Earnings Call: Q3 2025

Oct 23, 2025

Summary

Q3 sales grew 11.2% and same-store sales rose 6.2%, supported by differentiated products and perishables. Labor cost pressure and opening delays temper the outlook, while 8–10 openings are planned for 2026.

Good morning everyone, and welcome to La Comer Third 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. Please refer to the detailed note on page 2 of the presentation. I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Rogelio Garza, Chief Financial Officer of La Comer. Please go ahead, Rogelio. Thank you everybody for your attendance to this conference call. We are going to review the results of the third quarter of the company. I am going to share the presentation with you. Okay, we are going to present the results of the third quarter 2025 from La Comer. Okay. The highlights for the results in the third quarter is we had same-store sales growth of 6.2%, an increase in total sales of 11.2%, a gross margin of 29.7%, and an EBITDA margin of 10.6%. As always, we start reviewing the behavior of the sales of the company. We continue having very good results in same-store sales growth. We grew above 6% during the quarter, well above the rest of the market or ANTAD numbers and other participants in the market. We continue having this differentiation versus the rest of the market because of our differentiation strategy that provide us with better acceptance for the customers. Really, all the format regions and categories presented positive numbers. During the first part of the quarter, we had our campaign, the Temporada Naranja, Orange Season, in which we had very good results as previous years. We have a behavior in the market that many other participants have some kind of summer campaign, but our Temporada Naranja continues being one of the preferred campaigns from the customers. It is very well-accepted, very well-known, and we continue having very good results in Temporada Naranja. By product category, we have the highest increase in our categories was for the perishables category. That is in line with the strategy of the company of have more differentiation. This is a category in which we could have a better ability to differentiate ourselves with quality and assortment of products versus other participants, and we continue having very good results. All Wednesday, we have the campaign, Miércoles de Plaza, that in the Wednesday we have special offers and more assortment of products and perishables, especially fruits and vegetables, but in all the perishables, and we continue growing very well in this category. By region, we have the highest increases in the northwest and north part of the country. We have positive and good numbers in all the regions, but these two regions have the highest numbers in growth. This is the behavior of e-commerce. We continue having a very good participation of the e-commerce channels in our business. Around 8% of our total sales is through our own solution, La Comer en tu Casa. The aggregate number of all the participation of all the other companies that participate with us in this channel, that is Rappi, DiDi, and Uber Eats, they have a little bit more than 4% in participation from our total sales. These channels represent more than 12% of our total revenues. We continue having improvements in the experience of the customers in this area. We put a lot of emphasis in trying to differentiate ourselves from the other alternatives in e-commerce for supermarket, and we are having very good results. The evaluation that we have from our customers are very positive, and we know that our solution is one of the best in the market in satisfaction for the customer. That is very important for us. As we have mentioned in other occasions, we try to be ready to serve all our customers that want to move to this new channel and to have a very good solution in e-commerce. I have some. Sorry. We have improvements in gross margin. We have a big improvement in gross margin. Most of this improvement is coming from the change in the mix of products, that we are moving toward products with more differentiation. In general, for example, in vegetables, we grow more than the average of the company. That's a category in which we can express better our differentiation. Additional to that, we have very good numbers in inventory management and very good relationships with suppliers. As we have mentioned in other occasions, we have very good long-term relationships with suppliers that allow us to have very good conditions for offer to the customers. At the level of EBITDA, we have an increase of 11% in EBITDA. The margin is more or less stable versus the previous year, the same quarter of the previous year. We have stable results. We have very constant and stable results in these. We have some pressures in expenses. The most important one is in labor expenses because of the changes in the labor legislation. We have some increases above inflation of some expenses related with the labor. In addition to that, during this quarter, we have an important increase in the expenses of advertising. As many of you already know, we launched during the quarter the campaign of La Comer Card. That is a new credit card with the brand of La Comer in order to improve the experience of our customers and link it to our loyalty program, the Monedero Naranja. This new card is performing very well, but we have increases in advertising expenses because of this campaign. In addition to that, we continue improving the operations of La Comer en tu Casa. That is something that we think is very important for us. The highlights for the cumulative results of the company is that we have, during the year as of September, same-store sales growth of 5.5%, an increase in total sales of 10.3%, a gross margin of 29.5%, and an EBITDA margin of 11.6%. As I mentioned before, we have very good, very stable