Good morning. Welcome to the call for Fras-le Mobility for the presentation of the fourth quarter of 2024. Before we begin, we'd like to share with you some announcements. This meeting is being recorded. After we finish, we'll make it available on our website, ri.fras-le-mobility.com. We have simultaneous translation into English. For you to access it, just click the Interpretation button at the bottom of your screen. By the end of the presentation, there will be a Q&A session. Questions may be submitted in two ways: by raise-your-hand icon or in writing through the Q&A. In addition, we'd like to stress that any statements that are shared here are not. They involve risks and uncertainties because they're about future events. Therefore, they depend on circumstances that may or may not happen. We'd like to thank you for joining us in another results call.
We have today with us our President and CEO, Sérgio Carvalho, our COO, Anderson Pontalti, the IR, Business, and M&A Director, Hemerson de Souza , and our IR Manager, Mariana Guimarães. There is our guest, our IR and Finance Director, Esteban Angeletti. Before we begin, we'd like to hear from Mariana for her introduction. Welcome, Mariana.
Thank you, Mónica. Good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to be with you, with Fras-le team's analysts here with us. Just a quick introduction. I've been 14 years working in this area and 7 years in IR. I've worked with transportation, estate, and retail. Now I join Fras-le for this beautiful work that is being done. I'm very excited with the perspective with this company. I'll be available with the IR team to respond with transparency and responsiveness. Mónica, over to you again.
Thanks, Mariana. Anderson, please, you can begin the presentation.
Good morning, everybody. Thanks, Mariana and Mónica. Welcome, Mariana. Welcome to the team. It's a privilege, once again, to be talking to our dear analysts and investors. In fact, it was a historical record quarter. Hemerson is going to talk a little bit about the results, but on the first slide, we'd like to invite—I mean, we have some highlights here. Many of you with us, your part in our headquarter on the 4th of December. It was our fifth Universo Fras-le Mobility to showcase a little bit about our long-term strategy and to showcase our operations as it is a practice in our company to be close to you and to have transparency. I hope you are all with us. I hope you appreciate it and you enjoyed it like we did. Historical landmark. Now, we have a commitment. We don't want the result at any cost.
We have our commitment with society. We're very happy with operations, our Caldeira biomass boiler. It's a 60% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The process that beforehand we used natural gas for processing and heating. Today, we do this based on biogas, thus ensuring 92% of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, specifically in this process. After a few months of operation, I can tell you we're very happy with the results: ecological results and economic results. It was a quarter with a lot of recognition. Our mechanics, we had an award by CINAU, led by CINAU. Our four brands had awards. Brake pads, we got a first place. Steering bar, direction terminal, and suspension pivot Nakata was first place. Also, brake disc with Fremax and master cylinder and vacuum booster with Controil. This makes us to be desirable by our investors and by the users.
This has to do with the experience of our user. This is a temperature check to show us that we are going the right way with our proposition of value. We are very happy to reach the top of guidance in our revenues, close to BRL 4 billion in 2023. It was a highlight here. It's not a year that we consolidated M&A. It started in 2025. Last year was organic growth. It was not a year of high inflation. That's another important reason. It was market share growth directly. We want to grow two digits every year. Last year was such. It was very significant, 17% in a historical market that grows 1%-2% a year in this country. It is a very expressive mark, very resilient, strengthening what we say we call powerhouse. We're occupying spaces in our salespeople.
In the foreign market, we almost reached BRL 290 million top guidance, very heated market, almost 18% in dollars, a bit adjusted a bit of margin, 18.4%. You are going to hear more about this. Very resilient. We always mention our concern that we would leave the pandemic and maybe the margins would suffer some price pressure, but we are able to keep it at a very high level with volume growth. I know that Hemerson is going to talk more about this, that we have inflationary factors in Argentina that removed some millions from this account, from some accounting computation because of the hyper-devaluation in 2023 in Argentina with the beginning of Milei's office, Milei's term. In investments, we had BRL 165 million with industrial activity level that is closer to the top of the guidance. It represents 24%. We have been investing a lot in capability.
The heater is an example, the Caldeira Verde, the green heater is an example. Hemerson is going to share some more thoughts about this. Hemerson.
