Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Organización Soriana's first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. With us today are Mr. Rodrigo Benet Córdova, CFO of Organización Soriana, and Ms. Claudia González Romero, Head of Investor Relations for Organización Soriana. Together, they will be discussing the financial performance for the first quarter of 2023 and providing a summary of the latest news on the company. At the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session to answer any questions you might have. We would like to mention that all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. At the beginning of the Q&A session, we will provide instructions as to how you may participate in today's conference call. Please note that the conference call may be recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Rodrigo Benet Córdoba, CFO of Organización Soriana.
Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us in this conference call regarding the financial results of the first quarter. Today with me is Claudia González, Head of Financial Planning Department and Investor Relations. Regarding the top line of our income statement, the company had a nominal increase of 5.2% versus the same period of last year, where total revenues reached MXN 39.4 billion, derived from an increase of 4.1% in same-store sales, as well as an extraordinary income in sales of land, and also by a 9.6% increase in the real estate revenues. At the store format level, Soriana Súper continued continuous outperforming, showing a growth of 6.8%, as well as City Club with a 9.2% increase.
Meanwhile, we have continued making important investment in advertising campaigns for the Soriana Híper and Súper stores, boosting and promoting the grand variety of regional products, as well our private brand and exclusive brands. Also enriching the product catalog, both in store and online. As of today, more than 57,000 SKUs are available. Regarding the new stores opening during the quarter, we have inaugurated two stores. The first one during the month of February, a Soriana Híper in our hometown, Torreón, with an investment of MXN 286 million, with great results exceeding sales of other stores in the same city in 112%.
Soriana Mercado Express store format continue pushing its four strategic pillars: low prices, private brand, loyalty program, and focus in winning seasonal campaigns, where we continue analyzing and making fine-tuning in order to have a more precise value proposal for this particular type of client. Actually, the second store inaugurated in the quarter was a Soriana Mercado in Comitán, Chiapas, also with great success and a strong client traffic. This store required an investment of MXN 161 million. With this opening, Soriana reaches a presence in 293 stores, cities, sorry, across the country. We continue strengthening our private and exclusive brand strategy. We are adjusting and redesigning the offer by store format, which in the short term, we will begin to see the results. During this quarter, as an example, City Club's private brand increased its participation in 2%.
We need to highlight that categories like clothing, home appliance, babies, and car products show a double-digit increase even higher than 30%. We also have products launching in the wine category with exclusive brands from wineries from Argentina and Portugal, also with great acceptance as part of our strategy of positioning Soriana as a reference, as an leader in this category in the self-service sector. Regarding the performance of our stores by region, basically, we can understand the Pacific, Mexico City and Metropolitan area, the states of Jalisco and Baja California, where it's worth to highlight that Actually, this last one is the state, the State of Mexico, is the state with the highest concentration of our stores.
Nationwide, we also have been supporting very strong the Pacific campaign by offering the best prices in the basic product items in the country, along with our private brand offers, which lead us to a positive effect in the inflation control of the country. Moving on our digital business, we achieve an increase of 11% in same-store sales for in these business, which is a higher increment than the results obtained in the physical stores. Particularly, the Soriana App is the one that is showing the higher increase. Actually, the increase in this quarter is 75%.
Regarding the real estate results, we closed this quarter with an occupancy of 83.5%, which is a growth of 4.4 percentage points versus the 1st quarter of last year, reaching MXN 670 million, which represent an increase of 9.6% in this business. As a result of the above mention, our KPIs keep positive trends. We have an increase of 4.4% in square meter sales, which represent an increase in gross profit per square meter of 11.6%, as well as a growth on transaction and ticket, basically in all the formats. Going down in the P&L, the line of gross profit in the quarter reached MXN 9.3 billion, which represent a gross margin of 23.8%.
That actually is an expansion of 160 basis points with an increase of 12.5% against the same period of last year. This increase was basically due to better commercial negotiation and the continued improving of the shrink. Regarding the operating expenses line, there was an increase of 17.3% versus last year, reaching MXN 6.5 billion, which represent over the sale 16.5%. This increase in operational expense is basically attributable to the cost of personnel due to the filling of the stores template, and also a higher expenditure in advertising campaign as part of a more aggressive commercial strategy.
