Good afternoon. This is Pilar de la Garza, Head of Investor Relations for Walmex. Thank you for joining us today to review the results for the second quarter 2022. Today with me is Guilherme Loureiro, President and Chief Executive Officer of Walmart de México y Centroamérica, and Paulo Garcia, Chief Financial Officer. The date of this webcast is July 26, 2022. Today's webcast is being recorded and will be available at www.walmex.mx. Before we start, let me remind you that the content of this webcast is property of Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V. and is intended for the use of the company shareholders and the investment community. It should not be reproduced in any way. This webcast may contain certain references concerning Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V. future performance that should be considered as good faith estimates made by the company.
These references only reflect management's expectations and are based upon currently available data. Actual results are always subject to future events, risks and uncertainties, which could materially impact the company's actual performance. Now, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to our CEO, Guilherme.
Thanks, Pilar. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today to hear about our quarterly results. We're progressing against our long-term strategy, delivering strong growth and profit, and making significant investments while we strengthen our value proposition and low price commitment. We're using our financial strength to balance the long term and the short term, to balance growth and returns. It's during these times that our low price value proposition becomes even more relevant. Customers are coming to us for value, and we are very pleased about how our teams are dealing with the pressure from cost of goods inflation with a customer-centric approach. During the quarter, we were able to increase our price gap by 120 basis points versus second quarter 2021, reaching an all-time high. Now, let's talk about sales performance.
Please keep in mind that when I talk about Central America, I'm referring to figures in a constant currency basis. During the second quarter of 2022, consolidated revenue grew 12%, 12.2% in Mexico and 15.3% in Central America. Each quarter has presented unique challenges over the last two years, and currently, inflation is playing a role on the top line. Nevertheless, revenue growth has accelerated sequentially quarter after quarter, reaching a 26.7% three-year stacked growth on second quarter 2022. We are managing price prudently and strategically, taking a long-term approach to drive sustainable growth. During the quarter, Walmex consolidated ticket grew 5.7%, while traffic grew 5.4%. Now, let's look at sales performance in Mexico.
Our multi-format operation allows us to serve customers across different demographics and shopping occasions, which further increase our resilience and allow us to favor our customers with low prices. During the quarter, same-store sales grew 10.8%, driven by Bodega and Sam's Club. Bodega was the fastest growing format. We've consistently expanded our price gap for the last four quarters, and second quarter 2022 was not the exception. We managed to increase our price gap to competitors by 140 basis points. To drive price perception, in addition to the investments we are doing on prices, we launched the Ahí por Más campaign, which focused on reinforcing and unifying our communication with customers. Fresh departments are very relevant among our Bodega customers and an important traffic driver for the stores. We tested a new layout to provide a fresher and simpler shopping experience on such departments.
This change resulted in 106 basis points traffic increase, so we started a national rollout on this new layout in June to drive traffic and sales. Winning discount is one of our strategic priorities, and we are pleased with the progress we've made in Bodega. Sam's also delivered strong growth across all categories. Members are appreciating the value we offer through our Member's Mark brand. We are launching new and compelling items to enhance our catalog. A great example is our multivitamin, which offers better quality than branded options with a 20% value. During the quarter, Member's Mark sales penetration increased to 230 basis points compared to second quarter 2021. Membership performance has been healthy as well. During the Hot Sale event, Plus member penetration reached an all-time high at 40%.
Plus member shopping frequency and average ticket is two times higher versus Advantage members, and it is encouraging to see they are appreciating the value of the membership. Regarding Walmart, it's great to see how seasonal events are being implemented again at the stores at its full potential after two years of softer traffic due to the pandemic. As we enter the second half of the year, we are excited about the great merchandise we will offer our customers during emblematic events such as back to school, World Cup, and Christmas, which are normally channel's scope. So far this year, we've opened five new Supercenters to bring our assortment and price to more customers, and we are very excited to see all of them outperforming our sales and return goals. We are encouraged by the positive trend we are seeing at Walmart Express.
