Like your preferred language, Portuguese or English? For those listening to the English version of the call, you can mute the original Portuguese audio by clicking on "Mute original audio." Please note that this video conference is being recorded and will be available on the company's investor relations website, ri.americanas.io, where you can also find the full earnings release. The presentation, both in Portuguese and English, is also available for download via the chat icon. During the company's presentation, all participants will be on listen-only mode. After the remarks, we'll begin the Q&A session. To submit a question, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type in to join the queue. Once your name is called, you will see a prompt to unmute your microphone. Please activate your microphone so that you can ask your question.
We ask that you state all your questions at once. We remind you that the information presented today, as well as any forward-looking statements that may be made during this call regarding the company's business outlooks, projections, and operational financial targets, are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Americanas management and all information currently available. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance as they involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors may affect Americanas' future performance and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements. Today, we have the following company executives: Leonardo Coelho, CEO; Camille Faria, CFO and Investor Relations Officer; and Fernando Soares, COO.
I'll now hand the floor over to the CEO to start the presentation. Mr. Leonardo Coelho, please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by thanking all our clients for one more quarter, yet another quarter. You that dropped by at Americanas to help share with us. I'd like to thank everyone that participated in one more quarter that we delivered within the deadline, in particular the stores team, CD, the distribution center, I mean, and logistics that are everybody united and committed to recovery and building of Americanas. Also, our partners that are paramount, were paramount to value to us. The year of 2025 continues to demand discipline from us and the management because of the challenging macroeconomic environment in Brazil and in the world.
Even so, Americanas continues to deliver consistent financial and operational results, showing sequential improvement quarter over quarter from the execution of that strategic roadmap that we presented in 2024 that started in 2023 but was implemented in 2024, and all the other initiatives of efficiency, operational and financial efficiency initiatives that were presented by the team and are ongoing planning. Our second quarter 2025 results demonstrate our previously stated commitment quarter over quarter, this growth on a comparable basis. We deliver one more quarter following that guide and considering the timing of Easter that will happen in the second half of the year with changes in comparable basis.
We're going to discuss this quarter in a sequential way for you to understand the effect and to show comparable basis on 2025 over 2024, as Camille said, respecting the train of thought in a very honest way for you to be able to compare. Looking at the first half of 2025, we surpassed historical figures for the Easter event. Our operational financial efficiency strategy led to improved costs and expense management on the commercial strategy with a focus on higher margin categories and more recently with like recurring products. We had we expanded our gross margin in physical stores mainly. Another highlight that you see today, this presentation is the performance of the area that we call customers and partners' platforms, say PCP. It's the client's intelligence and monetization of the outer stores that is one of the drivers for the business.
It's like mounting for more share or results, contributing more to our total results. In operation, our disciplined execution of store footprint optimization and sales area is showing the first signs of contributing to higher gross revenue per square meter. Guided by our purpose of making lives of Brazilians easier, we've been advancing steadily in improving in-store service, which has a direct relation to the identification and the knowledge of our customers and allows us in a fantastic way, if I may say, to offer more intelligent and targeted promotions to over 50 million customers, targeted at their needs, regardless of the channel we direct for this. As we have been hoping, the digital has now a different characteristic.
It becomes an extension of our knowledge from the client with a value proposal centered in the omnichannel idea, especially the online to offline, on to go, and third-party sellers to enhance the physical store experience. Chuck Abate will show you later how we've been dealing with this channel to put that channel to work together with the physical stores. Moving on to slide number two, the agenda. All those movements that have been made boosted this semester financial results, which Camille will now present in detail. Afterwards, Chuck Abate and Fernando Soares will talk to you for you to hear from the actual operating team. They will bring you some more details on our main operational projects. Camille, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Leonardo. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for participating here. Moving on to slide number three, as we've mentioned before in our release, and Leo has talked to guarantee a better basis of comparison between the two quarters. Last year, Easter was in March and this year was in April. All the analysis and comments will be we'll talk about the first half of the year as a whole. On slide number three, we show the evolution of GMV for physical stores as well as same-store sales performance for the semester. As you can see in the graph, the physical GMV has been steadily improving over time, demonstrating consistent stores' sales growth, a growth in the sources. Between the first semester of 2023 and the first semester of 2025, this indicator grew by 21%, reflecting the effectiveness of our commercial strategies and the advances in store management.