results, and very consistent results for the quarter. Talking about the expansion, we already opened the City Market Café during July. At this moment, we are expecting to open three new stores in the rest of the year. In December, all the other three stores are going to come in December. One La Comer, one Fresko, and one City Market. The number of stores that we are going to open during the year is much smaller than the expected number of stores that we were having at the 1st of the year. The reason is more or less the same, is that many of the projects have some delays, most of them because of the authorization of the projects, of the construction of the project that, in some cases, takes much more time than we were expecting. It's something that we are below the expected number of stores that we expected to open during the year. We want to talk a little bit about the structural changes that we have in the organization of the company. As many of you already know, yesterday, we announced that there was some changes in the structure of the company. Mr. Santiago García, that is the current General Director of the company, is promoted as Corporate Vice President. The idea of this change is to reinforce the expansion plan, to improve the process of location of new stores and having all the process to construction of the stores. Additional to that, he's going to participate in the strategic planning of the company. The idea additional to that is to have an orderly transition to allow the new General Director to take the responsibilities of the new position. Mr. Héctor de la Barreda takes over as new General Director. He's a person that has a strategic vision, has more than 30 years of experience in the food and retail business. I have a deep knowledge of that business, and it could be very helpful for these new steps in La Comer. The idea is that these two positions are reported to our Executive President, Mr. Alejandro González, and these changes take place the 1st of January of 2026, and they have been already approved by the board of directors. The idea with these changes is to reinforce the expansion plan, to put more emphasis on that part of the business in which we haven't performed as we would like. The other is that we have an orderly transition to a new leadership with the new General Director, Héctor de la Barreda. We expect with these changes to have a very good year of new openings of stores during 2026, between 8 and 10 new stores next year. Our sustainability and responsibility, we continue using environmental-friendly packaging in all of our stores. We contribute to Bosque de Chapultepec, that is a very important park here in Mexico City, to Banco de Alimentos and Un Kilo de Ayuda, helping people with necessity of food, poor people in the country, helping them with contributions to these associations. Additional to that, during this month, we are participating with this campaign, La Tienda Rosa. That is a campaign in which we help women with breast cancer. We have around 4,000 breast cancer checkups, and additional to that, we contribute around MXN 4 million for this specific area of breast cancer consciousness in women, and we help with checkup for our customers in our stores for women customers. That's all the presentation. If you have some questions, go ahead, Yolotl. Yes, Rogelio, thank you very much. Yes, we have a couple of questions by now. Hola, Antonio, please open your microphone and ask your question, please. Hola. ¿Qué tal? Buenas tardes. My question is regarding same-store sales clearly outperforming the industry, and just wanted to get a sense on the drivers between ticket and traffic. How are you seeing the different dynamics there? For October, if you're seeing similar trends. Thanks. Yes. Hi, Antonio. Yes, we have a stable number of traffic, and almost all the growth is coming from the ticket is what we have been seeing. Yes, during October, we continue seeing similar trends. We continue having good numbers in growth in same-store sales. Perfect. Thanks. Congrats on your results. Thank you. Our next question comes from Alejandro. Hola, Alejandro, please open your microphone and ask your question. Hola, Rogelio, Yolotl. Thank you for the space for questions, and congratulations on the results. Very impressive. I have two very quick ones, if I may. The first one is, Rogelio, on the gross margin. Very impressive expansion. How much of it would you say is due to better mix? How much of this is better inventory management, better shrinkage management? If you can maybe break it down a little bit, and in your opinion, what would be the target, right? We see margins increasing on the gross margin every quarter, basically. How much more can that happen? That would be the first question. Then on the second, very quickly on the changes of Santiago and Hector, I think it's very interesting that Santiago is going to now be overseeing expansion, right? In your opinion, what's today the main bottleneck on expansion? Is it the permits that you were mentioning? Is it the sites? Do you think that there's maybe very easy things that Santiago can improve? If you can maybe elaborate a little bit more on the expansion front, I think that'll be very helpful. Thank you. Yes. First in the gross margin, almost all of the improvement is coming from the mix of products. Basically, all of it. We already have very efficient numbers in better shrinkage management of inventory. Actually, during the quarter, we have some not very good results in logistic costs. That was a little bit negative because some problems. This change in the mix of product is coming for some long-term trends in the consumption patterns of the customers. Every time we sell more differentiated products or more value-added products, these usually have a different margin. I do not know, we expect that this trend could continue in the future, but we do