APAC region. Thank you.
Thank you, Olga, and good morning, everyone. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the region sustained its positive momentum, with both shipments and depletions growing. APAC continued to deliver double-digit depletions growth, while EMEA recorded positive depletions compared to the same period last year. For the full year, 2025 shipments in the EMEA and APAC region were flat versus 2024, while depletions increased by 1.5%, reflecting continued underlying demand despite a challenging trade environment. Inventory remained a key factor throughout the year, particularly in the first half. Elevated inventory levels across the broader industry impacted shipment patterns as distributors and retailers focused on reducing working capital and operating with lower inventory levels. These dynamics were evident across multiple markets and remained a consistent theme over the course of the year.
Pricing conditions in 2025 remained highly competitive, with aggressive discounting across many markets as peers sought to defend volumes. While pricing pressure remains elevated, discounting activity appears to have largely stabilized. From a category standpoint, tequila is gaining momentum across the region, driven by growing consumer interest and a deeper understanding of the category. Increasingly, tequila is expanding into new occasions, positioning itself as a more sophisticated option for cocktails and early evening aperitifs. We also see tequila switch consumers from traditional brown spirits, such as cognac and whiskey, with many entering directly into the aged tequila segment, reinforcing the category's long-term premiumization opportunity. Overall, while the region is operating in a complex and uncertain environment, Becle continues to perform resiliently and underlying category dynamics remain constructive. Looking ahead to 2026, we remain optimistic, with tequila offering significant long-term volume and value growth potential across multiple markets.
Our portfolio strength and established route to market strategy position us well to capitalize on these trends. I'll now hand you over to Rodrigo, who will take you through the financial results.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I will now walk you through the financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. In the fourth quarter, the company reported consolidated net sales of MXN 11.1 billion, reflecting a 14% decline year-over-year and an 8.4% decline on an FX adjusted basis. This and other reported results were negatively impacted by the appreciation of the Mexican peso in Q4. Operationally, results were impacted by deliberate inventory rebalancing actions in the U.S., mainly due to a softer demand environment into the year-end. Our price mix increased 0.4%, reflecting our ability to sustain pricing even under extreme competitive environment, leveraging our brand equity and portfolio. However, this was more than offset by 5.7 points of unfavorable currency translation.
This quarter marks our eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year gross margin expansion, a significant achievement given an unfavorable regional mix and the appreciation of the Mexican peso, which represented a significant drag on margins. We continued to benefit from lower agave-related input costs and ongoing cost efficiencies from strategic sourcing and manufacturing operations, resulting in a gross margin of 55.2%, an expansion of 110 basis points versus a year ago. While net sales remained under pressure, we maintained investment behind our brands to protect long-term equity and ensure we are well positioned for a better time. We have done so while remaining highly selective and focused on investment efficiency. Turning to operating expenses, distribution costs declined 6.5%, and SG&A expenses decreased 6.2%, reflecting continued discipline on overheads and strong cost control across the organization.
Other income increased by MXN 438 million during the quarter, primarily driven by anticipated contractual settlements related to U.S. distribution agreements. As a result, EBITDA for the fourth quarter was flat year-on-year, with EBITDA margin expanding 340 basis points to 24.4%. Net income for the quarter was MXN 1.4 billion, benefiting from a MXN 148 million year-over-year foreign exchange gain, as the appreciation of the Mexican peso positively impacted our net U.S. dollar debt exposure. This benefit was partially offset by a retroactive full-year effective tax rate increase to 27%, which was recorded in the fourth quarter.
As of December 31, 2025, cash and cash equivalents totaled MXN 10.8 billion, while total debt was MXN 18.9 billion, a decrease of MXN 7.4 billion compared to the prior year. In 2025, the company generated MXN 8.1 billion in net cash from operating activities, driven primarily by the set up in underlying operating profit and continued working capital and CapEx discipline. Our balance sheet remains very strong, with adjusted net leverage of 0.9x , slightly below our targeted range of 1x-1.5x . We remain confident in our long-term free cash flow generation and have ample balance sheet capacity to execute our capital allocation agenda, which prioritizes reinvesting in the business and returning capital to shareholders.
Before moving to guidance, I want to take a step back and highlight the progress we have made over the past several years. Using 2019 as a pre-COVID reference point, net revenues are up 45%, driven by 10% volume growth and a 35% increase in average price per case. This reflects the significant premiumization of our portfolio, with average price per case growing at a 5% CAGR since 2019. Importantly, our rest of the world business has doubled in size since 2019 in net sales value, reinforcing that tequila remains a high-growth category with substantial long-term potential, particularly in markets where penetration remains low. Gross profit has grown at a 7.5% CAGR since 2019, and gross margin is now 320 basis points above 2019 levels.