Besides that, in the first semester of 2025, the same-store sales continued to show growth up to two digits, 11.8% in comparison to the same period of last year, boosted by Easter's strong performance. We talked about that last quarter, and we're going to put more color on that. That's the main event of the period of the semester. We posted approximately 16% growth in same-store sales during 2025 to 2024, along with an increase in transaction volume. The company also continued with the strategy of reducing exposure to electronics. We talked about that in the earnings calls due to their lower margins, higher logistics challenges, and a weaker alignment with our customer value position.
We believe that those results showed the capacity of the company, the ability of the company to generate organic growth, even in this more challenging macroeconomic scenario, reinforcing the effectiveness of our commercial strategies and the improvements in our store management, including better supply that reduces stock outs. We've been showing our products in better displays. We have a more suitable assortment and improving the service to our clients. Moving on to slide number four. Now let's recap the numbers of the Easter as we showed last quarter. This Easter, this year, we reached a new sales record for the event in Americanas . We reached over BRL 1.2 billion with market share gains exceeding 50% of the retail segment according to data from Nielson. This Easter event accounted for around 17% of total company revenue for the semester, which emphasizes the importance of that for our results.
We cannot fail to mention the Mother's Day with physical stores as the main sales channel for that event. It showed a growth in both sales and units sold versus the same date, Mother's Day last year, 2024. In this event today, the highlights were home, the department's home, personal hygiene, personal care, beauty that resonated well with customers in line with the trend of valuing emotional meaningful gifts for the occasion. We believe that these results underscore our efficient execution during the period despite a challenging macroeconomic environment for the sector. Moving on to slide number five, let's talk about profit and gross margin. There are two graphs in this slide. Looking at the bottom graph, the consolidated profit had a decrease of 14% versus per semester 2024, with a gross margin of 28.7%, a decline of 5.2 percentage points for the same period last year.
This comparison in the graph below is impacted by extraordinary events that were recorded in the first six months of 2024. We mentioned that at the time that had a very positive effect on that period's margin. We can notably remark the BRL 300 million from the late supplier rebates with PCP and around BRL 85 million from tax-related events. If we exclude those one-off effects in 2025 and 2024, we go to the graph above, in which we can show the consolidated gross profit margin pro forma without those extraordinary effects. Without that, they go up significantly, up 11.2% gross profit in absolute values, and the margin goes up by 1.9 percentage points, respectively. This result reflects the performance of the physical retail business, which is showing solid operational improvements and greater commercial discipline, capturing category management initiatives and talking a lot about that.
The establishment of a new store planogram developing as smart assortments tailored to each store location. We implemented some pricing levers that were smarter. The increase in PCP, the service participation in sales, also contributed positively to our profitability throughout the time. Moving to slide number six, now we're going to see our expenses and our EBITDA. In parallel with commercial efforts that we have mentioned in the last slides, the company continues its work on cost and expense management and some initiatives on operational efficiency that, combined with the gross profit increase shown on the previous slide, shows continuous improvement. Compared, led to a significant rise in adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2025.
Alongside commercial efforts, excluding depreciation and amortization, a total BRL 2 billion in the first six months, first six months of 2025, a reduction of 4% compared to the same period of 2024, after reductions, sequential reductions in the previous periods. Beyond this absolute reduction, we also had dilution of those expenses as a percentage of our revenue, representing 9.7% in net revenue, a reduction of 1.7 percentage points in relation to the same period of last year. It is the first time since the beginning of our crisis that our indicator is below 30%, which reflects our continuous improvement and all the efforts of the company to take efficiency in all the lines of this DNA. In the bottom charts, we show the adjusted EBITDA, and I'd like to remind you the concept of EBITDA adjusted.
It's the one that we exclude all the effects, all the positive or negative effects of the recovery, impairment, assets, haircuts, the pause by the judicial reorganization. Everything is in a different calculation. In those graphs, we present the adjusted EBITDA x IFRS that is after payment for the rents. The adjusted EBITDA for the first half of 2025 was BRL 339 million positive compared to BRL 268 million last year. It also reflects a positive impact of BRL 160 million in tax settlements, settlement agreements that we had. We had some agreements with, and roughly BRL 100 million from late ICMS taxes, fiscal fees, credits, and other tax-related events during the period. In the first semester of 2024, the adjusted EBITDA was also positively impacted by operational extraordinary events, more than 25, as we show you. Those effects included the recovery of BRL 300 billion, as I mentioned before, and tax-related around BRL 160 million.