Good morning, everyone. Morning, Anderson. It's a great pleasure to talk about Fras-le Mobility to the market, especially because of how consistent it is, how consistent our words are, our messages are, and the results. They are aligned with the results. Talking about the year of 2024, it's been the sixth or seventh year we've been talking that we're building consistent results, growing results, and that we're going through a better year of the company. What I'm going to say now may bring support that is more substantial so that this year, 2025, we'll get the same label. This is a subsequent event. It's not part of the agenda of 2024. Of course, it's connected with 2025.
June last year, we announced the acquisition, the signing of an operation, an important operation in our acquisition plans for organic growth, which is the purchase of Kuo Refacciones. We renamed it to Dacomsa. It was the name of the distribution in Mexico. We took over this company on the 14th of January. The indicators of revenues that you already know, referring to January, and tomorrow we're going to report February, they include Dacomsa already. What it sold in 2023, we're going to use this as metrics. It brings to Fras-le growth support that is very important for 2025. Our guidance has not been formalized. It's coming up in the following weeks. Just let's bear in mind some thoughts. We estimated that in five years, we would get incremental EBITDA added to BRL 300 million, and they would come from revenues and costs.
We have launch of new lines in Fras-le Mobility Mexico, access to new distribution channels in the region. We want to grow the sales in the U.S. On the cost side, we'd like to improve operational efficiency in factories, consolidate sourcing of both finished products and raw materials. Obviously, we want to improve operations, costs, and logistics. We knew this would happen. What's happening today after two months is we noticed that the costs part, we see that we were going to have better synergies than what we designed and faster because in costs, we can deal with costs more quickly. It's not a forecast, but we're very happy to see what we're finding. It's a wonderful company managed by a wonderful team, very competent team with robust processes. They put it at a leadership level with Dacomsa, Moresa, TF Victor, and Fritec.
We paid BRL 2.2 billion for this acquisition. There was an adjustment that's going to happen next month of BRL 450 million from own resources. We raised BRL 750 million for the venture and BRL 1 billion raised by Dacomsa. It was a loan agreement in Mexico, equivalent to BRL 1 billion. The numbers of this company, it's 100% independent aftermarket. It sells 90% to the domestic market. 5% of what it does is to the U.S., sales to the U.S. We want to grow there. We don't see risks with the changes from a new government in the U.S. that might bring limitations due to a simple issue. The U.S. does not have manufacturing of the items that we sell there. If there are additional taxes, we're going to pass them on to the client. May bring some hurdle, but it doesn't change our plan.
It does not change our plans, our design. Even if we remove this part, the impact would not be substantial. Even though our strategy is to grow in the U.S., we have plants there. We have important businesses. Mexico certainly is a way so that we can launch this plan there. It sells almost 90% to light line. It has close to 2,000 employees. Adjusted EBITDA is over BRL 300 million. It was better than this last year, and the results this year are in line with last year's. We have BRL 1.4 billion net revenue. The number today is better. As we knew it, the company is a very good one with a growth curve that points to better results for the following years. Anderson mentioned this, the 17% that lead us to almost BRL 4 billion sales. It is completely organic growth. There are no acquisitions here.
It's what the company is. The design here is that we want to keep two digits on average for organic growth. We want to keep this because we still have other lines. We don't have consolidated leadership throughout. It allows us to dream and to also reach other geographies, other markets. Generally speaking, this thought about margin growth between the fourth quarter, it's been almost 50% growth. Like Anderson said, there are inflationary results that remove some revenues here, but the businesses are flowing very well, and they continue so. It's been demonstrated in a winning model from our businesses, from our business model, especially because it's connected to demand that is part of the consumption and not so connected with the production of new vehicles. That's what the pizza chart shows. 11% go to the OEM. With Dacomsa purchase, it's reduced by 5%.
