Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the video conference of Allied Tecnologia to present the results of the fourth quarter of 2023. I'm Fabiana Lawant, Director of Relations with Investors of the company, I'll tell you that this event is being recorded and translated simultaneously. All participants can only hear in the conference during the presentation. We'll open for questions- and- answers. You can send your questions- and- answers via the chat available on screen of the video conference. Eventual declarations regarding business perspectives and projections refer to the beliefs and premises of the company, subject to uncertainties, and therefore may or not happen. We are here today with Silvio Stagni, CEO of the company, and Thalita Basso, Financial Director. It is on the floor to Silvio, who will start the presentation with the highlights of the quarter.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for your presence here. Last night, we announced our results of the fourth quarter and the total amount of the year 2023. In the first 30-40 minutes, we'll give a little bit of an idea to these results and more details. I'll present the qualitative part of this last quarter of last year. Fabiana will get into details about the financial results. Our agenda starts then with me talking about the highlights of the fourth quarter, then Fabiana, we open for questions- and- answers that you may send to us. I like to start always by remembering our three business pillars. On the left, we have the digital retail. We have Mobcom Store. That is one of the main sellers of electronics in Brazil, connected to all the big platforms of marketplace in Brazil.
We have special programs like iPhone pra Sempre, Xbox All Access, both in Itaú app. The iPhone is always 1 of the main channels of sale. The novelty is that we made business with HP to be the operator of the online HP Store, and we are already operating. This partnership will bring more results soon. We'll also have the HP Store for small and medium companies at HP Store. We are structuring at this moment this initiative, we keep bringing to the digital retail solutions to the ecosystems in which we are inserted. In the middle, we have the physical retail with 122 points of sales, 121 Samsung point, one of Trocafy. In the first quarter, we are opening the second one of Trocafy. On the right, our distribution. We keep being the biggest electronic distributor of computers, TVs, cell phones, devices, video games.
The good news is that we just signed a contract with JBL to distribute this product in Brazil. In all categories that we work, we have expressive participation on the market. We have three examples here. In smartphones, we have 8% of market share in 2023. In video games, 23%, notebooks, 8% of market share in Brazil. On the next slide, three numbers that I would like to show you to summarize our results for 2023. On the left, our net revenue. In 2023, we reached BRL 5.855 million, which means 14% growth compared to the previous year, representing the greatest income that Allied has had in a year. This growth, as you can see on the next slides, is quite based on our international expansion, I'll show that soon. In the middle, we have the net profit.
We reached in 2023 with BRL 100.5 million, a growth of 31% compared to the previous year. This growth is quite related to the fourth quarter. As you can see on the graph, we had BRL 46 million, double the previous year, and this is our profit without considering the non-recurrent. We have two positive non-recurrent, taking our profit to BRL 70 million, almost triple, 3x the amount of 2022. On the right, 2023 was a year of cash discipline in a very intense way. We could reduce our levels of stock. We could deconcentrate from big retailers that we had very dilated payment terms. Then we could generate BRL 783 million in cash. This cash impacted significantly our profits. All the financial expenses, we had a reduction of BRL 47 million in the year.
We are now taking part of this cash generated and giving it back to our investors. On the 25th, Monday, we'll distribute BRL 90 million of proper capital with interest, and we announced the payments in two installments. We are paying all of them on Monday. Last night we announced the second interest of BRL 100 million that we will pay on July 31st. Just as the first JCP of BRL 90 million, it makes us one of the greatest one on the market with a 12.10%. Now I'll go into details in each one of the three pillars that we have. The first one is distribution. In distribution, I'll use the graph on the right, that is the summary of the year. In blue, you see Brazilian distribution. In the Brazilian distribution, we have BRL 3.3 billion to BRL 2.8 billion. This is a decrease.