If we exclude all those extraordinary facts, doing a pro forma adjusted EBITDA would have improved by BRL 231 million in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA after the payment of rents X IFRS 16 showed improvement in the period going from negative BRL 237 million in the first half to negative BRL 170 million in the first half of 2025, an improvement of BRL 67 million. If we exclude the extraordinary events, the improvement would have been BRL 257 million semester over semester, highlighting our progress, driven mainly by better event execution, optimization of expenses, as we showed in the chart of SG&A, and our ongoing operational efficiency program. To illustrate this progress a little more clearly, we're going to remember our recovery logs since 2023 to show some key financial indicators and show our continued evolution.
In the first chart on the left, you can see the same-store sales that show growth consistently over time, up 14.5% in the first half of 2024, 14.5% in the first semester of 2024 in comparison to 2023, showing evolution and then maintaining strong growth of nearly 12% in the first semester of 2025 compared to 2024. Pro forma gross margin, that's the one that excludes the effects of late supply rebates and temporary tax events, also continues to expand. You can see on the top right graph that presented a 6.1 percentage points increase between the first half of 2023 and the first semester of 2025, showing almost 30%. Beyond that, the optimization efforts on cost and expense have resulted in a nominal reduction of 31% in depreciation and amortization from the first semester 2023 to the first semester 2025.
We were down 31%, and we significantly reduced the percentage of net revenue in the same period, of that net revenue going 12.2 percentage points to the first semester. The adjusted EBITDA x IFRS 16 has also shown a steady upward trend, moving from negative BRL 1.7 billion in the first half of 2023 to negative BRL 170 million in the first semester of 2025. BRL 1.5 billion is an improvement almost. All those movements reinforce our path of consistent and sustainable growth. Something that I failed to mention very quickly, talking about EBITDA, previous slide, that this first semester, for the first time, we had at this first as the second quarter of 2025, a positive EBITDA. There are two main points here, seasonality, because Easter improves a lot this semester.
Sometimes we have some one-off events as an agreement with GMF, but it's worthy mentioning that as a positive impact since 2023. Moving on to slide number eight. Let's talk a little about capital structure. Nothing's new here in relation to all about the quarters. We finished the first semester of 2025 with a gross stat of around BRL 1.9 billion. That is essentially our debentures that were issued as part of the judicial recovery plan, plus BRL 54 million in short and long-term loans from our subsidiary Uniqlo, our franchising subsidiary. Down below, just to highlight, our debentures have maturities to like four to five years and a two-year interest grace period starting July 2024. We start paying interest in the third quarter of 2026, as you can see at the bottom section of the slide.
The company's total liquidity reached BRL 2 billion at the end of the semester, and consisted of BRL 775 million in cash and equivalents and BRL 1.2 billion in credit card receivables. This way, in June 30, 2025, our cash and equivalent plus credit card receivables exceeded our financial debt by BRL 103 million. Instead of debt, we had cash, BRL 103 million. In addition, just to be intellectually honest, we consider the financial debt of the company, all the liabilities remaining from the judicial recovery. That is essentially that settlement with suppliers. Just a small percentage of our creditors were not paid, and we divided. When we present at present value, those debts are registered as BRL 459 million. They are recorded under suppliers because, but here we talk about debt because they're not in the day by day.
There are also some obligations to creditors to opt in for restriction option one, our general payment modality, which at present value close to the period at around BRL 16 million recorded under other long-term liabilities in our statements. Considering the remaining liabilities from the judicial recovery plan, the net debt is approximately BRL 372 million at the end of this semester. Moving on to slide number nine, let's look at cash flow. On the slide, we show the position of cash and equivalent plus credit card receivables between December 31, 2024 to June 30, 2025. We ended 2024 with a combined balance of cash equivalents, marketable securities, and credit card receivables totaling BRL 3 billion. By the end of June 2025, this fiduciary stood at BRL 2.1 billion. We include in this balance cash equivalents and marketable securities from AMI, which are not consolidated in Americanas
cash position, and they're recorded under assets associated with held for sale in our statements. As we said last earnings call, due to typical seasonality of retail, the liquidity levels in December tend to be higher because they reflect the concentration of our sales in the fourth quarter and include events such as Black Friday and Christmas. We finish the year with lots of cash and receivables because we have just finished Black Friday and Christmas. The second bar on the chart represents adjusted net income for non-cash effects, totaling BRL 327 million, and was positively impacted by the tax settlements, federal tax settlement agreements reached in the second quarter of 2025, aiming to reduce the company's tax liabilities by joining the amnesty programs offered by state and federal government.