After several quarters of disruption due to store conversion, we are resuming growth. During the quarter, we converted two more stores into Walmart Express, and in the second half of the year, we will finish the 11 remaining conversions. We are focused on offering the right price and assortment to our customers. During April, we host an event focused on organic products where customers could find around 100 products in categories such as fruits, vegetables, groceries, and consumables. Organic product sales increased double digits during the event. Maestros de la Parrilla and the cheese, wine, and bread event were also well received by customers as we drove triple and double digits sales growth respectively during the event. Look at the performance by region. Growth was broad-based across all of them. The South delivered the highest growth as economic activity in the region continues to recover.
The Central and Northern regions also delivered above average growth, while the Metro area, where macro conditions have been more challenging, delivered lower, yet solid growth. In terms of merchandise divisions, food and consumables continue growing strong. Consumer habits are constantly evolving, and their spending is somewhat shifting away from discretionary items given high inflation levels. This is affecting general merchandise and apparel's sales performance. We know high food inflation affects customers' budgets, especially the most price-sensitive ones, and we want to be there to support them. We reiterate our commitment to offer the lowest price and help families live better. We enhanced the basic basket offering with private brands products which, besides helping customers save money, help us to further increase loyalty.
During the quarter, private brand sales in self-service formats grew almost 2 times faster than the rest of the business, increasing penetration by 100 basis points versus last year. Home entertainment and seasonal merchandise posted the highest growth, increasing private brand sales penetration by 410 basis points and 355 basis points respectively. Private brands play a key role in our priority to win in discount, and we have the ambition to double current sales penetration by 2026. In April, we hosted our first private brand summit, where our leaders and merchants shared with over 500 suppliers and commercial partners our strategic initiatives to reach our ambition. Among other topics, we discussed the importance of sustainable packaging on our private brand products to meet our ESG targets. Another one of our strategic priorities is to lead in omnichannel.
We want to serve customers how, when, and where they want to be served, and we are focused on two initiatives to achieve this goal. On Demand to drive frequency and external assortment to complement our store offering with a wider selection of products. Regarding On Demand, we continue to grow strong by expanding the number of stores enabled with this service and by improving delivery times. So far, we have enabled the On Demand service in 980 stores in over 200 cities. Bodega has been a key growth driver for On Demand. We are offering the service in 425 stores, 66% of the big Bodega stores and 40 new Bodegas. By expanding the service to more stores, we are reaching more customers, and our on-time indicators surpasses 90%. We also keep improving user experience on our apps and websites.
We enabled a new feature called Forgot Something, which reminds customers of items they might have forgotten. This new feature is helping us to increase average ticket and consequently sales. During the quarter, Despensa a tu Casa sales grew almost 180%. We are also making progress with On Demand at Walmart and Walmart Express. In May, Walmart+ had a 30% penetration, and Plus user shopping dynamics continued to show favorable trends. Frequency was almost two times higher than that of non-Plus users. We expand our fast 60-minute delivery service to over 280 stores. We know that customers, especially in big cities, really appreciate this service, and we will continue to strengthen it by implementing technology and evolving our last mile models. Now, let's talk about extended assortment.
The highlight of the quarter in terms of extended assortment is the launch of Sam's external assortment operation. The new fulfillment center started operations in April, providing service to 32 federal entities and over 32,000 ZIP codes. We focus on the central and metro regions. This fulfillment center will allow us to offer a much wider variety of items to our Sam's members and to provide a better service by reducing delivery times, further enhancing the value proposition of the format. We opened the fulfillment center just in time for the Hot Sale event and started strong. Almost 30% of Sam's general merchandise volume was dispatched through the new fulfillment center. We moved 40% more items and improved productivity by 50% versus last year's event. We also decreased delivery times by one day and on time reached 98%.