First to understand it's important to understand what happened to the market. 2023 was a very difficult year for electronics. It was a year of high capital cost, non-payment of consumers, limited credit, and electronics market decreased. I'll give three examples to you here. Smartphones, that is a market that historically in amount basically has never decreased. In 2023, we see a drop of 12%. In TVs, we saw a decrease of 9%. Notebooks, 15%. 2023 was a suffering year for the electronics market, and it reflects in the Brazilian distribution from BRL 3.3 billion- BRL 2.8 billion. The highlight of distribution was the international participation because we launched an Allied Miami. We went from $ 333 million to $ 1.8 billion. The last relevant point of this business is that we would handle $ 1.6 billion-$ 2 billion, and we are according to the guidance.
A significant expansion and basically this is our first year so this number was some experiences we were having in our international expansion. Important point here, when you see our margin, the Miami margin, the gross margin is lower than in Brazil. It's important to emphasize that Miami brings resilience of results, decreased risk in operation. Going to the next pillar, our digital retail, here I'll divide in strategic partnership and marketplace. In strategic partnerships, the two most important ones are the ones we have with Itaú, that is iPhone pra Sempre and Xbox All Access. Those channels became the main sellers of iPhone in Brazil. We're now introducing AirPods to be sold with iPhones. We have a very high annexation rate. Itaú is quite careful with this problem.
They measure the NPS of everything they have in the app. I can tell you that we have the greatest NPS in the app of Itaú. Another relevant point is that iPhone pra Sempre is a great iPhone seller, and generally, of the best iPhones, we have a lot of big sales in iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. On the marketplace novelty is our Mobcom store is now with Mercado Libre Full, which brings more relevance, faster deliveries, that shows the level of partnership that we have with Mercado Libre. We expanded from the other marketplace in a very relevant way. As I mentioned, we started operating the HP Store in Mercado Libre, and soon we'll be operating the store for small and medium companies in the HP website.
The last pillar of our business, the physical retail, that was one more year where we adequated the operation to the new consumer after the COVID period. What actions we made in the physical retail, and we've been constantly working on that, was first to increase the sales per point of sale, adding services and insurances and accessories. On the left, we see the result of the effort. If we consider 2020 as the basis and compare it to 2023, per point of sale, we grew 58%. The second initiative in our physical retail is the reduction of expenses. On the right, we see the graph to show you the results of our effort. If we compare 2021 and 2023, we reduced 18% our expenses in physical retail.
The combination of more revenue per point of sale and decreased costs brings us better results in this business pillar. Mention the four areas that we are using as growth driver. First of all, the Trocafy, because we believe that the Brazilian market will grow significantly in remanufactured products. If we analyze the percentages, it's even smaller than the American market. The impact of a cell phone in the Brazilian consumer is higher than to the American consumer. We are investing in Trocafy. Today, Trocafy is a solution for reconditioned purchase in our stores, but not only our stores. We are in 210 points of sale. We are with the Trocafy, with an online store in Mercado Libre and Livelo, and we started to diversify significantly the products that we have purchased and sold.
We have quite a huge portfolio of Apple, Samsung, and Motorola. Our second pillar of growth, Soudi, our instrument to give financing to the consumers. BRL 70 million in cash with 117,000 cards active. We started in our Samsung stores, but we are in 349 points of sales. With Samsung partners, we are in many operator stores, and we just signed a contract with C&A, where Soudi is being tested in C&A as a solution for financing. Our third growth driver is the strategic partnerships, and two of them that I want to emphasize, HP Store that I mentioned at the beginning, and the other one is the new business that we have with Acer. We have an old partnership with them, and we are now launching a program of device as a service for computer rental in association with Acer.
We are a Brazilian partner to offer this solution to the Brazilian market. Big numbers in 2023, BRL 6.7 billion in gross revenue with BRL 251 million EBITDA. We delivered in the last 12 months BRL 6.7 billion in products, and 55% of them were delivered in 48 hours. Lastly, our market share in some categories that I mentioned before, 8% in smartphones, 23% in video games, and 8% in notebooks. Just to finish 2024, our growth drivers. First of all, our international operation, Allied Miami. We have basically only one year of operation. We are already working in 16 countries in Latin America with a very decent portfolio. In 2024, we will expand to more countries in Latin America, and we will expand our portfolio. Trocafy. We are expanding geographically to more Samsung stores and more retailers.
