Earnings Call: Q2 2026

Jul 23, 2026

Summary

Q2 sales rose 5.7% and gross margin expanded 67 bps despite sluggish consumer conditions. E-commerce and all store formats grew, while management maintained its profitable-growth and expansion focus for the balance of the year.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to La Comer second quarter results conference call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that the information discussed today may include forward-looking statements regarding the company's financial and operating performance. All projections are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. I am glad to announce that Héctor de la Barreda de la Fuente, Chief Executive Officer of La Comer, and Rogelio Garza Garza, Chief Financial Officer, are joining us at this meeting. I would like to turn the call over to Héctor de la Barreda. Please go ahead, Héctor. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining. I hope you have the presentation in front of you. In our earlier press release, we highlighted, importantly, that there was one-time extraordinary event from the land sale in Q2 2025, around MXN 162 million. I am saying that because in the following remarks, and for the purposes of having a cleaner business performance comps, I will talk about profitability excluding this event, just to make sure that we are all talking apples to apples. Let me share a few thoughts. First, around Q2 performance, and as we are closing this quarter, we feel positive about the top-line performance for the company. It is really in a sluggish, I would say, consumer environment. Our same-store sales continue to surpass, I would say, remarkably, the ANTAD by almost 300 basis points. This has been a consistent performance for many quarters. Our total sales grew 5.7%, and importantly also to mention that all our formats were growing. We see this growth coming from, I would call, a balanced three-pronged algorithm. We are focused on a disciplined operating execution model and a competitive value equation. Our e-commerce acceleration strategy, and thirdly, our incremental store footprint that continues to grow quarter by quarter. Around that store expansion, we relaunched the Sumesa format, which was something that we discussed last quarter, adding one new store. Also, as a matter of fact, just yesterday, we opened our 95th store in Cuernavaca, La Comer Domingo Diez. Important part of our strategy continues to be providing incremental growth. This disciplined execution also around productivity focus that we are placing across the whole value chain is also helping us deliver expansion in both our gross and operating profit margins. For Q2, I think, as we said, a positive performance. As we close the first semester, we see a solid 7% total sales growth and a healthy 10.9% EBITDA margin. As we go deeper, double-clicking on our top-line growth and talking a little bit more around this three-prong algorithm that we are delivering, I would say, this consistent performance ahead of the marketplace. Let me provide a little bit more color. In this disciplined execution and customer experience, we observed a 4% average ticket growth in a stable customer base. The key drivers for that is, one, I say we continue to be very competitive in our price-value basket, in our perishables, for example, which is critical for our business, always with a superb quality and variety of our products. Also that, I would say, consistent value equation is critical for our business. Also, at this time of the year, we have one of the most important campaigns, our Temporada Naranja, which is still running. We observed that the activity around promotion delivered a healthy double-digit performance in most of the activities. I would say this part of the algorithm is working nicely. Second, we are committed on the e-commerce acceleration. We also continue to observe double-digit growth in our business. Also contributing, I would say, in equal parts to what we are seeing in these three strategies. So it is balanced because each of them, I would say, is contributing incrementally, almost in graduated similar performance. Finally, we added, as of today, two stores, and the third, as I mentioned, is 95 store, which is Domingo Diez. I would say that these balanced strategies will continue to play important delivery for the balance of the year. When we discuss a little bit about the profitability and bottom-line performance, we continue to see strong and consistent gross margin expansion, 67 basis points for the quarter. It is not only coming from, I would say, our portfolio strategy or mix strategy that we have discussed before, but also around the productivity initiatives that are coming around our supply chain performance. This is coming even, as you know, as we have added incremental geographical footprint for the company. So healthy, I would say, gross margins. The operating profit growth in the quarter also coming supported by the, I would say, close work we are having at store level, prioritizing obviously our service levels, but also driving important productivity measures. Also, I would say this performance in the quarter was also positive. As we close the quarter is for EBITDA, this was growing 4.4% versus prior year. Very similar, 10.3 EBITDA margin, very close to what it was last year, just 10 basis points behind the prior year. Now, when we think about not just what has happened as of today, but going forward, I think we are confident enough on how we are evolving our ways of working, our operating model, and this gives us reasons to believe for this continual