It's not that we don't like the OEM. We want to grow there. The fact is that the aftermarket is larger, grows faster. Therefore, we tend to be stronger there. It's our strength. In the foreign market, we advanced more 100% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023 in line, a little above the average of growth, almost 18% growth, as you can see on the right. It's worth mentioning that we've seen in a number of markets growing demand, especially in Argentina, because for many years, it had imports barriers. We didn't have an opportunity to renew portfolio and grow our lines in the past. Today is different. We've been doing it. We're growing our businesses there. In addition to being benefited from the exchange, currency exchange, because last year it was about BRL 6 per Argentine peso. It favors the growth of the foreign markets.
We finished our guidance. We reached the top of it, not just with revenues, but from the average point up in terms of KPIs, which makes us really happy to showcase these results. Talking about the products now, the segments and products, just to show you our performance here. We're still heated with friction markets, especially in the light sector. We're getting market share here. Thanks to our local team's work to reposition lines, to launch compatible products, compatible with the reality, competitives, above the expectations of our markets, especially ceramics. Ceramaxx, our brand, is getting a lot of market share. We left 36%-38% years ago, four or five years ago, to a market share of 48% in this line. Here still prevails. It's the only business that we have in addition to commercial vehicles.
We're the largest producer in the world of brake systems for the spare parts, even in the U.S., the most competitive market in the world here in Brazil. We want to reach this market share in the Mexican market as we advance with our businesses and new product lines. In the brake system as a whole, we're growing well. There's a highlight going to hydraulic action components, the drivers. We had flooding in 2024. We had some delays in terms of delivery of parts because of the flooding here, but we are growing our volumes and with good profitability. Especially Fremax did not grow that much because it didn't have enough capability. This year, by concluding the project at the substation, we're going to offer more products. We want this to grow more. It's going to grow more.
90% of what we sell is for the light line and 10% for commercial line . It's worth mentioning here our line where we have a lot of room for growth. Our star here, which is suspension, steering, and powertrain. After we bought Nakata, we left to 17% to 27% in suspension. We want to grow 40% in the following years, but we're growing all lines here. They have 20-something percent, and there's room for growth. We are sure that our company is made to grow organically to digits in a significant way, as we've been doing for many years. We're compliant with this statement that we have room for growth. It's mostly light vehicles. We're confident that we're going to continue growing. The other lines, powertrain, compass, we also grew, especially in light vehicles.
When we see the consolidated results, 30% relates to commercial line , and 70% is light line . In the next chart, we can see a little bit about the operational performance of the company. I'd like to show you this line, the smaller chart, line chart. There was stability in 2024. We started due to the change of system. We had a harder time early on. After that, we put this on a different track. We grew the fourth quarter. We had a best quarter for a number of reasons, especially when we compare performance from the previous year. The EBITDA margin, it shows very clearly that we had some more complex, more challenging. It was a very good year in terms of advancing our growth, linear growth over the quarters.
When we see the impact that we had from 2023 and 2024, growth happened, especially in the fourth quarter due to recomposition of sales. The inflationary impacts from Argentina, especially last year, impacted the fourth quarter. It took away some of the result. We have non-recurrent events that reduced this a little bit. The EBITDA fourth quarter could have been a little better. I'd like to emphasize that we did not adjust all the spending and the cost of acquisitions. Last year, we had a lot of investments here. The data that are here for adjustment, we may consider this as a non-recurrent event. As a company, we have as a premise that we acquire from time to time. We do not adjust, but it is described. The amount of these costs is described in the release of results.
The exchange also extended the logistic costs sometimes. We had harder scenarios sometimes. It happened in the curve last year when you have the adjusted EBITDA and the regular EBITDA, especially in the second quarter. Sales, costs, spending. We took part in some fairs in Frankfurt last year, for example. We had greater spending there. Of course, as you said, administrative expenses due to Dacomsa acquisition. The non-recurrent, we had details that may solve any questions you might have in our statements that we usually share with you and report. In the next chart, we talk a little bit about our cash flow. In the quarter, we had investments of BRL 80 million connected to productivity and sustainability.
There is some showed Green Caldeira , the boiler, the green boiler, connected with care for the environment, but also to improve our competitiveness with substantial growth that are going to be future legacy for us. When we see our EBITDA and the cash flow of $300 million, it is a little close to 50%. We have significant cash flow generation. We advanced a little bit in the amount that we used, but we reduced the number of days. As I mentioned, we closed here BRL 160 million investments according to our guidance, similar to the amounts that we had planned. It has to do with the tax, with the exchange, the currency exchange. We have a lot of stocks outside the country, and sometimes we might have extension of terms of dates that we had by the end of the year.