Finally, it's also due to the increase of 630% in non-capitalizable investment derived from a double digit increment in the investment of the CapEx that we are expanding during this year. All of this as part of our strategy to offer a comfortable environment, better image, and customer service in all the stores of the company. As a consequence of the evaluation and the efficiency obtained at a gross profit level, the company's EBITDA in this quarter reaches MXN 2.9 billion, which represent a margin over the sales of 7.4% and an increase of 0.9% compared to last year. Going down in the P&L and regarding the financial items, net financial costs reach MXN 439 million in the quarter, which represent a decrease of 15.6%.
Basically, this important decrease also help us to obtain at a level of net income MXN 1.07 billion pesos, which is equivalent to 0.7% over the sales and is equal to an expansion of 20 basis points and represent an increase of 14.2%. Talking about the debt, as of the close of this 1st quarter, the total debt reached MXN 12.7 billion pesos that represent an increase of almost 25% in net debt against the same period of last year. Moving on to talk about the progress with our partner, Falabella, it's important to highlight that this quarter, Sodimac, the home improvement business, continue showing good results right now with 12 stores in operation. Thank you to the great acceptance from the clients and the strongest digital business that is also implemented.
We are seeing important increases in both total sales and same store sales in this business. The other hand, I'm talking about our financial business with Falabella, the credit card, Soriana Falabella. At the end of this quarter, we have more than 700,000 cards already used. We are operating in more than 112 store malls. Basically right now, the credit portfolio surpassed the MXN 3.1 billion. Finally, as an update of the expansion plan for the year in which we are planning to open 17 stores and make the remodeling of 28 stores with a total investment on almost MXN 5 billion.
We already make important remodelings in very important stores like Mexico City, in the store of Pilares, the store of Los Cabos, the store of Tlatelolco, also in Mexico City, and the store of San Jerónimo here in Monterrey. These stores have exceeded our expectation of sales, traffic, and ticket. That reinforces us to continue going in these plans, and we are hoping to continue achieving these good results. Without furthermore, we hope that this information has been interesting and helpful to you, and we can continue to the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
We will now start the Q&A session. If you have a question, please enter star eight on your telephone keypad. In case your question has been answered, you may cancel it by pressing star eight again. The first question is from Antonio Hernández from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for the space for questions. My question is regarding gross profit. You had a good expansion year-over-year. I was partially attributed because of the recovery in real estate, but wondering how much of this margin expansion was because of the real estate business and other items. If you could further break it down, that would be very helpful. Thanks.
Sure. Well, as I mentioned, the real estate businesses continue growing and helping us to not only to reach the first line of the P&L, but you are saying, Antonio, also the gross margin. Remember that the real estate business have huge margins, close to 80s, high 80s%. Yes, it's helping. If we make the breakdown, basically the most important contribution to increase at a gross profit level is coming basically from better negotiations in which we have obtained the major part of expansion in, at gross level, gross profit level. Still we see, as I mentioned in previous quarters, we continue working permanently in the reduction of the shrink and to be more efficient on that.
We can say that I think that we can maintain this efficiency at a gross level. Probably what it will happen going into the future is that we will try to use all of this efficiency at a gross level, a gross profit level, and invest it again in price, particularly in Mercado and Express format, in which we have to continue working to position that format in the mind of the consumer as the best option in terms of price.
Okay. Thanks for the call. Have a great day.
Thank you very much for your question. Our next question is from Mr. Ulises Argote from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Hola, Rodrigo. Thanks for the call. I had just two quick questions here. The first one is if you could provide some detail there on the same store sales dynamic, any color or differentiation there between ticket and traffic. The second one, now that we're starting to see a bit of a normalization there on trend, reigniting the growth plan, the debt levels normalizing, is there any plan from your guys side to help share liquidity? Thank you.