sustainable profitable growth. We are working around these four key pillars that are part of, I would say, the performance going forward. Very importantly, we are committed for growth, driving demand, being very close to our consumer customer, bringing innovation, continue to elevate our experience around the stores, continue to bring innovation around our loyalty program on Temporada Naranja. So very important part of, I would say, the strategy is growth, and growth coupled in the second strategy, which is the acceleration of e-commerce. This is coming not just because of the trend that we are having, we are continuing to evolve our technology and our infrastructure to expand our penetration, both in our direct model, but also working very closely with our satellite partners. So e-commerce will be very relevant in contributing for this profitable growth. Third, we started, we also discussed this before, a very comprehensive end-to-end supply chain assessment and I would say work around where we can find all the opportunities to first enable capacity for growth. We see this as an opportunity to become agile and to ensure that we are giving the system the capacity for growth, at the same time, that we are looking forward to see efficiencies and productivity by this more coordinated work across the supply chain. And finally, becoming a nimbler and more agile organization in the way we make decisions, in the way we are able to deliver the day-to-day business, but at the same time building these capabilities for the future. This is something that I would say the organization has evolved nicely, with the core priority and focus of always being centered around our customer. So before we jump to the Q&A, let me just provide you with, I would say, three takeaways for this quarter performance. First, I think we see our growth algorithm is working. And even in this decelerating or sluggish consumer environment, we continue to outpace the market, and we continue to expand margins, and we continue to open, I would say, our footprint at the pace that has been the fastest over the last decade. Secondly, we are always working with sense of urgency on the day-to-day business, but never compromising the medium and long term and investing for the future. So the focus on demand generation, store activation, and price value equation is our day-to-day, I would say, focus, but at the same time, as you mentioned, these four strategic pillars are helping us bring sustainability to our model. And for the balance of the year, I would say we feel good about remaining very committed to the performance that we're seeing, and being very close to our customer, which is really what drives the company as a whole primarily. So, I will open it up now, bring it back to Yolo to if we could have our Q&A session. Thank you, Héctor. Well, we have some questions in the queue. So, please, Alejandro, can you start with your question? Can you open your microphone? Yes. Thank you, Yotuel. Hola, Héctor, Rogelio. Thank you for the space for questions. I have two quick ones, if I may. The first one, Rogelio, in terms of, or Héctor, in terms of formats, where are you seeing more resilient performance in terms of same-store sales? Which formats are performing a little bit better, let's say on the mix? Is it City Market or Sumesa? If you could maybe provide a little more color there. And the second question, and maybe on capital allocation. I know you've been increasing a little bit the pace of openings the last couple of months and probably this year, which we think is a positive. That said, when we look at the CapEx per square meter has also increased a lot, especially on the new locations. Rogelio or Héctor, I wanted to see if you can elaborate a little bit more what is driving that increase in per square meter CapEx, and what should we expect going forward. Thank you. Sure. I will take the first one around what we are seeing across formats and Rogelio can provide more color on the CapEx. The capital. One question. Are you seeing correctly the screen at the sun? Is everything okay? Yes. Perfect. Okay. Within Q2, as I mentioned, we have our Temporada Naranja, which is critical for, I would say, our formats of La Comer, Sumesa and Fresko. And regardless of that, where we have a more, I would say, competitive promotional campaign, and we see growth in all these formats, we also observed a very healthy growth at City Market. Okay, so I would say that the consistency across formats is something that we have not seen necessarily a, I would say, significant difference across growth between formats. Mm-hmm. If you measure the CapEx by square meter, what has happened is that we have had a lot of investments in new pieces of lands that have not been developed yet. That has increased significantly the CapEx, the number that you see in CapEx, and most of it is land, or there is a big proportion of land that at this moment we have five or six projects in which we already have the land. That is a very important part of the cost, and they haven't been developed as new stores. But, in general, we don't have a significant change in the cost of the new stores. Alejandro. Super clear. Thank you, Rogelio and Héctor. Thank you, Alejandro. Hi, Thiago. Please, you want to make a question? Yes. Hello. Hello. Hi, Héctor. Hi, Rogelio. Hi, Yolotl. I have two themes that I wanted to hear a bit from you. The first one is maybe continuing here on Alejandro's question, but the expansion plan, we have this Sumesa format relaunched. I wanted to understand what's going to be the role that Sumesa is going to play on your openings from here on