Across our formats, we are investing in technology to improve user experience and service levels. Enhancements in search technology have resulted in a constant conversion growth, and we are implementing machine learning to provide a more accurate delivery promise, which is leading to better customer satisfaction. Despite strong growth last year and changing customer habits, the e-commerce business continues to grow strong. During the quarter, e-commerce GMV grew 22% and sales increased 18%, resulting in a 0.9% contribution to total sales growth. E-commerce sales represented 5.2% of total Mexico sales. Now, let's talk about another one of our strategic priorities, to become the ecosystem of choice. For us, creating an ecosystem is shifting from transactions to relationships. It's about building meaningful connections between people, adding consistent incremental value. I'm encouraged by the speed in which this priority is progressing.
One of the verticals of our ecosystem is Cashi. The number of Cashi users doubled during the first half of the year, reaching 3.4 million. We keep adding new features to the product. One example is a reminder for service payments that automatically notifies our users they have a due payment coming, helping them organize their finances. We also keep reinforcing our digital credit marketplace by leveraging e-commerce kiosks at Walmart and Bodega. We're offering customers that use our kiosks a fully digital credit option that they can use either in store or online. This is helping us to expand our customers' wallet as Cashi users' average ticket is around 5.3 times higher than the average user ticket. Another one of the verticals of our ecosystem is BAIT, our MVNO. We continue to add users at a fast pace.
By the end of second quarter 2022, we reached more than 4 million accumulated BAIT users. This positions us as the top MVNO in Mexico by number of users. It's amazing to see how by leveraging our brands, our reach, our scale, and the trust customers have for us, we can drive exponential growth on the new business we are creating and give millions of customers access to the benefits of the digital economy. Besides our prepaid data and mobile offering, we are starting to test a business-to-business model through which we can provide strategic partners a reliable and low-cost service. Another one of the verticals of our ecosystem is Walmart Connect, our advertising business. During the quarter, we enabled a self-service option for sponsored product search that will allow our clients to highlight their products and maximize sales.
We leverage this tool to support small and medium clients on our first sponsored product campaign. We also launched a new product to provide even wider selection of advertising solution, mobile advertising through BAIT. Our Walmart Connect clients can reach millions of BAIT users through SMS and push notifications. They really appreciate this product as it allows them to target specific customer segments and thus increase the efficiency of their investments. We are connecting the verticals and the core business in a mutually reinforcing way in order to better serve customers. This year's Hot Sale event is a great example of this. It starts with strong stores. We executed our omnichannel event, which means customers could find great deals both online and at stores. By leveraging our stores and distribution centers, we significantly improve our service levels.
Almost half of the orders were delivered either same day or next day on the top cities, and countrywide, average delivery time was around three days. 96% of orders were delivered on time, which led to an all-time high Net Promoter Score, increasing 1,030 basis points versus last year's event. The marketplace business continued to show traction and grew almost 50% during the event. We leveraged Walmart Connect to provide customers unique entertainment options, such as Margarita la Diosa de la Cumbia's concert for Bodega customers, which reached over 80,000 people. Underbanked customers don't have access to credit card promotions that typically take place in these types of events. We leverage Cashi to provide a unique value for Bodega customers. Sales paid through Cashi increased more than 6% in value during the event.
BAIT also joined the event, offering even lower price and granting Cashi users an extra bonus. We know customers are going through tough times, and we're working relentlessly to strengthen our value proposition and to simplify our business in order to reduce the impact of the macroeconomic on them. We are glad to see customers are appreciating the price gap expansion of 120 basis points and all other efforts we are doing to reinforce price leadership and thus rewarding us with their loyalty. In the second quarter 2022, we resumed our growth leadership versus the market, growing 10 basis points ahead of self-service and club segment measured by ANTAD. Being true to our purpose, we will continue working every single day to reduce this impact and to help customers live better. Now, let's talk about Central America.