We had best performance in terms of days. It might change due to Dacomsa's joining us because they have a distribution business with application of resources that is higher. Like we did with other acquisitions, our idea is in the upcoming years, we're going to level this and have a better performance in terms of cash flow with that company as well. Here, I'd like to tell you a little bit about net income and net debt. Here we have charts that show us a little bit about this performance. If we evaluate year against year, we had a little less, 3.6%. It's connected with especially with the restructuring we had at Tennessee that removes 2% here from our profit and also subvention taxation. When we analyze quarter by quarter, we had significant performance compared to 2023. Our effective share, it's not quarterly here. Now it's leveled.
Our net debt, it's now BRL 31.3 million, but it would be adjusted to around BRL 26 million. It's a linear level compared to 2023 in terms of the effective tax rate. In 2024, we had no net debt at that time. We finished the year with a net BRL 250 million with the acquisition of Dacomsa. It's inverted. We have a different position now. The details will have to do with the release about the results of the first quarter this year. It's extremely comfortable when we realize the cash flow that we generate, the excellent cash flow from Dacomsa as well. We foresee that we're going to be below 2x this leverage as we showed at the time when we released the acquisition of Dacomsa. I understand that last year we paid debts that were very important.
We had cash and equivalent loans and financing, BRL 315 million of amortizations.
As I mentioned, all of the Dacomsa's effects are showed in the first quarter. It's not part of the cycle that we had in 2024. Now we'll hear from Anderson again about another business that we want to see in the following quarter, especially this year. I hear from Anderson a little bit about what we expect from Dacomsa . Anderson, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Hemerson. Before I talk about the outlook, I'd like to talk about Dacomsa . I'm part of the committee of synergies. Hemerson takes part in this very often, operational teams weekly and daily. What I can tell you all is that we're finding a company that it's even better than we thought. They're receptive, culturally speaking, and from the people there. We have a professional PMO, Visagio, that helps us with this project.
Visagio was the same that helped us with the PMO in the process of Nakata. We were very happy then with the synergies. We have some professional from Fras-le directly linked to the operation in Mexico to speed up this culture without destroying local value in the wider sense for the corporation. What I can tell you, we're even more optimistic than we were before for the takeover on January 14. Now, talking about some other geographies, I'd like to say that the demand for the spare parts is strong. I have contact with clients in this market in Brazil because it's BRL 2.5 billion our sales. Everybody started this year in a positive way. The first quarter will be sound. We don't know about the second quarter. There is some tension here because of default. We'd be more selective to give credit.
The sales from our clients, they are still strong above the average growth of the market, which gives us good outlook. International freight is important to take into account for our business. In the second and third quarter last year, we had some limitation of supply because of the imbalance of the international freight. This year, we're suffering less. We have a stability level that is higher with costs that are more reasonable. Still far from the ideal optimal levels, but better to digest in a way, so to speak. We hope this continues like this. It will not get in the way of our operations as it did in 2024. It's worth bearing in mind that we had a challenge in 2024 because of the floods we had in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Controil had 32 or four days without operations.
It impacted a great deal our results, our business. It was a hard time we had to face. We hope we do not face this again. Starting then with that initiative, we wanted to expand Controil with a specific manufacturing strategy to have more responsiveness to the market. We are able to browse other geographies where Controil can reach, especially in Latin America. We have a plan of 450 new partners by the end of 2026. As you all know, we are building the substation that will address the bottleneck of the energy for the milling of our discs at Fremax. We still want to work here on the deadline. By the second quarter, we are going to be full, offering 25% more than we do today based on that site.
It will enable us to reach other markets in Latin America and some export lines for the U.S., maybe drawing on this moment of harder time of some economic partners in the U.S. We are sure we are going to be able to occupy this capability in the short run, almost immediately. Having said that, we have a quarter, two quarters that our view is very clear, that are very promising, very positive, in line with our expectations and your expectations in terms of performance of the company, both revenues and EBITDA conversion and cash flow. Obviously, we have an eye on the leverage. It is conservative. It is comfortable. We have this commitment to bring this to a lower level so we can have future investments.