The novelty of the first quarter is that we signed a contract with Fast Shop, we are operating trading in the Fast Shop stores, and we plan to spread the categories of products. We focus on cell phones now, the plan is to be an important player in the air conditioner markets in many categories of electronics. Soudi, we will keep expanding our portfolio, searching for more PDVs, operator stores, or Samsung partner stores. In B2B, it has been a driver of focus and growth to us. It is an area of distribution that we are still small, we have all the necessary tools to be a relevant player in this market, as much as we are on the market today in the distribution for retail. Lastly, our partnerships, iPhone Para Sempre, Xbox All Access, Acer. This is our point of strength.
We are the provider of solution to the ecosystem that we are inserted, it will keep being a driver of growth to us in 2024. Thank you very much. Now I will ask Fabiana to talk now about the details of our financial results.
Thank you, Silvio. Going on now, I believe that, as Silvio mentioned, we are seeing the consolidated results, 2023 was the year that was quite challenging to our segment. We have the smartphone market decrease in 2%, this is the most relevant product to us. I believe that Allied has been quite resilient during this period, we have now a much more diversified portfolio and a better and more strategic market positioning, much better defined than when we started. Here we have the revenue growth, I think it is an important highlight.
We grew 14% in the year and 5%, 4.9% in the quarter. Here we have the EBITDAs, we had a contraction of 2%. That is an effect of the mix of channels of sales and also a huge effort that we had to reduce fixed expenses. I think the most important highlight of the quarter to us in a consolidated way is that we reached the net profit of BRL 100 million. BRL 122 million in the whole period, the recovered and adjusted weight was BRL 100 million of the net profit, with an increase of 31% compared to last year. The highlight here is that we go back to the parameters that we had in 2019.
When I mentioned that we have a company that is now much more diversified, we can see in this graph of revenue that what pushed a great part of our revenue was the distribution, triggered by the international operation. Before going to the channels, it's important to understand the composition of the gross margin that is the one on the right on screen. We see that we could finish the year with the distribution with normal levels of 9.2% in Brazil and 2% internationally, resulting in a distribution margin of 6.4%, just with normal levels. If we look at retail, like the physical and digital, we had very good results of margin. We had almost 30% of margin in retail. As a consequence of this mix of sales, we had a gross margin of 11.6%.
What is most important here is the details of the channels. When we see the distribution, what we see is that we had an increase above 20%, both in the quarter view and in the annual view. This growth was triggered by a growth of tickets that was quite strong and a slight compression in volume. The ticket of distribution grew when we see the quarter. It was an average of 19% in increase, and it is the result of two things that are important here. The first one is that some categories had growth in the average ticket in the category, so I can mention the smartphones and tablet and video games. We also have the effects of the average ticket in an alteration in the mix of categories.
When we have a greater participation of mobile, pushed by the international distribution, when we have this greater participation of video games, I would like to emphasize that we mention in some calls that we have a partnership to distribute PlayStation video game, it made the video games to have a huge amount in our mix of sales. These two effects, having more mobiles and more video games, also contributed to the increase in the average ticket of the channel. Analyzing the mix of products, that is the graph on the right on screen, we see that the participation of mobile goes from 53% in 2022 to 72%-73% now in 2023. Here, once again, with some impact of the international operation.
Video games we can't analyze here because it was a huge impact in the fourth quarter, in the beginning, the release of the results, you would see that video games was about 12% of the mix of revenue of the distribution in the fourth quarter. I think these are the main messages of distribution. When we go to retail, analyzing separately what is physical or digital retail. In the physical retail, we had some retraction, this is a combination of two factors. The first, as we mentioned before, we had a retraction in the smartphone market, this is the main product that we sell in our point of sale. We also have the fact that we have 10 points of sale less in 2023 compared to what we had in 2022. I won't go further here.