Same-store sales grew double-digit across all countries, resulting in a 14.6% growth in Central America and market share gains in the region. We remain focused on two initiatives, to drive growth on the Bodega and discount formats and to simplify our business. There are several actions we are implementing to improve shopping experience. We are standardizing communication for all our companies to give a clear message to our customers and further enhance price perception. We are constantly optimizing our catalog by reducing SKU count and increasing inventory turnover. Private brands play a key role in providing the lowest prices for our customers on the Bodega and discount formats. Sales penetration increases 180 basis points versus second quarter 2021, continuing with the double-digit growth trend.
The execution of commercial campaigns such as Quetzales Campeones and Lo que necesitas pagando menos were well received by our customers and sales grew 25% during such campaigns. I'm encouraged by how these strategies resonate with customers. We will continue listening to them in order to serve them better. Now let's talk about new stores and supply chain. We continue to expand our capabilities to serve our customers better across both regions. During the quarter, we opened 20 new stores, 19 in Mexico and one in Central America. New stores' contribution to consolidated total sales growth was 1.2% during the quarter. We continue investing in our logistics network to take our competitive advantage even further. During June, the Villahermosa Distribution Center for fresh merchandise started operation.
This new distribution center is bringing us closer to customers by serving seven states and almost 230 stores, which has the capacity to move more than 1 million boxes per month, and it will handle over 10% of fresh merchandise in volume. Additionally, we continue with the construction of the Tlaxcala and Bajío Distribution Centers. These two projects are very special for us, and we start operations in 2024 and 2026 respectively. We're investing in state-of-the-art technology to increase productivity and efficiency. Our strategy translates into shared value creation for all stakeholders, and we are on our path to become a regenerative company. We were included in the Expansión Súper Empresas ranking, and we ranked among the top five in the top companies for women ranking. We received the Empresa Socialmente Responsable distinction, making the 22nd consecutive year we received such distinction.
It recognized Walmart's long-term commitment with environmental, social, and governance matters. In May, we hosted our first sustainability summit, where our leaders and key suppliers shared the different initiatives we are implementing as a company to help mitigate climate change, drive a circular economy, and protect and restore natural capital. On June 29, we rang the Mexican Stock Exchange opening bell to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the listing of our prior company, Cifra, and the 25th anniversary of trading as Walmart. In closing, I'd like to recognize the outstanding job our associates are doing to serve customers and to implement our long-term strategy. We have the best operators and merchants in the region. We have an experienced management team that has gone through even tougher inflation scenarios in other countries, and I'm sure that together, we'll continue to navigate successfully through this changing environment and further increase our resilience.
We will remain focused on what we can control, delivering the best value proposition for our customers. We will further strengthen our company by driving a disciplined acceleration and by making the right investments. We will preserve cash by managing expenses efficiently, and we'll continue creating shared value for all stakeholders. Thank you very much for your interest in our company. Now, I'll turn it over to Paulo, who will cover the financial result of the quarter.
Thanks, Gui, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to review the results for the second quarter 2022. Let's look at México financial results first. Total revenue increased 12.2%, driven by double-digit same-store sales growth of 10.8% and a 0.9% contribution from e-commerce to total sales growth. Gross profit margin expanded by 30 basis points to 23.4%. Efficiencies and leverage in logistics and new revenue streams supported gross profit dynamics and allowed us to expand our price gap by 120 basis points while further improving profitability. Expenses grew 14.9%. We are experiencing higher costs of doing business, yet we have managed to reduce base operating expenses and to invest behind strategic priorities. We will review the SG&A's breakdown on the next slide.
Considering these results, operating income grew 10.8%. EBITDA also grew double-digit, resulting in a 10.6% margin. Let's look at the expenses breakdown. High inflation levels are not only affecting our customers' budgets, they are also pressuring expenses. We are managing expenses efficiently and focusing on simplifying our business in order to offset this impact. As a result, we were able to maintain our base operating expenses level when compared to second quarter 2021. As we have shared with you before, we are going through an investment phase to reach our long-term goals. You can rest assured we are investing with discipline, and investments won't be linear. The level of investment will depend on the projects we are implementing and our business needs.