Sure. Well, first I was giving you more colors about the same store sales. We have an increase in both, but the increase in transaction is higher than increase in the ticket as a whole company. Give you a little more color about the same store sales per format. The one with the highest same store sales in this quarter is Soriana Súper, as I already mentioned in the beginning of this conference call, and the second one it will be City Club. Particularly, I mean, in the case of Soriana Súper, basically we have a little more than probably eight months with a continuous increase. In the case of City Club, probably this is the fourth year in which we can maintain a very positive trend of growth over growth.
talking about regions and also as I already mentioned, probably the central part of Mexico is having a better performance than the other parts of the country. Particularly, we always have 2 months with higher pressure in the results in north part of Mexico, actually, particularly in Nuevo León. Going into the second question, you mentioned about the liquidity of the stock, is it?
Yes. Yes. That's right, Rodrigo.
Yeah. We perfectly know that the liquidity is low. Obviously, it's a concern of the company. Unfortunately, no matter we have a market maker already hired, and we always try to put some positions with the purchasing fund, it's difficult due to regulation that exists. As you remember, I cannot operate an important percentage with the purchasing funds. When you are considering that the daily trading is less than MXN 1 million in probably the major part of the day, it starts to be difficult. In the other hand, if your question is more focusing to if we will be willing to give more liquidity to the market, not at this price. I mean, it doesn't make any sense.
All right. Clear enough on both points. Maybe Rodrigo a follow up, if I may. With the same store sales trends that we saw during the first quarter, are you still confident in kind of reaching that 8%-9% level that you had previously guided for the year? Or do you feel that there's any need to kind of adjust that number? I don't know also if you can comment maybe on how April is already doing there in terms of trends. Thank you very much.
I mean, obviously I are also seeing the numbers as well as you. Obviously the goal of, for the whole year of 8% same store sales, it start to be much more difficult to achieve with this result of the first quarter. We don't use to change the goals. The goals is the one. We will maintain the goal. Yeah, you are right. I mean, it start to be more difficult to achieve it.
All right. Perfect. Thank you so much, Rodrigo.
Thank you very much for your question. Our next question is from Mr. Rodrigo Alcántara from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey. Hi. Good morning, Rodrigo. Thanks for taking my question. Well, I guess you have already answered this. Just to follow up, you or the company is committed to double the CapEx for this year, right? Which kind of the balance or the cash flow that you have kind of like you could afford that, right? My question is, how much of this are you planning to allocate for remodeling? I was wondering if you can, you know, share with us from those stores that you have remodeled recently, like, what has been the positive impact you have seen on same store sales? Maybe you can comment about the data, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much.
Sure, Rodrigo. Well, basically, the percentage of the... Just let me take a break. The percentage of CapEx that we will be using for remodeling is close to 20% of the total CapEx. It's a very important amount of money. That is important to highlight that that is the part that we will be capitalizing and have the accounting treatment of a CapEx. As I mentioned in the report, we also have an important part in expenses that is also related with remodeling in the stores. The question is a little more than 20%.
The second part of the question about the response that we are having, ones that we have remodeling, to be completely honest, the response in the stores is very, very positive. Just let me give you a couple of examples. Like in the case of Soriana in Perdiñeros. Well, that was an opening, but let me give you a remodeling. One second. I can example here in San Jerónimo in Monterrey, that is one of the most, is located in a very important area here in Monterrey. Basically, the increase that we have against the months previous to remodeling is close to 45%. In the case of Pilares, that probably you know that store.
It's an iconic store and one of the most important stores of the company, and is located in Mexico City. The increase is much more moderate, is 25%. Basically that is the range that we are seeing. In some cases, we can touch even 60% of increase, not in all the cases. Fortunately, the low part of the performance of the remodeling stores is that will be around 20%.
Yeah. That's great. If you can remind us, like, what's the target for this year? How many stores are you planning to remodel? Any number that you can give us on that would be helpful as well. Thank you very much.
Important remodeling like the one that I'm talking about, in San Jerónimo or in Pilares, we will make 17 remodeling this year.
Okay. That's great. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for your question.
I made a mistake. It's The 17 is the opening of stores and the remodeling is 28. Sorry. We can continue with the next question.
Thank you very much for your question. As a reminder, if you have a question, please enter star eight on your telephone keypad. That was the last question. This concludes the Q&A session for today.
Perfect. Well, thank you very much all of you to connect to our conference call. Obviously, if you have any other question, please just contact Claudia or me. Have a good weekend. Bye.
Organización Soriana would like to thank you for participating in today's conference call. You may now disconnect.