Silvio mentioned all the process of optimization with increase of the net revenue. The fact is that we have less PDVs, which also contributed to this reduction of the revenue in the retail. When we analyze the digital retail, on the other hand, we've had two impacts here that I'd like to call your attention. We had a reduction in the sales of smartphones and video games, on the other hand, it was a quarter that we worked quite well with notebooks. We had about 6% of our sales shares in the digital retail coming from notebooks. Even though the negative effect of smartphones, that is a bigger market with a bigger mix of sales, that was more important. I think we have a relevant message here in retail coming from the margin.
As we've been talking in the disclosures and meetings, we are prioritizing the margin. In this year, that was quite challenging, we are not forgetting the focus on profitability. I'd like to emphasize that our gross margin in retail, when we analyzed the consolidated way, was 29.8%. In the next slide, we'll have a little bit of the operational profitability. We talk a lot about gross margin per channel, I think it's worth mentioning the impact that we have in the gross margin because we have two big impacts here. One related to the mix of channels. Each channel has their own structure of operational structures, we also have a huge effort made here to reduce the fixed expenses in the company, personnel expenses, and third parties, and so on.
What we see in this graph is the result, as we can see the graph on the right, that we reduce it from 2.6%- 3%, depending if it's a quarterly or annual view. We reduce it from 2.6%- 3% points. This ratio of commercial expenses on the sales revenue. Now going to the lines below EBITDA. For the effects of EBITDA, based on what we said, we have two impacts here. We have a reduction of gross margin. On the other hand, we have a significant reduction of operational expenses. We finished the year with a healthy EBITDA of BRL 215 million, not just at levels, but BRL 215 million . Here it's worth mentioning an important point about this financial expenses line. We had the financial result quite lower in 2023, with lower expenses in 2023 compared to 2022.
This financial result, I'd like to call your attention to two things. First of all, because we had the lower volume of operations in the anticipation of receivables and risk with the financial cost. This is something that we did last in 2023. We reduced the financial cost, also we reduced the interest rates. As these are the index to correct our contract in our financial operations, the reduction of the rates also impacted in such a way that we had financial expenses in the level of BRL 35 million lower comparing the two years. Lastly, I bring here something to explain what we had in terms of recurrences. We have one of the effects that I believe is worth mentioning here, that is the exclusion of the impact from January 2022 to March.
We removed the results of this year. It's important to emphasize the disclaimer here because this is an adjustment that when we analyzed the accountability, it was positive to our result. As we said last year, and we've been saying in 2022 as well, we end up choosing to price our products as if it was in fact adaptive. This was an effect that was not unanimous on the market. We've seen some display errors, and we end up understanding that our products were in this position because of our decisions, in the sense that our products became more expensive, and it somehow contributed to an effect of contraction that we have in the revenue of the digital during last year. In the end, we acknowledge in a non-recurrent way the result that when we had the negative effect, it was recurrent.
It's worth commenting that and mentioning how it impacted our historic result. Now, going to the part of debt. We finished the year of 2023 with a net debt that was quite low. We have a net debt of BRL 12 million, and it was the consequence of the cash generation that we had that was quite strong. Here, the focus of this slide specifically is to talk a little bit about the process that we've had in management of the financial liabilities that we finished last year. The goal here was to enlarge the schedule of debt amortization that was quite concentrated in 2024. We had to open the boundaries. That was the fourth and the fifth one. We had a process to pay in anticipation the fourth, and we had a partial amortization on the fifth, and we issued the sixth one.
We have the fifth and sixth open today. We did not have impact in the cost of debt. The final goal here was in fact to adjust the agenda, the schedule, and the result of that is what you can see on the right of this graph. The blue column was the amortization schedule that we had in the last disclosure. You see BRL 266 million in 2024. The orange column is the amortization schedule that we had all the management of the financial liabilities that we made. I think this is the greatest message here about this topic. Then we have the slides as usual to analyze the cash flow. I'll go straight ahead to the slide of the year because I think we have good information here, important information, because we had a cash flow generation in the operational sense.