The third bar, it's important to point that to you, the - BRL 688 million shows the variation in working capital, and it is caused by seasonal effects inherent to the business dynamics. Since the fourth quarter is when we have major high sales events like Black Friday and Christmas, in those events, we have better term negotiations for payments for the campaigns. We finish the year in general with a lot of balance in cash and receivables and with accounts payable because we have higher terms with our suppliers to pay. We have a low inventory, vague balance, and accounts payable very, very high as well. What we have to do is to resupply the inventory, pay all the vendors, and then we normalize our working capital.
The fourth bar represents lease payment variations, totaling BRL 479 million, that are not reflected in adjusted net income due to the IFRS 16 accounting rules. Those are the financial highlights for the semester. With that, I give the floor to Chuck Abate, our VP of Clients, Customers, and Partners, who will give you some updates on projects in the area.
Thank you, Camille. Thank you, Leo. I'll tell you a little on these next slides. Those are the four pillars, the four strategic pillars that we've been working on in the last months, focusing on the first pillar, zooming in. Why is it called a passion for the customer? It's because we're building a company centered and focused on the customers. We've been advancing in three major initiatives to transform our relationship with customers. The first one is the loyalty program. It's called AIMS.
It's under development and will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2025. It will be the central link between our channels, offering personalized benefits and encouraging currency purchase. The second lever here is CRM, our CRM platform to turn data into intelligence, enabling increasingly relevant and precise offers and interactions with the clients. We want hyper-personalization. That's what we're aiming at, and we've been improving a lot towards that. The third lever here is financial services, and we've been designing and implementing solutions such as credit cards, insurance, and credit to boost profitability and create additional value across all the channels. It had been explored in a latent way, but we've been accelerating that, and the launch of the credit card recently shows us in our numbers. Moving to more detail, please go to slide number 11. We've been changing our operational model between the structures of business.
Historically, our three business units—stores, e-commerce, and the platform of services and partner—used to operate separately, each focused exclusively on its own result. Now we've entered a new phase with the customer at the center of all decisions. I'm talking about the second semester of 2025. While this may sound a little obvious today, it was not like that here inside the company, and it represents a deep transformation in our modus operandi: integrated teams, unified data, aligned metrics, and coordinated investments. All of that is focused on the same goal. Moving to the next slide, I'll summarize that here. We're basically building an integrated ecosystem. Our three business fronts now operate as a single ecosystem where each customer touchpoint strengthens the relationship with the client and enhances profitability. How can we operate that with an integrated multi-channel traffic generation?
We have a coordinated customer acquisition with performance media support to expand reach and goodness. We've been working a lot on traffic monetization, offering non-core that's not on the store, like insurance, card, credit, at the right moment and through the right channel, maximizing the value for both the customer and the company. A loyalty, as I've said before, the program client A will connect every channel, offering benefits and driving quality engagement in every interaction to encourage repeat sales, repeat purchases. CRM as an intelligence driver, a data and personalization platform delivering hyper-relevant offers at the exactly right time for each customer profile. Now I'll hand it over back to Fernando, our COO. Actually, I'll give the floor to Fernando Soares, our COO, to comment on our physical operations.
Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, everyone.
It's been a long time that we've been talking about the store as the protagonist, the lead character of our strategy of our business. This pillar is called Better Store. Best Store, it tries to balance best service for the client and operational efficiency. Those are words that Camille used a lot during the slides. Moving on to the next slide, please. I'd like to start at the right side of the slide that shows the purpose that we designed in the operation of the store. Our purpose is to be a class A operator, a reference in store operation. The first part of the strategy is to have the client in the center, the customer in the center, the right assortment, the right price, and a very, very polite service. We've been investing a lot in more associated presence in the stores, guiding our customers.
The second pillar is a more attractive and efficient store. We've optimized sales areas with a pattern like standardization and planogram. Our associated operators as owners and having the sense, this perspective of owners and understanding the variables in the store with a bigger sense of responsibility. I'd like to highlight some indicators that are part of the individual target of the teams, for example, turnover, or even the control of the power costs in the store. We have superior results and reduction of stores in absence. This strategic basket that we brought to operations brought an increase of 14% of our sales per square meter and a reduction of our operating costs in 1%. That's very, very important. The levers that we use are on the left.