We want this below two by the end of this year with Dacomsa 's investment will integrate, will bring results. We follow constant and strong. Our direction is clear. We still have a lot of work and opportunities to capture in the following quarters. Thank you. Thank you, Mónica. Back to you.
Thank you, Anderson. Now we are going to start our Q&A session. The first question comes from Gabriel Chin, sell-side Santander analyst. Welcome. Your audio is open.
Morning, everyone. Thanks. Two questions first focused on the profitability drivers on this quarter. We saw some initiatives of productivity gain, cost management. I would like to hear more about this side of opportunities you see that may be exploited in the future. Also the exports markets, Argentina, U.S. generally. Second question is more focused on organic growth.
If you could comment this, the search for the advance, the search for leadership in some product lines, Nakata and Extrema, for example, market share. How do you see this competitive environment as a whole? Thank you.
Thanks, Gabriel, for your questions. I think, Anderson, it's better to talk about cost and productivity. You mentioned green investments. We're investing a lot in this. It's a great sponsor of this initiative.
I'd like to apologize that Sérgio had a connection problem, could not be with us. Maybe he will join us in a moment. Otherwise, we're going to take questions. Okay, I can start here talking about productivity. Thanks, Gabriel, for your question. Hemerson mentioned this is something that's been generating results. Even though the opening of the biomass boiler was in December, it's bringing effectiveness in terms of costs.
We're occupying spaces on the shelf of supermarkets, increasing market share in geographies without increasing cost structure. In 2024, we brought all the commercial management to Sérgio Montagnoli . It's a team. We used to have Fras-le brand, Fras-le team, and one with Nakata. Today, we have just one. We have synergies in the sales effort specifically. We also gained a lot of driver in Argentina in terms of volumes, like Hemerson said. The market enabled us to increase volumes without increasing structure. We had important facilities in Caxias do Sul with automatized machines for pads, commercial pads. We started the second shift for Nakata and Extrema. This made us use better the assets there, the installed assets. We converted everything we produced to Uruguay.
We changed this move from Uruguay to Caxias and Sorocaba, Brazil, without adding any fixed costs, just variable costs and productive costs to have optimal occupation in these plants and all shift. It's a number of initiatives. There's no silver bullet. It's part of our mindset to be looking for effective ways, more and more effective ways for product lines with commercial aggressiveness, adding volume. That's why we want to increase market share. We want productivity. We want supply. You get market share. Your question, Gabriel, it's also about the market share possibilities. We've been saying that in friction lines, we have we mastered this market close to 50% market share. It's not enabled to reach new levels without jeopardizing price. For you to reach other geographies, we'd like to lower price, have more economical lines, which is not part of our strategy at the moment.
We see there are better ways to go, geographies and product lines, for example. When I look at Nakata lines, when we bought Nakata, we had 15%-20% market share on average, okay, from 15% to 20%. There might be an outlier somewhere, but that's generally 15%-20%. We're getting 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% every year on this, on top of that. I believe 40% will be possible, feasible market share, healthy market share for all these product lines. When Hemerson mentioned suspension, there is still way to grow. We have a plan. We don't need investments. We need to get new customers to prove that our brand can occupy better this space. It's what the mechanics want. We're investing in the market, in the reality, investments for mechanics so they can experience our brands.
Believe we're still going to get more and more market share in the years to come. Of course, it's up to us, as we have market share maturity, to reach other product lines, M&As, greenfield, something that is always on our mind. I think that's what I had to say. Hemerson, Gabriel, please feel free.
Let me add this. When we talk about organic growth, there's a long way to grow. We still can grow some lines. There's something that the market sometimes does not see. I'd like to make it more evident. We measure Brazil market share when we talk here because that's where you have tangible information, reasonable data. In Mexico, we're going to have that, right? We're going to begin showing this in Mexico. We have the whole world as business. Dacomsa 55% of Fras-le Mobility are no longer Brazil.