Going one step back, we have some quarters that we've presented this demonstration of cash flow in a managerial way because we understood that it's more relevant to the market. We can understand in a more assertive way our operational cash flow generation when we reclassify the risk operations as the operations with financial costs being similar to a debt. They are part of our flow of financing. The operations without financial costs to Allied are a transaction with a more operational character than a financial one. We reclassify these operations to the operational cash flow. We understood this review makes a more assertive analysis for you of the generation of operational cash flow in the period.
What we had in 2023 was a very expressive cash generation of BRL 683 million, BRL 393 million, and I would like to call your attention to the receivables. I think we have two effects that are quite relevant here. The first one. Well, three, in fact. The first one is that commercial negotiations, we had a series of negotiations in the fourth quarter in which we focused a lot on optimization of working capital, and they end up focusing a lot, not only on the gross margin, but also on the optimization of the working capital. We ended up having a very positive effect of these negotiations in this cash generation of the quarter. Also, the second point is that we have a more favorable cash cycle in international operations. As the international operations become more relevant, we also have impact in this sense.
Lastly, we have some positive effect in the optimization in our stocks of BRL 144 million, and in the financing flow, we've had last year the payment of BRL 33 million in JCP. Here we don't have the effect of the BRL 90 million that will be paid now on March 25th, as Silvio mentioned, nor the effect of the BRL 100 million that will be paid in July. We've had the declaration of BRL 33 million. I think these are the main highlights. We have a lot of questions here. I'll start asking the questions, but just to reinforce, if you have additional questions, please send to our chat. I'll start with the question of Henrique Sartori from DBI. I'll ask the question to Thalita, and introducing her to you because this is the first time Thalita is participating on the call.
She is the new CFO, I'll ask her the questions that are more financially related. Hannah has two questions. I'll have both here. The first one is about Soudi and the amount of products that is growing faster and also the portfolio. How do you see the progression of the levels of 90 plans that you wait for the future? How do you see the credit scenario as a whole in Brazil in 2024? Do you expect more availability of credits? I'll ask now the second question alongside so that you answer both. The cash flow had a strong positive contribution in receivables. Looking ahead, what should we expect to the working capital? Do you see an improvement in these lines as something structural?
Good morning, everyone. As Fabiana mentioned, I'll be here to help in some specific point. According to Hannah's question, we keep our NPL 16, about 11%. We didn't see any peak of 90 plans in 2023, and we are not expecting distortions in this indicator. Regarding the credit scenario in Brazil as a whole, we see a decrease in the Selic rate. In Copom, we had the last 0.5 point, and we see Desenrola and the payment that is changing the market, and the sales in installment has interest. We believe there will be a positive trend of demand for 2024. Along with that, we had an event with our main client now in March, and they also believe in that, and their feeling is about the same. We believe it should be a positive part of 2024.
Regarding our operational cash flow, the intention is to keep the good practices that we've had in 2023 without anything important with a lot of gains or a lot of losses. We are looking at the market opportunities to optimize the sales or the cash gains. This is something natural in the market. We are always following that every month and making the best decision for the business every month. I believe I answered right.
Now I'll ask the next question from Marco Nardini from XP. He also has two questions. Thank you for answering my question. I would like to know more about the reduction of leverage. The important leverage reduction that you had in the quarter, it was one of the positive highlights in the international operations, and I'd like to understand more that that's dynamics.
If you want to have any kind of issuing to improve the liquidity or to finance any operation. I think this question I pass on to Thalita. Then Silvio, if you want to complement, feel free for that.