We reduced loss and breaks with new processes of controlling stores, the new plan in stores and some products, and the reduction in utilities cost, electric power cost. We've been controlling the stores' expenditure. We're closing some stores that are presenting debts. We are optimizing the sales areas, and we reduce the cost of occupation and energy and inventory. With the Galleria project in which we divide our stores with some partners, strategic partners. Of course, we are renegotiating the rental agreements, taking into consideration locations and traffic potential for the stores. The fourth pillar is the productivity of our team. We reduced the turnover, and we increased the productivity of our associated in-store in almost 19%. I'd like to highlight the over 1,000 sales campaigns. We are trying to energize our team. It's like talking to the customer every day.
We have some logistics initiatives here, optimizing the shipping and increasing the productivity of our distribution centers. We have a very high discipline in operational costs, and the stores are involved with that. The team is directed to deliver two things at the same time. With that, I can give the floor back to Leo.
Thank you, Fernando. That was what we wanted to show you. I think we can move on to the Q&A session.
Now we're going to start the Q&A session. I'd like to remind you that for you to ask a question, you have to click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen, typing the question to enter the queue. We kindly ask you to ask your questions all at once. Our first question comes from William Vasconcelos, investor. He brought the following question. How is the judicial organization going?
Thank you, William, for the question. The judicial recovery has been executed essentially in 2024. We refinanced, reprofiled our debt, and we changed our credit score board from BRL 46 billion, I'm not BRL 42 billion, I'm sorry, to this debenture of BRL 1.8 billion that we showed you today at the presentation, plus BRL 475 million with liabilities with other suppliers within the plan in judicial recovery. We executed everything at the end of 2024. Today, we live a normal life. Of course, we are under the seal of a company under judicial recovery. We live a regular life, respecting obligations to the plan, but 99% focus on the operational recovery. The judicial recovery and reorganization is just a bureaucratic issue that we have to be accountable for boards and the creditors. We wait anxiously. We're looking forward to finishing this chapter of our history. We finished everything, basically.
I'd like to remind you that in order to ask questions, you must click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type in your question to enter the line. Our next question comes from Angelo Luis, investor. He said, "Americanas might become a market chain."
Thank you, Angelo. I will take that if you want to comment later. The most direct answer we can say is no. We have a journey that serves other necessities of our clients. We're like joyful moments related to indulgences, middle class, and PNC income levels that go to our stores. We don't have a location for like having a supermarket. Part of our mix is also present in supermarkets, but the value proposition is very different.
I think that some of our journeys can be coincidentally equal to markets, supermarkets, but we have a main branch in key points as services, categories, and the discovery of items that are proprietary of Americanas. We are going to keep doing that in our stores.
Our next question comes from Tony Simon. Is there a plan to seek or implement a basket of exclusive proprietary products outside of the store?
If I understood you correctly, you're talking about proprietary brands, right? If it's that, we have lots of brands, exclusive brands that are 11 for water, basic plus for some other different categories. We have that today. There is a strategy, and as we evolve our improvement journey of operational improvement journey in our stores with more optimized displays.
We have this planning to show our exclusive brands, make them stronger in our stores and aligning them with client A strategy and strengthening our proprietary brands. Today, even Americanas having its own brands, we have almost 30 proprietary brands that are sold in our stores. We are still using lead brands in their segments, and we're going to keep doing that, keep following that strategy.
Our next question comes from Guilherme Ahmad, investor, and he brought two questions. In relation to the current store portfolio, is there a big proportion of stores in deficit? What are the other criteria used to close those stores? I'm talking about Americanas expects to see higher proposals that face more challenging scenarios.
Yes, there are deficit stores, as in every retail, but it was significantly reduced since last year, the first six months of this year.
The criteria we have is to put all of them in the same cluster, compare them with similar stores, and act on each lever, renegotiating rental agreements with a number of headcount of associated in-store margins. We look at those stores and compare to a similar store and act on the deficit levers to try to rank that store in a different cluster with more profitability. We've been reviewing that weekly, and we've been improving a lot at least.
If I might just emphasize what Fernando said, I think it's very important here. We have today a store portfolio that is in majority made by healthy stores, but it hasn't always been like that. The portfolio that has been developed by Fernando and the team since the second semester of 2024, it has been able to recover deficiency and result generation of many, most of the stores.