We're humble about this, but we have positions, small positions of market share in Europe. We have huge room. We're quoting OEs all over the world. In the pipeline, we have more than $100 million in terms of quotations. Some of them, we got some of them. Some we're not going to get, but we're confident we're going to get some. Per se, this is like getting results little by little. Okay? We just closed an important deal of OE for Stellantis, for example. It's going to start this year. The amount of these resources, let's see how big Fras-le is. It's not going to change so much, but it's small business here, another deal there. You might get to 5% growth. These are relevant businesses, a geographic expansion with the increase of sales to Argentina, for example, for new products. It's 1% or 2%.
When you add all that, you might get 10%-20%. This is the magic of having an international company, international operation. Even though we have results and markets to explore here in Brazil, we're always looking for this kind of business here. It's part of our DNA, of our agenda as Fras-le Mobility. In terms of competitiveness, we have more room now in other geographies. We can see competition. It's never simple, but it's there. That's how it is. Mexico is a much more open country than Brazil. Imports there are very significant. We have confidence levels and customer preference levels that are very healthy. This, of course, protects our growth and our business. Having said that, competition is always aggressive, sometimes more, sometimes less. Right now, it does not scare us. We're fine.
We're connected with what we can respond to continue being competitive like we've been doing. Thank you, Gabriel. I hope I have answered this. Otherwise, I can answer this later.
Yeah, it's very clear. Thank you so much.
Our next question is from Fernanda Urbano, sell side from XP. Fernanda, welcome. Your audio is open.
Morning. Congratulations on the results. Thanks for taking our questions. We have two here. First is about foreign markets. It was a growth highlight, I think. We see there was the exchange rate, and we mentioned the demand that was withheld that may have favored exports. Now that logistics is better. I'd like to understand about the quarter performance, what you see as structural and how much you assign this to more environmental and what you see about North America and Argentina. That's the first question. The second question is about Dacomsa .
I know it's early to say, but you said that the margin of 2024 is a little better than the 21% level of the previous year. Based on what you saw so far, what do you associate this expansion of profitability and looking ahead in addition to sourcing, where do you see more opportunities to improve profitability once it's part of Fras-le structure? Thank you.
Thank you, Fernanda. Let me start talking about Dacomsa . Anderson is coming from Europe, so he's connected with the market demand there. We had regular meetings about growth opportunities in Argentina and the U.S., important markets for us. Talking of Dacomsa now, the honor of being part of the team in Dacomsa , it's an amazing and outstanding team that manages that company in a magnificent way.
We knew that we bought a company, and we had a target to buy the best spare parts company in Mexico. We did that with a star on it because the more we learn about it, the more we are passionate about it, with the opportunities we might have, joint businesses, and so on, as it's part of the Fras-le Mobility. It was well managed, but it belonged with a business group with a number of businesses. Automotive was not their main business. Now, in Fras-le world, it's an automotive consumption company. We are going to be able to give additional tools to have a level of competitiveness and growth and opportunities that are better for this company. We are enchanted with this. We are delighted with this company. It's the highest investment we had.
First off, 2024 was a better result than 2023 for a number of reasons, especially because the company kept some agendas of productivity, some growth, market growth agendas, especially on brakes, Fritec. It simplified the production park. It led to inventory level to a new distribution center. It adjusted some plants. You know, Fritec is an older company, so it operates. It grew not so orderly. It operates in a number of buildings, facilities. This was simplified in 2024, even though it was an acquisition year. Kuo Refacciones and Kuo was diligent at the time to keep the operations. There were investments in pistons, especially for pistons, a new plant that is more profitable. It's a new line that grows. It sales in the U.S. It brings more margin. Generally speaking, there are a number of productivity issues, manufacturing lines, reshaping of lines.
That company operates at that level. It may increase by two or three, one or two levels. There are BRL 300 million that is mapped of synergies to be exploited. There are a lot of good things to talk about of Dacomsa in the upcoming quarters and years, and I'll be happy to share with you. Like I said, it's a good company that will continue to be very good in Fras-le Mobility with more tools to advance and grow its business. It's a little complex to manage. That's right. We need to implement systems in one year and nine months, starting today. It adds some costs. We have some costs associated with the integration with onboarding process, some travels, some people coming and going.