At the same time, marketing expenses as percentage of net sales have declined by 90 basis points versus 2019, while consolidated net sales value has grown at a 6.4% CAGR, reflecting a more efficient and disciplined investment approach. Importantly, these improvements were not driven by foreign exchange movements, as the average effects in 2019 was broadly the same as in 2025. From a working capital standpoint, we have improved our cash conversion cycle. Total inventory days are back to 2019 levels, even though we have significantly premiumized our portfolio since then. Payables have improved from 36 days- 56 days, and receivables have shortened from 110 days- 100 days as of year-end 2025.
CapEx has also declined, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of net sales, from 6.9%- 33.4%. We have continued to deliver consistent dividends, and free cash flow has strengthened, improving from a 4% free cash flow yield in 2019 to 14% at the end of 2025. When you look at our performance over the past six years, the company has evolved into a more mature and resilient business, one that has strengthened its ability to premiumize consistently, invest efficiently, improve cash conversion, and capital return to shareholders through a sustainable and disciplined financial model. Moving on to 2026 guidance. This will be a transition year for our business as we execute the previously announced realignment of our U.S. distribution network.
Changes of this scale take time to fully stabilize and may create temporary disruptions, shipment volatility, inventory realignment, and added complexity. Our priority is to start these new partnerships the right way by maintaining clear communication, aligning closely on execution standards, and managing inventories carefully to avoid unnecessary stock build. At the same time, we expect the broader operating environment in 2026 to remain challenging, with limited visibility given macroeconomic volatility and continued consumer uncertainty. Considering these factors, we expect net sales value to decline in the low single-digit range in 2026 on a constant currency basis. Additionally, we expect A&P as a percentage of NSV to be in the range of 19%-21%, and our capital expenditures to be in the range of MXN 90 million-MXN 110 million.
We are not providing specific guidance on operating income, particularly as we will be lapping non-recurring gains recorded in 2025 related to the sale of Boost and distributor contractual settlements. While we recognize the near-term complexity, we believe the actions we're taking are necessary to build a more effective commercial platform, positioning us for improved performance in 2027 and beyond. I will now turn the call back to the operator for questions and answers session. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now conduct a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press the Raise Hand button located at the bottom of the screen. If you're connected via telephone, please dial star nine. We remind you that all lines have been placed on mute. When it is your turn to ask a question, you will be given permission to speak. You will be able to unmute yourself and ask your question. Our first question comes from the line of Lucas Mussi. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I have one on margin performance this quarter. Gross margin was up about 100 basis points year-over-year. As you mentioned, Rodrigo, on your remarks, it was still heavily impacted by FX dynamics in the quarter, geographical mix. I wanted to see if you could share more details on the drivers behind the quarter. That would be my first question. How much could we think about as it pertains to agave contributing to our margin on a year-over-year basis? How much came from headwinds related to FX? Any color on that front would be welcomed. My second question, still on margin, is how to think about 2026 from your main drivers, mainly raw material related.
As we think about agave, how you're thinking about the spot price in the market today, has it been stable throughout the year? Do you still see more downside to market prices? Any color on how you're thinking about your raw materials into 2026, would also be very helpful. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Thank you, Lucas, for the question. From a gross margin perspective, which was your focus, what I can share is that foreign exchange was a drag in terms of our ability to expand further by 170 basis points. All pretty much all components of gross margin equation worked favorably. The most important driver being the agave input costs, which, you know, continue to be favorable to us, plus the productivity initiatives that I did mention on my script. You know, other than FX, the gross margin expansion could have been 280 basis points in the quarter. Looking forward, at this, at this point in time, we don't expect major changes to this environment.
Obviously, we rely on volatility from FX, which could continue to play a role.
Thank you, Rodrigo.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, this is Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein. Two questions from me. The first on your guidance: You talked about this being a transition year to set up your business for the future. Related to that, can you unpack that transition that you refer to? How much of that is a weak macro versus deliberate strategy? If we look beyond 2026, are you expecting to return to solid growth? Just 1 additional shorter-term question, in the Nielsen data over the last couple of weeks, we've been seeing an underlying improvement in the U.S. spirits market. Are you seeing that in your business? If so, what do you think is behind that? Thank you.
Thank you, Nadine. On your first question, I think, you know, the way we see it and why we mentioned this is a transition year is mostly related to the realignment of distributor network in the U.S. It's mostly that where we expect, you know, conditions in terms of macro, et cetera, to remain challenging. Having said that, I'll pass it along to Mauricio to take you through the transition and in expectations for 2026 and beyond.