Talent continues to be the main area of investment, and we are encouraged by the returns of this investment, like the turnover rate reduction, for example. We know happy associates provide a better service. Better service creates happier and more loyal customers. Happy customers help us drive top-line growth. We will continue to implement our associates' value proposition in order to be that place where associates can be themselves, grow, and belong. In addition to talent, in the second quarter of 2022, we opened 20 new stores, including four Walmart Supercenters. These Walmart stores, as Gui previously mentioned, are surpassing our internal plans. In order to continue reducing the impact of the macro environment on our customers, we are stepping up our efforts in terms of simplification and productivity.
During the first half of the year, we delivered almost MXN 630 million in savings through our smart spending program. This is a zero-based budgeting project enabled by data capabilities that will allow us to continue to reduce our expenses. We continue using technology to help associates to do their jobs more easily. We added 30 self-checkout stations, including the first one at Bodega Aurrerá Express. Currently, 530 of our stores are enabled with self-checkout. We implemented SAP CAR technology in almost 140 stores to transform the month-end accounting processes, generating additional productivities. Additionally, we are evolving our HR teams at stores through a digital ecosystem that promotes self-management by improving and digitalizing the associates' experience in HR core processes automation. Now, let's review Central America's results.
Please consider that when I talk about Central America, I will refer to figures on a constant currency basis. Total revenues increased 15.3%, driven by a 14.6% same-store sales growth, supported by double-digit same-store sales growth across all countries. Gross margin decreased by 30 basis points to 23.6% as a result of price investments to enhance our value proposition at the bodega and discount formats. Our focus on simplifying our business and driving productivity continues to deliver results. Initiatives such as self-checkout stations, flexible associate profile, digitalization, and automation of processes allowed us to leverage our general expenses by 100 basis points, which represented 17.7% of revenues. With the above-mentioned results, operating income grew a solid 32.2%, and EBITDA margin stood at 8.9%. All in, consolidated revenue increased 12%.
New stores contributed 1.2% to total growth. Gross margin increased 10 basis points to 23.4%, and expenses grew 13%, driven by strategic investments in Mexico, partly offset by leverage in Central America. Operating income grew 12.7% above total revenue growth, and EBITDA margin stood at a best-in-class 10.3%. Consolidated net income grew strongly despite the challenging environment we are experiencing, posting an 11.5% increase. Now, moving to the balance sheet. As a result of strong top-line performance and best-in-class margins, cash position increased 16.1% to MXN 48.5 billion. Inventories increased 24.5% ahead of sales to MXN 84.7 billion, partly because seasonal events are now being executed at full capacity.
During the last two years, we were not buying all the assortment and volume we typically buy for the seasonal events, such as back to school, due to remote school and work, or due to other disruptions the pandemic brought. This year, we are excited to have these events back at full capacity, and our inventories are reflecting it. We know inventory increase might sound high, and in some few categories, inventory levels are somewhat higher than normal. In the context of global supply chain disruptions and regularization of seasonal activity, we do not foresee the need for markdowns on top of the regular commercial activity. Finally, accounts payable grew 13.6% to MXN 88.6 billion. In the last 12 months, our strong performance generated MXN 76.9 billion in cash. Inventories impacted working capital, which we required of MXN 4.5 billion.
This allowed us to return MXN 28.2 billion in dividends and invest MXN 20.2 billion in projects aligned with our growth strategy. We paid MXN 15.8 billion in taxes and ended the quarter with a cash position of MXN 48.5 billion. In closing, I would like to emphasize the key messages of the quarter. Number one, strong and accelerating double-digit top-line growth and underpinning market share growth in both regions. Price investments to reinforce our value proposition in tough inflationary times and further accelerate growth. Three, best-in-class margins, double-digit operating income, and EBITDA growth supported by productivity initiatives which partly offset strategic investments. Thanks again for your interest in our company. As always, we'll make ourselves available to answer the questions you may have.