out, and if we could maybe discuss this specific opening as a case, just to understand how is the relaunched format doing versus the, what I would call legacy formats that's on the store openings. Also if we could discuss e-commerce. Very interesting comments about how it's growing and how it's gaining relevance inside the business. Just wondering if we, because I understand it's margin accretive, are we already starting to see the positive impacts from this on the second quarter? If we look again long term, what are the expectations for e-commerce inside your mix and relevance, and if we could even see margins go to another level here, a higher level. Thank you. Okay. Let me start with a little bit about the store expansion, the Sumesa format, and then we can share a little bit more color on the e-commerce side. We've been, I would say, consistent this year, in our store expansion plan, pretty much opening one store per quarter. We're balancing the growth, across formats, okay, which is important for us. We're looking at it always as the opportunities as they come. Very importantly, we put a lot of attention on making sure we have superb locations, which is, I think, what makes, in the long run, these stores deliver against what we expected. Also, we know through our model that once we open a store, it requires a maturity process to really stabilize and deliver against obviously the expectations, which is something that we observe year-over-year. So we opened the Sumesa format. Yes, we feel good about. We were testing new things on this neighborhood store, providing things like coffee ready to go, which is working very nicely. Also, the whole thing about bread, sweet bread, and food to go, also working very good. The pharmacy. So we continue to support this format. We feel good about what we're seeing, and still it needs to mature. The Sumesa format, which is only one new store, what you're seeing, it will go into a program where we will be overhauling and, I would say, remodeling the stores throughout the next following quarters and years. This is a program that will take place, and we will continue to learn a little bit more about what we're observing in terms of the customer reaction. So once we go into a bigger expansion mode. Okay? So that, I would say, is what we are observing and how we're looking forward in terms of our growth plan for the rest of the year. E-commerce, we don't share a lot of data in terms of specific numbers. I can tell you that it has been very consistent across not only this year but prior years, the acceleration we're observing, double-digit growth. The penetration and participation through the total business continues to grow, and it's accretive not just today. I think the way we have planned for this growth has been very carefully architectured, both on the work we do in our own platform, but also in the way we collaborate with the satellite partners. We are committed into continuing to improve and deliver the same, I would say, in-store experience you see when you visit any of our stores on, I would say, our virtual store. So there will be improvements and enhancements on the way we present ourselves into our customer through our platform, and that will help us, I would say, be much more impactful in the way we operate. This is great. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you, Thiago. Hi, Roland. Please go ahead with your question. Hola, Héctor. Rogelio. Thank you for taking my question. Yeah. Okay. I know you described the same-store sales still outperforming on that. That is usually the case, that it's usually expected from your company to do so. But if you see the deceleration that La Comer same-store sales had from the first quarter to the second was one of the, let's say, largest decelerations that we saw across the food retail space during the second quarter. Do you think there's something specific about the base that you're serving that had a stronger pullback or any specific reason why we would see that, let's say, larger deceleration than for peers, despite you outperforming that is very clear. I have a follow-up, if I may, Héctor, after you answer that. Yeah. Not that we should be looking into it that way because we see quarter by quarter, and we need to continue to see the right path. But when you also think about this on a compounded annual growth for the 2 years, I think our growth continues to be very healthy. Remember that we are growing on top of a very successful growth base. That's very true. Not necessarily the case for the rest of the industry. That gives us, obviously, this is not a way we see things and feel comfortable. No, definitely not. There is, as we said, a sluggish consumer environment. We see very good reactions when we implemented our Temporada Naranja, which gives us reason to believe that they're reacting positively to the quality, the variety, and also the value equation. But we did saw some kind of slowdown in the base, call it basic basket. Who has, I would say right now, the crystal ball of what's happening in the way the decisions have been made, but we're staying very close to the behavior. Then the other thing that is important to acknowledge is the way e-commerce sales are growing, which is also a way to understand that growth is coming in different ways and forms. Perfect. Talking about that discussion between CapEx per square meter and the purchase of land, I understand the potential of owning prime real estate, especially in urban places, and you have evidence of the value creation that this has had in the past with those sales of land that you had last year, for