not know. It has been a long-term trend in Mexico and maybe as a worldwide pattern in consumption of people. Every time the customers want something special and not the same products. Regarding the bottlenecks in expansion, I think, yes, the most critical thing is permits with the authorities, but there are some other things. This process of expansion has a lot of externalities with the authorities and with the owners of the land and neighbors and many different externalities that could affect that process. The idea is to increase the number of projects. If you have 6 projects and some of them have problems, you are going to grow less than 6 projects. The idea is to have much more number of projects to increase the number of stores that we could open every year. That is why Santiago García García is going to focus in that area specifically, and we expect to have very good results or to improve that area significantly with this change. Very clear. Thank you, Rogelio Garza Garza. You are welcome. Thank you, Alejandro. Now, please, Cristina, just open your microphone and your question. Hi. Hi, Yolotl. Hi, Rogelio. I was wondering if you could give some color on the market share you keep gaining quarter after quarter. Is it specifically in the higher income segments, or where are you seeing these market share gains, or in what regions of the country or what formats are you gaining more? Yes, during this quarter, all the formats grow more or less the same number. We think that in all the formats, because the strategic differentiation that we have in the company is for all the different format that we have, and we are having very good positive numbers in all the formats. I would say that, yes, we are increasing our market share in general in all the locations in which we have our stores, because we compete with all the other alternatives, and every time, more customers are happy with the differentiation that they have in the stores of La Comer, Fresko, Sumesa, or City Market. All the formats are having good, positive number, very stable, all very similar to the growth of the company. Okay. Thank you. Just a follow-up. Do you think with the new concept you have of this cafe, are you going to be able to grow more in this format, or in which formats do you think you're going to focus? Yes. At this moment, we are analyzing the performance of this new café. We are very happy with how it's performing until now, and we are going to evaluate if we continue growing with that concept. The idea is to grow with all the format that we have. We think that all the formats are very successful, City Market, Fresko, La Comer, and even Sumesa. Sumesa, it's a format that we haven't opened new stores in many years. But since one year ago that we are analyzing some alternatives for Sumesa. We haven't opened any yet, but we expect very soon to start to open Sumesa formats too, because it's a format that is very successful, and we are having very good results in Sumesa. We are expecting to open in that format too. In all the formats, in the different locations with their characteristics, all the formats are very successful. We expect to grow with all of them. Thank you, and congrats on the results. Thank you, Cristina. Thank you, Cristina. Hello, Nicolas. Would you mind opening your microphone? Thank you. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Just a quick one question from my side. Regarding cost structure, you mentioned pressure in salaries, marketing expenses, and marketing La Comer en tu Casa. How much of this is labor, and how much is the others, and can we expect this pressure to persist in the next quarters? Thank you. Yes. Labor is our more important expense in the company. Yes, we expect that that trend is going to continue in the future, that pressure in expenses, because some changes in the labor laws in Mexico. We are having that and increases in the minimum wage. There are several reasons why we expect to continue having some pressures in the expenses of labor in the next quarters. Until now, we have been working very strong in trying to improve the productivity of the people. But anyway, even having these improvements in productivity, we are having some impact in our level of expenses versus the total sales, for example. I would say we will expect to continue having some pressures in labor expenses in the future. Thank you. You are welcome. Thank you, Nicolas. Hi, Miguel. [Foreign language] Miguel. Please open your mic. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. Hi. The question would be regarding the change of the new CEO. What kind of changes could you expect from this guy to be implemented in the short term? Hector de la Barreda is going to bring a new vision, but the idea is that he continues with the strategy of differentiation of the company. We think that the contribution of Hector could be very good for the company, the experience that they have in the global markets, the experience in the food and retail business. It's a very good asset for the company in the future, but we don't expect a dramatic change in the strategy of the company in the short term. He's going to take position in the company and analyze the performance. But at the beginning, we don't expect big changes. The idea is to try to continue with the strategy of differentiation, and to even improve that strategy of trying to be better than the other alternatives in the market. That, by the way, we think that has been very successful in the market. Thank you, Rogelio. You are welcome, Miguel. Thank you, Miguel. Well, does anybody have any other question? Please raise your hand. Okay, there are no more questions. Please proceed to closing remarks, Rogelio. Thank you everybody for your attendance to this conference call. If you have additional questions, please reach out. Bye. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Good day. Bye.