Nadine, it's Mauricio. From a transition perspective, I would make reference to the distributor changes we're making. I do believe those changes, even though, as I have stated during the script, will cause short-term disruption, they are definitely setting us for sustainable growth in the future. We are aligning with what we believe are the best distributors in each of the states. As we go through that transition in H1, I think as we go into the second half of the year, and especially into 2027, that should actually be reflected in improved performance in a sustainable way for the future. Regarding your question on share, we do see it. What I would say is, if you could see the second semester of the year in the U.S., tequila started to decelerate even further.
One of the things we have remained extremely disciplined is in managing price. If you look at our average price has decreased a lot less than our competitors, and we continue to invest behind our brands ahead of industry benchmarks. I think the combination of three things, very disciplined focus on execution, driving investment behind our brands, and being able to balance pricing through promotional activity to stay competitive while still not being as aggressive to undermine long-term brand equity. I think those things combined is what is actually driving our improvement in share in the short term.
Got it. Just to clarify on that medium term, looking past 2026, potential to return to growth. I appreciate everything you said on the distributor transitions and disruptions this year, but just thinking longer term, you had that slide up that showed your historical growth. Trying to get a sense of what investors can expect after the transition.
Look, from the U.S. perspective, leaving aside the transition in terms of distributors, I think what we will continue to do in 2026 and beyond, we'll continue to invest behind the brands to be perfectly positioned to capture growth as the category returns into growth. We do expect that in 2026, the category will continue to see compression, and what we want to do is make sure we're setting all the fundamentals in place in terms of route to market, brand health, investment, and being very strategic on pricing to actually start capturing, I would say, over or disproportionate growth of the industry as it returns into growth, which I do believe we should start to expect happening in 2027.
Understood. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rodrigo Alcantara. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hello, thank you very much for taking my questions. I guess the first one would be, It's Rodrigo Alcantara at UBS. The first one would be, follow up on the RNDC transition in the U.S. We get this transition period, right? Any rough estimate or any number you can give us in terms of, how much volume we're talking about that could be impacted, just as a way of trying to quantify this transition period. That would be my first question. The other one, if we could reflect a bit on the performance in Mexico, right? I mean, you gave the figures there from a selling solo perspective, right?
Just judging, you know, looking at performance of beer in Mexico for Q4, the contraction was not as high, right? As, as the one we saw today. I mean, if you can help me here, understand, reconcile the difference in the magnitudes of contractions, of course, other categories like beer versus the one we saw at Spirits in Mexico. Those would be my two questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rodrigo. From the first question you had in terms of the RNDC transition, I think providing a number would be very difficult to really estimate what the impact from a number perspective would be, because all these transitions really have a very short-term impact that we will manage. We have a PMO, very disciplined PMO office in place to try to minimize the disruption. We did see, as I mentioned in my script, that because of this lower depletion, especially in RNDC markets at the end of the year, that's where our highest level of inventories were. We will be working as part of this transition to rebalance that as we go to the new distributor.
That, combined with a very volatile environment and an industry that continues to actually experiment contraction, is very difficult to understand or predict what volume impact will be from the transition, industry contraction, and competitive dynamics. For now, what we're focused on is executing this transition in the most disciplined way. Actually, we feel very confident that we have the right distributor in each market. In each of the new distributors, we are one, if not the biggest, one of the biggest suppliers there, that will guarantee more focus and attention behind our portfolio. That gives us a lot of confidence, that once that transition is behind us, we should start to see improved performance.
Hi, Rodrigo, this is Olga. From the Mexico part, regarding the 7.1% decline in Mexico depletions this quarter, I would like to reinforce that we are seeing an improvement in consumer trends. In fact, while the industry remains in contraction, the pace of decline has moderated significantly compared to 2024, we continue to gain market share within this context. I would like to talk about two factors that bridge the gap between the -7% and the reality of our business. There are two specific factors that accounted for nearly the entire decline. As we finalized the exit of the Boost brand, we focused on clearing remaining inventory rather than commercial prioritization. This brand's decline alone created a 200 basis points drag on our total Mexico depletions.
The second factor is that we are being disciplined in not engaging in value-destroying activities. We intentionally chose not to participate in specific Buen Fin promotions, where we felt discounting in-depth compromised our brand equity. This disciplined approach to price integrity impacted our quarterly depletions by almost 500 basis points. When you strip away these two tactical factors, we are effectively flat. That would be my answer.