Well, regarding our debt, Fabiana mentioned quite well that we renewed our debentures, so we could have five years with 18 months of payments. The structural debt is quite well distributed. In the short term, we'll keep the policies of 2023 as we can see so far. Any strong change, only if there is an opportunity on the market for acquisition or something like that. So far, I think we've done our homework. We are starting 2024 in a structured way. We shouldn't have any changes.
Marco, I'd like to comment on the liquidity. What we have as the guidance here is that we are working on the basis of our business. All the part of diversification, profitability, and so on is because what we believe when the flow comes more to the market and the market looks better, the retail companies. Also, this, we want in fact to have a successful story to tell about what we've been doing during this period. In terms of profitability, we are focusing more on the foundation, so that when the market comes in a stronger way, we can make use of that, and that the market values everything that we've been doing in these quarters.
Next question from Marco will be to Silvio to comment a little about the expansion strategy and the international operations in 2024. Where are the relevant opportunities coming from so that we keep growing?
Just a comment here, a relevant fact that we mentioned yesterday is that we won't give any guidance to the operations in 2024, and our motivation is quite clear. It was quite incipient. We understood that the beginning of the operation, it would be important for us to give some visibility to the market. What we could see is that we had some reviews on this guidance. As the operation is now completely instituted and now has their own drivers of growth and it's not incipient anymore, we chose to remove this guidance. We are not on that in 2024, but Silvio may comment on that.
Okay. Thank you, Marco, for your question. Our international operation is in the first stage. After one year of operation, we reached 16 countries in Latin America. We have all the other countries to reach.
If we analyze 2023, we were quite concentrated in Apple and Google. This profile will change in 2024. Apple will keep being an important partner, but we just signed with Motorola, so we will have Motorola in the portfolio, and we are now discussing with all the major manufacturers with operations based in Miami for the distribution in Latin America. Just remember, Brazil was a little different market for electronics. With the fiscal incentives, we have a great part of the manufacturers manufacturing in Brazil. We are not supplied by Miami, but all the rest of Latin America.
Silvio, sorry for interrupting. I think we had some instability on the network. People were a while without hearing, so if you can go back. Can we?
Okay. As I was saying, our international operations in Miami is just starting. We were in 16 countries. We have all the other countries of the continent. In 2023, the operation was strongly based on Apple and Google. We were the exclusive distributors of Google Nest, Chromecast, all the connected products for the home. Google and Apple, we were one of the distributors in the United States to Latin America. We have already signed with Motorola. Now it's one of the products for 2024, and we are dealing with all the other manufacturers of computer TVs, video games, working in Latin America via Miami. What I would like to emphasize is that we are in Brazil, and our operation in Miami doesn't supply Brazil. It supplies the other countries in Latin America. Brazil has a fiscal benefit that if you manufacture here, you have lower taxes.
All the major manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Motorola, Lenovo, Acer, all of these manufacturers have factories in Brazil manufacturing locally. The operations in Miami is to the other countries in Latin America without local manufacturing that supply internationally these electronics. This is just the beginning. We have a lot to grow in 2024.
Silvio, thank you. Now I will ask you the next question from Henrique Medeiros from Mobile Time. Good morning. Here's Henrique Medeiros: How do you see the mobile market in Brazil in 2024? Is there a guidance for Trocafy?
Henrique, thank you for your question and for being here with us today. We are quite optimistic regarding 2024. Some macroeconomic reasons, we see the interest rate decreasing. At the end of the day, besides being less cost to everyone, it means the possibility of extending the payment period for the consumer, because the period for the consumer in the electronic market is mandatory for the growth of the market. Another point that in 2023 we had instability was when we had a problem with Americanas in January. I think this problem is over. I mean, Americanas is a client again. They set their situation. We start the year with more credit to the retailers as well, because one of the impacts that we had with the instability of Americanas last year was a decrease in credits to retail, and they are back this year.
