to the earnings call in English. The original audio option exists, and you can select that. We'd like to let you know that this earnings call is being recorded and will be provided on the IR website of the company, where you can also find the full earnings release material. It's possible to download the presentation as well on the chat icon in English. During the presentation, all participants will have their mics off. Soon after, we'll begin our Q&A session. To submit a question, please select the Q&A icon at the bottom part of your screen and write your question to enter the queue. As your name is announced, a request to open your mic will appear on your screen. Soon after, you should activate your mic to be able to submit questions. We'd like to instruct you to please send your questions all at once.
We'd also like to say that information in this presentation and possible statements that could be made during the earnings call related to business perspectives, forecasts, and operational targets and financial targets at Grupo Mateus represent beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information that is currently available. Future statements are not a guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as they refer to future events and thus rely on circumstances that could or not occur. Investors must comprehend that overall business conditions and other operational factors could affect the future performance of the Grupo Mateus and lead to results that refer to. Today, we also have the presence of our executives: Mr. Ilson Mateus, the Founder and President or chair of the board; Jesuíno Martins, the CEO; Túlio Queiroz, the financial VP; and Sandro Oliveira, the VP of Operations and Logistics and.
[Foreign language]
Great day to all of you guys. We would like to thank God for allowing us to be here once again during this presentation for our results in 2024. I would also like to thank our team with our management, Jesuíno Martins, Túlio Queiroz, and our VP, Sandro Oliveira. I want to thank all of you for also stopping a bit now to listen to us. As we begin our presentation, I would like to share our expansion in 2024. We had 15 stores open, 11 cities, and five different states. In the fourth quarter, we opened up four stores. I would like to call your attention to this store here, Recife Boa Viagem, where we bring some new bets and opportunities.
We would also like to reinforce our commitment to these store openings, and as I've always mentioned, guaranteeing our cash position and our level of debt. On page 5, we would also like to highlight this service store, where we also have this store here in Boa Viagem, in the Q&A out there with more details. We also have our level of services, which is the pâtisserie, bakery, and fish service. We also bring in major innovation at the winery, the Boteco Gelado, which is what we call the 2.0. That is related to you already have a self-checkout opportunity for those who wish to come into the store and buy cold beverages. We also have in this store so that we can really reinforce the small entrepreneurs that stand out with local services.
As you can see, we also have the Tapiocaria da Mel , which is a local service. But we also have other services, our traditional Pastel com Caldo de Cana, these are traditional fried pastries in Brazil. And we try to, where we have the store located, we see that there's an AB public, and we have been making an effort to think about the store model and really find out how we can service the A and B public without at the same time service the consumer public. And we think it's going to scale up still. We've been really thinking about this, and we learned a lot with the last stores we had, and we've continued to innovate. So our chair, our CEO, Jesuíno Martins, is very detail-oriented, and he's been very careful with the preparation of these stores. So we're super happy with these results as well.
And then when we talk about Boa Viagem, besides this, we also brought in a gallery here, as you can see, with a lot of innovation. We can see 100% of these stores were already negotiated, and they bring in a pretty good customer flow and also dilute costs. And we focused a lot on this gallery with the services. So we have a great gym and drugstore, etc. But we also brought in a lot of ready food. That's the profile people really eat out a lot. And so we brought in many options for this. And this gallery has brought in a great flow, and that helps a lot with the store. And then moving on to slide 7, we also had major expansion in 2024. And we had less stores because we were really focused on this expectation.
Then we reached the final stretch, and we hope that in the next few days, where we really have major expectations for this merger, and on slide 8, we also bring in our current scenario with everything we've done in 2024, and we ended the year with this duly fulfilled feeling, where we reached 272 stores, 90 cash and carry stores. We have 44 stores in the super format, 34 Camiño stores , 104 Eletro stores , and 206 mini market stores, and I want to reinforce one point here, which is these stores have really been a strong growth vector for our distribution wholesale. And these 206 stores already generate the same amount of revenue as a cash and carry store, so this is giving us a lot of positive expectations, and in this business, the wholesale business, we have 4,000 commercial reps, and we have 18 distribution centers.
And with all of this, we can constantly restate our commitment to greater density and other brands. But we certainly want to be in all of these municipalities, as we had promised when we went public. We want to be in all of these municipalities in all of these different states in the Northeast, plus the state of Pará, really stating our commitment to greater density. Now moving on to slide number nine, we've already started the year pretty heated with two stores there, Jaboatão dos Guararapes , and São Mateus, where we really have this commitment to working on greater density. And this is an important route complementation. We're adding on to this. These are stores that help us reach our results with greater speed and balance as well between margin and sales volumes. We're constantly working to keep this balance.
Now on slide number 10, you can already see how we've been progressing with our construction work. We have 20 projects underway in progress at the moment. And as you can see, that we're more and more concerned with our tier. So we've just worked on this current moment, the countries in and the interest rates we have. We're being a lot more selective, thinking about the returns on capital. We have to be very precise with this so that we don't have an imbalance in our cash position. Now I'll pass the word on to our chair, Mr. Jesuíno Martins.
[Foreign language]
Thank you, Mr. Ilson. Good morning, everyone. Before continuing here, I just want to thank you all for being with us and watching our performance during the fourth quarter and the year of 2024 as well.