We still have a very pragmatic approach to sit down, try and understand what we can do internally to improve the stores, discuss with stakeholders that are very important, like the landlords, to try and make those stores profitable and attractive. In such cases in which we cannot do that, as Fernando said in the presentation, we're going to close the stores. It's simple like that. We have a plan of opening new stores, and I have mentioned in the last earnings calls. At this moment, this plan is a little suspended because of macroeconomic challenges and uncertainties, but not necessarily related to the company's financials. It's an internal decision. Given the unstable scenario, we can postpone that project of opening new stores. In summary, we are, as any normal retailer, going to open or close stores depending on performance, quality, and location. Camille, so let's go.
I'm going to take this opportunity, if you allow me, to merge with the next question about the sale of H&T and how that sale can impact Americanas. The first question. Okay, I can see that. I can see the question now. Let me talk about that. Yesterday, we released to the market the statement that we are trying to sell H&T because it's part of the judicial recovery plan. It's not a surprise to anybody. We guide this bidding process. M&A processes are very long, and we don't want to be pressed by time, so we resumed the process. In relation to the expectation of proposals, we believe we have a very valuable asset. It's a local brand in Rio that's very important and in São Paulo too. It's an operation that might be attractive to many different clients.
We also understand that this scenario is challenging, a macro scenario. Of course, it affects the food industry, which has appreciated in the last few years. We understand the challenges. We don't have an expectation. We are looking at that very realistically. We know the quality of our assets, but we understand the scenario. We believe in the quality of our assets to attract suppliers. That sale can impact Americanas. Yes, it will impact positively once the plan says that the resources from those sales will be used mandatorily to settle debts. It will impact positively since every resource will come from that. We reduced the BRL 1.7 billion that we showed you.
During the negotiation of the judicial recovery plan, this asset was one of the negotiated with investors because when we restructured the company, we said that our core business and that Americanas that complements with digital channels and that shows value to the customers of Americanas, this is our core. This is what we want to focus 100% points. We believe that H&T is not part of that core business anymore. We don't see synergy. Strategically, we believe that the best solution here is to monetize this asset. If we receive a good proposal that is aligned to the value that we believe the asset has, we're going to use that to leverage our operation.
We received a question from investor Ricardo Campos. How is the work in reapproaching investors for the company? I'll take this one, Leo, Fernando.
We've been feeling gradually, in summary, we've passed through a period in which the company has been abandoned, let's say, by the institutional investor because it was at the beginning of the crisis, judicial recovery, many hoaxes and speculations. The role of that is in the hands of people that trade events. We've been seeing that the consistent evolution of our results has reawakened the curiosity and the interest of institutional investors in a long-term relation. We can't see that investor exposing itself to big investments, but quarter over quarter, this relation will change because we've been presenting improvements. It's a step by step, but we believe that gradually, with the results we've been presenting with consistency over the next quarters, it's going to increase this interest.
Our next question comes from Adriano, of course. Yes. How is the Galleria project? How is it going? How many stores have been implemented? What's your prediction for the end of 2025? Is it going to be implemented at Americanas Express as well?
Project Galleria has been implemented. Yes, sure. We have in stores almost 10% of our base with three partners in operation. We have a decision-making criteria for the partners that entered there that adds value to our stores. We've been having lots of success in smartphone repairs, kind of financial services. It makes sense for our customers. As I said, we have three partners operating with a pipeline of three to four new partners that might join us at the end of the year. The idea is, let's move on from pilot to a business platform for next year.
Our next question comes from investor Leonardo Narciso. We focus on chocolates, candies, and sweets. Is it a strategy that pays off in the long term? Does it look like to see Americanas as exploring other categories like electric portable and house appliances?
Thank you for your question, Leonardo. Let's divide that in three parts. Chocolate and candies is related to the indulgency journey that we've mentioned earlier. We believe that it's part of Americanas' destiny. It attracts people and traffic. It's a strong category, and we are doing the best. We talk about portable house appliances. This is a category that has been growing inside. During the three last weeks, we had relevant sales for iron, coffee makers, coffee machines. Just to give you some numbers, iron, we sold last week about everything we sold last year as a whole. It shows that the relationship with the local suppliers has been reinforced. We've been able to build together some marketing campaigns and sales to make our stores attractive. It aligns with this long-term design plan.