I can tell you that what we've mapped in terms of synergies, I'm very happy to say that it was quite conservative, even though we don't have the results, but we have the feeling that the synergies we've mapped will be even better. There's a good thing. Synergies related to costs, those are the faster. They come before and they're larger. New products are still to come, but it amplified the scalability in terms of combination of products, sourcing products, manufacturing. We're very happy about this. Mexico is an important part of our organic growth. We want to expand our exports there, and it's going to help there. Now we'll hear from Anderson about our foreign markets. I hope I have answered this about Dacomsa .
Thanks, Fernanda, for your question. In fact, our growth, regardless of the dollar, it was 17.7% in dollar.
It was significant growth for the company. There were a number of justifications. In 2022 and 2023, we had some appointments from the U.S. market in the area of brakes. Our partner there, our main customer there, Cummins Meritor, had market share. Some players left the market, so Meritor was isolated in the leadership of that market, and we joined that as a partner. I have a dynamics of development that is very close to that customer that is very important. In Argentina, the same base, like the possibilities for exports, they have increased starting now our level of competitiveness. Bringing items from Uruguay to Brazil is notorious. We can have more market penetration with higher competitiveness. In Europe, we have Juratek performing well, introducing Fras-le Mobility lines. We're about to introduce Nakata with wheels. We have appointments in India.
We got a lot of volumes there and operations growth in India, in relevant businesses in Europe with BPW, not for this year. We're going to see this coming in 2026. Wabco, original from that geography. Nakata will start to expand its portfolio beyond Brazil. Nakata had a domestic presence in Argentina that was limited due to some tariffs. Now it's better in this geography. Our strategy of sourcing starting from Asia will make the demands of our operations to be centralized in Asia. Our manufacturing partners will develop. There needs to be technique, engineering quality in the suppliers of that region. Starting there, we can supply other geographies. Once again, it's not a silver bullet. It's a structural thing. These are businesses that we're hardly going to lose because we're getting capillarity. We're getting more and more geographies without one individualized factor.
We know we're browsing a very competitive market. The Asian market needs to provide spare parts to the world because the U.S. is imposing more barriers, and they have available capability. They can also penetrate market, but we also have that capability. Oh, they'll say China is going to impose difficulties. Okay, yeah. Because we already have the manufacturing, we already use the cost of manufacturing from smaller costs, we can fight better than locals that do not have this advantage. This is one of the beauties of growing in Brazil and outside Brazil because our level of competitiveness is growing comparing to other players globally.
Very clear. Thanks, Anderson. Congratulations on the results.
Thanks, Fernanda.
We have room for one more question. In case anyone wants to make a question, you can raise your hand or submit it in writing if you prefer. I think we were brief. I think there were not many questions. I think we did quite well. Clear enough. Since we have no more questions, the Q&A session is closed. Therefore, we'd like to hear from Anderson for the final remarks.
Thank you, Mónica. Thank you, everybody with us. Before the final remarks, our IR investor relations channel are still open all the time for you. Our team will be there with assertive and responsiveness that you need. I think we had a historical year. We can summarize 2024 as the better year of the company. And we've been saying this for a couple of years, four or five years. We've been saying this is the best year. I can assure 2025 will be the best year of the company because the council we have is on board. We see the possibilities coming. We started with the right foot.
When we look at the market, the market is buying, is resilient. The foundations are in place. We're very optimistic about these two following quarters. We know that Fras-le model is protected, regardless of the exchange rate, or left or right wing, restriction or no restriction. Our economy, I mean, has to reach people. People have to move around. Medications have to go from place to place. Everything that involves logistics, moving goods and people is linked to our business, to our business model. It's resilient of spare parts that are non-elective, makes us to be more protected, armored in a sense, in some product lines, in some industries where they're more susceptible. We continue to be strong. We continue capturing on the synergy of Dacomsa margins and market share with some product lines in Brazil. We continue being strong and available through our channels.
Thank you very much for sharing this hour with us. We hope you have a great day and a great quarter ahead. See you next time.