That's a good point, Olga. Just to clarify, excluding I mean, the not participating in El Buen Fin had this 500 basis points impact. Did I got that correct?
Yes, that's correct, Rodrigo.
Thank you. Thank you, Olga, and thank you, Mauricio, for the U.S.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Antonio Hernandez. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, good morning. This is Antonio Hernandez from Actinver. Just wanted to get a sense on non-alcoholic beverages and other that are also declining. Are these following similar trends, a competitive environment? How are you seeing there, and maybe you could provide an outlook on those, and if there are any organic or inorganic opportunities there. Thanks.
Sorry, Antonio, thank you for your question. If I understand correctly, you're talking about non-alcoholic beverages and how they may be-
Exactly. Yes, how they performed this last quarter and, well, throughout the year, underperforming as well, and your expectations going forward.
Hey, Antonio, this is Bryan. That's probably related to the Boost brand. That was a significant impact for us in the quarter, and that's within the non-alcoholic beverages part that we reported in the press release. That's a big portion of it, so it's probably related to that.
Okay, going forward, do you expect more, stable, of course, excluding that comp from the Boost brand?
Yes, we do.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Froylan Mendez. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hello, team. Froylan Mendez from JP Morgan. On the gross margin effect during the quarter, going forward, I read the transcript from one year ago. We were speaking about positive effect from agave. 2025, you also have positive effect from agave. It's one year with positive effects from agave. Should we assume that the positive impact from lower agave in 2026 should be much lower than what we have seen in the past two years, given just the lapping of the benefit now that your inventory probably reflects a much lower average cost of agave? That's my first question. Secondly, can you provide with some directional color on your top-line guidance, if it is coming from volume, drops similar to last year, but with better pricing or the other way around?
Within the different, regions, which one are the ones growing a little bit better than the other? Which one is dragging? How you created that guidance of low single-digit drop for next year, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Froylan, for those questions. Regarding your first on gross margin, yes, in fact, we, since last year, last quarter of last year, we reported benefits on agave. As you see, you know, overall agave cost continues to benefit result this year. Excluding effects, as I mentioned, it was a significant contributor to positive gross margin expansion. We don't provide specific guidance on this topic. However, what I can say is that a lot of the, let's say, extra benefit we've had, this year, and in particularly Q4, is related to simply, higher agave sugar content on agave, and we expect that trend should continue going forward.
There is no changes necessarily expected there on agave cost from the market. Regarding your second question on top-line guidance, you know, the guidance, it's a combination, of course, in terms of volume, price, mix, etc. The guidance is general. We would like to stick with that guidance as it is because considering the volatility in the environment, we continuously, you know, manage those levers to deliver on the low single-digit decline that we announced.
Thank you, Rodrigo, and sorry, my ignorance, but the higher agave sugar content, does that mean that, I don't know, the crop that you are having from agave, it contains higher sugar, and so Like, you have an inventory with high efficiency for the next year or so? How does that work? I'm sorry if this a stupid question, just to understand.
Yeah, no problem, Froylan. I think what's important to say is that market, you know, market conditions on agave should remain similar. Internally, we do expect some further pressure on agave cost as we balance the equation out. We had some, let's say, extraordinary.
in benefits this year that may not be replicable next year, we should not expect, let's say, improvement over this year necessarily. This is obviously something we manage on a day-to-day basis, and we expect to deliver the best possible results, given that the market conditions will be similar.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Rodriguez. Please state your company name and ask your question.
Hi, good morning, everybody. Nicolas Rodriguez from Citibank, and thanks for taking my question. My first question is regarding GLP-1. As the adoption continue to expand across key markets, such as U.S., have you observed any changes in consumption behavior, particularly in tequila? My second question is about GLP-1 and... not GLP-1, about development in Jalisco. Could you comment how and if these events have any impact on Cuervo operations? Thank you.
Thank you, Nicholas. It's Mauricio. I'll take the question on GLP-1. Look, it is very difficult, almost impossible, to estimate what the impact on tequila is on GLP-1. We do see evolving consumer trends. I think there's a lot of different things happening in the market at the moment, that consumers are looking for different alternatives. We see the emergence of RTD, we see changes in patterns of consumption. Attributing any sort of impact to GLP-1 becomes, I would say, almost impossible. It's something that we do monitor closely, but at this point, attributing any impact to that is really difficult. Regarding the incidents in Jalisco, as of today, we have not seen any impact in our operations, we don't foresee that happening.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press the Raise Hand button located at the bottom of the screen. We have not received any further questions at this point, so that concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.