All the other categories like beauty, personal care, hygiene, all those cleaning departments, that's the category that has been showing steady growth in 2025. We want a store that shows products that satisfy those journeys that we define, and we presented in the latest releases and the last releases in relation to how those appliances are like true products. Americanas was not seen as a good, a strong seller of household appliances, especially white lines and TVs of like big screen mainly. We didn't have, and we don't have a clear value proposal for those categories. Since those are products that are multi-comparable, we sell that in our digital channel. The logistics are very complex. The risk of damage in stores is very big, very high. We don't see that category on the long term. Did I forget anything, Fernando?
No, but I'd like to take the opportunity to say that these categories are a fortress of ours. In some subcategories, we are like leaders of the market. It's very important to work with that, with industry, talk about the release of new products, correct display. Why is that so important to us? We've talked very quickly about the layout of our stores. Our stores have been built and optimized. See that category in the middle of the store. The client will go there and see what we've been doing with cleaning and portable household appliances, beauty, and hygiene. That's a new assortment. This category helps a lot with the physical stores. There's a second layer here, the role we have in like intertwining categories in our customer A project.
If our client is well served with chocolate, can be stimulated to interact with everything that we've been showing in our stores. I think it's the beginning of a journey that passes through that fortress, that category that I called fortress, that we bring good results from ahead.
We received the following question from investor Leonardo Soares. The physical commerce, the retail, brick-and-mortar had an expressive growth in the third quarter of 2024, while e-commerce reduced almost 50%. How to balance revert that fall in digital and balance the channels in 2025?
It was a very good question, Leonardo. I'll try to be pragmatic here. You're looking at Americanas, thinking about a big marketplace with big, many sellers as we had before.
That design, that model with a big marketplace with many sellers competing with each other and with all the other players in the segment in Brazil, that strategy was abandoned and communicated in a very clear way. We changed the vocation of our digital. Chuck Abate showed a little of the evolution of that with graphs and showing the structure, the whole structure centered on the client, on the customer in an agnostic way. You see the channel. We changed the design of this digital channel to make it work on our fortresses as perceived by our customers. Which are those strong points? Store capillarity, the variety of our assortment. I want the digital to use the physical store as a basis for its service. I'm talking about shipped from store and takeout at store. This is our digital location.
The art of digital as a big marketplace with hundreds of thousands of sellers generated a brutal loss for that company. In general, it was anchored in a value proposition that was like multi-comparable products with a very reduced margin, sold with low interest and with free shipping and cashback. We weren't paying for the client to buy from us. We redesigned that and we changed the perspective of digital. From a perspective of sales, it's, of course, way, way smaller than the old marketplace. On the other hand, when we consider results and value generation for Americanas and for its shareholder, the digital that we've been building is infinitely more profitable than the other one we had in the past. I hope I have answered your question. If I didn't, please complement that. I thought that was my answer.
The Q&A session is now concluded. I'd like to give the floor back to the final remarks of the company.
Okay, let's go. As we could see in the answers here, as in the presentations of Camille, my presentation, Fernando, and Chuck, we continue in a growth and a sustainable trajectory. We want to keep this rhythm, focusing on the core structure of our business, such as sales operation, agility, quality. The use of artificial intelligence technologies to do many improvements in our enforcement in the company. Mainly the efficiency in cash generation and cash management as well, without excluding any opportunity to expand our assortment and add new services as project go. We have been distant from the restructuring phase of Americanas and more focused on structuring projects to generate value for a strong retail as Americanas is.
In parallel, we have been identifying opportunities beyond our core business, recognizing, as I mentioned before, that our nationwide footprint is a major advantage for any transformation move that we have tried focused on profitability and sustainable growth. Recalling what we talked about last quarter, the picture of the result we presented is just one frame in a film that tells in a very responsible and careful way. Camille and I have been very careful when we compare with previous quarters. We are trying to be cautious in disclosing the strategies, but very, very fast in implementing them in a careful way, respecting the history of Americanas, which will soon celebrate its 96th anniversary in Brazilian retail.
We remain committed to our purpose of making people's lives easier, expanding access to other services, doing business with long-time partners, as well as new partners, newcomers that see value in Americanas in this nationwide field. We are still generating a very positive impact through thousands of jobs, especially in stores and distribution centers. We have this characteristic in being the first employer forming quality personnel and being a company that develops its team in a continuous way. It is the main focus of our team in Chuck, Camille, Fernando, to keep developing our team members. That is the true driving force behind the transformation we are leading. We would like to thank them deeply. This is my final remarks. Thank you, everyone.
The earnings call for the first half of 2025 has now concluded. Thank you for participating. Have a very good afternoon.