We have more credits to retail, less cost for money that will be translated in the possible amount of installments to buy electronics. We have government programs reducing the level of indigency of the consumer, we are quite optimistic. We met with some retailers. Once a year, we have an event called Allied Conecta, and we've just had this event in March, and we had more than 50 retailers with us, and all of them with this feeling that the year is starting stronger. Just to bring some data here, in January and February, we launched Galaxy S24. That is one of the important moments on the cell market, that is when Samsung launches a new model. I saw then the head of Samsung in the news saying that the sales for 2024 would be double of Galaxy S23 from the previous year.
I don't know the numbers, he mentioned that, and it is important. We always compare the launches of one year to the other, giving us this feeling of how the market is. We have good reasons to believe that 2024 will be better. The guidance for Trocafy, no, we don't have guidance for Trocafy. It is a market that we believe, our thesis is that it's a market that will grow significantly. Today, in Brazil, the remanufactured market is focused on the peer-to-peer, like John sending to Mary, and we believe that this market won't be this way anymore. It will be a real market of remanufacturing. Trocafy is one of these. Why? Because when you buy a used cell phone from Trocafy, you have a three-month insurance. You know that the battery has at least 80% of its capacity.
You know that it's not a stolen product, and you can, in Trocafy website, understand exactly the conditions of the device. If the screen is perfect or not. I mean, it's a transparent relation when you buy from a remanufacturer. We believe that this market will migrate from the peer-to-peer to the remanufacturer market. We bet a lot on this market. We believe we have all the elements to be successful. We have the logistics. We can have the reverse logistics that is bringing the device back. We have Samsung stores. We have everything necessary to be successful. We believe that Trocafy will bring good news to us in the future.
We have two more questions here. The next one, a question to Thalita, the one from Pedro Andrade. Good morning. Congratulations on the results.
On the financial expenses of the company, what is the line of interest and fines of BRL 72 million in 2023? We had the amount of BRL 72 million in 2023. What is the effective rate of tax of the company?
Well, this line of BRL 72 million shows our expenses of costs. That was a controlled amount, and according to our operation, it's well related to a specific business that we have here. It is well explained in our operations. Regarding the deferred tax, the question is a good one. We work with the deferred in a positive portion, and if we exclude the BRL 90 million of JCP declared, we would have paid 7.33% of income taxes. Just to give you some balance on the impact that we have making use of the tax benefit of the company and also paying our shareholders regarding our year of 2023.
Thank you. Just to finish, there's a last question here from Thales, our shareholder, that asks you: We've had the greatest historic revenue based on the international situation, but with less than that in the previous years. What is the perspective of coming back to the margin as the previous years?
Well, thank you, Thales. I'd like to divide this answer because generally, we've been mentioning that in our calls, the distribution in Brazil is a business that we work with margins between 9.5% and 10.5%, depending on the time of the market, so it will be a little above or below. If we analyze 2023, there was no variation. The international operation is an operation with a gross margin of 2%. When we gather everything, we have a lower consolidated gross margin.
The important is that the international part is not related to the Brazilian part. Sometimes Brazil is above Latin America, below, or vice versa. These are things that are summed. The gross margin decreases, but these are two businesses that are not correlated, and they gathered. We are searching for 9.5% and 10.5% in the Brazilian discussion. In the fourth quarter, maybe you've seen that our margin of distribution was lower. Here we have two factors to be considered. First of all, we prioritized the sales for retail with a low gross margin, but with lower payment periods, sometimes with cash payment, which changes our cash position in the end of the year. We also, in the last quarter, had the Black Friday and Christmas period, and we made use of this moment to make a more efficient stock.
The amounts that we had of the so-called aging, that is some days in our stock, it is a promotional time of the year. We have Black Friday and sales, and we made use of this moment to have healthier stock. We start 2024 with the same configuration of margin that we've had over the last years with a healthy stock. We have good elements for our margin to keep the same as we've had over the last years.
Yeah, I think that's it. We don't have any other questions. We could clear all the doubts now. I guess with that, we finish the results call for the fourth quarter, and we are available to clear any doubt. Our email you know. Thank you for your participation, and see you later. Thank you very much. See you next time.