example. But isn't it also like a cap to the growth? Depending on fully own the land and fully own the real estate, at what point it makes more sense to start leasing like any other big retailer? Or does that really go contrary to your business model? Right. You want to take it? Yes, if you want. Yeah. I can complement your perspective because it's not just a single let's buy versus lease. I think we're committed to the location. We're locating to ensure that there is potential around the area that we want to develop, making sure that we have that visibility and that we're able to attract the right level of customer base against our target. If it's a land that we will own, that's one strategy, but also we have examples and maybe Rogelio can give us a little bit more examples about that, where we are also having expansion projects where we lease. Yes, we are open to lease or to buy the land. We're open to both options, and what is important for us is that it's a good location with good opportunities to be successful, to have a successful store, and we are not close to any alternative. Until now, we haven't stopped our development because of lack of capital. Until now, if we haven't grown more aggressively, it's because we haven't been able to generate more projects, successful projects. We have a very strict process in the evaluation of every project, and we want to continue in that way because we want to be relatively sure that if we open a store, it's going to be successful. But we haven't delayed or diminished the pace of expansion because of lack of capital. For us, the most important thing is that if there is a good location, we are open to lease or to buy the land at a reasonable price, and start that project in that location. Very clear. Thank you, gents. Thank you very much. Thank you, Roland. Antonio, please open your microphone. Right. Thanks for the space for questions. Just a quick one. Have you seen any specific trend on maybe a trade-down within categories or maybe consumers having some preference for private label, for example? Or do you see a trend of basically consumers maintaining their premium products exposure? Thanks. Yeah, I think we constantly monitor consumer behaviors across all, I would say, socioeconomical levels, trying to understand how they're making decisions. Obviously, there is a lot of activity on the participant part of the marketplace. We do see a more conscious consumer, which is always making decisions in a more educated way as e-commerce has been more available and visible for all of them. I would say in our case, the consumer still appreciates and makes sure across their discretionary spending, across the amount, that they are able to keep their, I would say, indulgence in the way they like. That's the, I would say, value they see in our formats. Because we provide the quality, we provide the variety, and obviously, that is something very important to the consumer. Also, they're very conscious in terms that they are in their basic basket and getting the best value for what they have. In that case, we have a very competitive private label program. Golden Hills is a brand that is growing very healthy. We're continuing to support that and making sure that we have, I would say, competitive value equation to all of our customers. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Thank you, Antonio. Hi, Emiliano. Please, can you open your microphone? Thanks, Yolo. Hola, Héctor, Rogelio, thanks for the space for questions. Most of my questions have been answered, but you mentioned gross margin gains from product mix. Any color on which categories or products are driving this improvement? Also, maybe if you could provide an update on the performance of City Market Cafe. Do you continue to see an opportunity to expand the concept through additional openings? Those would be my questions. Thank you very much. Yeah. The way we see our portfolio and, I would say, the differentiation around variety is what help us continue to drive the, I would say, consistent gross margin and I would say most of the categories. Definitely perishables is one where we continue to see our strength, and that will be a big differentiator for us in our strategies. Also gross margin that is coming from productivity, as I said, within the supply chain, which is important as we are expanding the footprint. We are making sure that we are driving effectiveness and efficiency. That I think has some room for growth, and we are seeing that happening throughout this quarter. City Market Cafe, I would say, continues to be a format that we are learning, that we are obviously committed to making sure that the experience, if you haven't went there, I encourage you to go. That we are bringing the same level of quality you would experience in a store, but here, obviously, we are delivering also the food. For the moment, we haven't properly defined what kind of expansion strategy would be around that format. Very true. Appreciate it, Héctor. You are welcome, Emiliano. Okay. Thank you, Emiliano. We are ready to answer more questions. If you have any other question, please let us know. I think there are no more questions in the queue, so please, let us go to closing remarks. First Héctor, and then Rogelio. Please, go ahead. No, thank you very much for the interest and following of our company, and looking forward to talk to you soon in the next quarter. Just to remember, if you have additional question, please contact Yolo, and we can answer all your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much for your participation in this conference. Have a good day. Bye. Bye.