I just wanted to share my happiness considering the results we've been able to report in this quarter and this year. When we look back and we see how we started 2024, it was a year with a lot of uncertainty and many questions. Really seeing the results we have today makes us very happy. I want to.
[Foreign language]
In the bottom part, we can also share annual EBITDA, BRL 2.5 billion. We grew 26% and historical margin of 7.8%, which is 0.4 more than the year of 2023, so our EBITDA is something we're sharing and we're really happy to share, and finally, I want to share our net income results, which have reached BRL 380,000 of net income, despite all of the impacts we suffered in that year, so it's really something we're very happy about sharing because our net margin and results are so very resilient, and in the bottom part here, we also have been sharing our net income for 2024, BRL 1,385 million, and so we're growing consistently and resiliently, despite everything we've suffered, as I mentioned, and I was also saying in the beginning of my speech, we've seen this as something that's very important for us.
And so if we consider the same store sales, we would like to have something a little more significant, but the results overall make us very happy despite this difficult scenario we've experienced this year. And I want to thank Mr. Ilson, Túlio and Sandro, but also our team, because without everyone's contributions, the way we started the year, if it weren't for everyone's participation, we would have not been able to deliver these results. So it's a real significant day for us. And we've been going through, we have our full team gathered here in São Luís, and we're in the middle of a big convention here together. And so we have a lot to share and work on.
But finally, I want to pass the floor to Sandro, and he's going to share the achievements we've had from a financial perspective in the Northeast and also contributions with our new expansion and results. And I want to thank everyone once again for watching us today.
[Foreign Language]
Thank you, Jesuíno, thank you. Mr. Ilson and Túlio and everyone watching us here, it's a pleasure to be here to share the results of our expansion in the Northeast in 2024. And here just to shed some light here on the expansion in the Northeast and that region where we've been advancing so quickly along with our stores and our people. And so today, we already have 50 stores operating, and that's already 20% of our store network, and that represents 34% of our sales in our retail.
And so we've been working more and more to make this an expansion reach normality. And in some way, the numbers demonstrate this. We've been going through a ramp-up on the evolution with the results of the EBITDA margin had been achieving in the 10th month of operation. We went from 6.7%. And so when we compare with the previous year, we had an evolution of 1.2 percentage points, and that is due to this maturity. So Mr. Ilson and the team, based on this understanding from everyone's knowledge about the regionality and all of this has led to positive results. So we're really happy to share these numbers with you guys.
Yeah, just to give you some input here on this. In the fourth quarter, we had a margin expansion above 2% in this region, and that helps us contribute to the company's results, although we know there's still a long path ahead of us, just as every challenge in an expansion. More and more, these stores have been a natural path with our deliveries and results. As we talk about the results and consequences of this expansion, we've been expanding our share in regions we've been operating in.
So when we take a look at the Northeast and Pará, we can see that there's an expansion of about 2.8 percentage points, Jesuíno, which is due to our performance with the team operating in that region and, of course, the support of the entire company that was geared towards ensuring that the expansion is really more productive and relevant within our company. And we can see that these numbers really make us happy, as we know about the size of the responsibility we have as a team and as a company, with an understanding that we are on the right path and that we'll reach the point we expect to reach step by step, quarter over quarter, so that we can make people understand things better and really deliver what we've been predetermining. And so that's what I wanted to share with you guys.
Then after this important slide here with our results and expansion, and then now I'll pass the floor to Túlio, our VP, our financial VP. And Túlio, good morning.
[Foreign language]
Hey, good morning, Sandro. Thank you, Jesuíno and Sandro. Now we're going to talk about the financial numbers, and I think Jesuíno has given us a great panorama, but just to go deeper on some points here. On slide number 16, we have a general panorama of the performance with the macro performance sector for Mateus when we consider the working capital, and we also went public, right? So on this slide, you can see a lot going on with the company's commitments to working on this expansion and, above all, an expansion with value creation. So, as you all know, it's very common to have strong growth, acceleration, and then have a lot of pressure on profitability initially.
But here, when you look at our numbers here, with maybe the exception of the beginning of the process in year one and the consistency of the profitability was something very present during the expansion years. I want to remind you all that 2021 and 2022 were the initial years of our arrival in the states in the Northeast, and we really needed to develop all of the logistics. This was the beginning of a process that was very important. Despite all of this, you can notice that we had very significant growth in the top line and going on from BRL 14 billion to BRL 36 billion. The EBITDA has been following a very similar trajectory, and so 123%.
This is a CAGR that is very close to the gross revenue, 22.3%, and the net income also ramps up at a very intense pace to 74% in the period. And here in the net income, as Jesuíno mentioned, we have a huge challenge with important tax changes from 2023 to 2024. And so here, I think it's really important to see the company's commitment towards expansion. And this is a strong expansion, but above all, a lot of value creation and a lot of consistency. And I also want to highlight a number of details here. When I think about this up ahead, during 2021, 2022, and 2023, the growth was always greater. But as I mentioned, the EBITDA grew maybe a little less than the sales, but for the first time in this history, the EBITDA is growing more than sales.
I think it's worth mentioning the potential this represents of really bringing value to the company. We've been sharing this with you guys. This group of stores initially was going to complete 13 months or a full year, let's say, and that generates a bit of pressure in the same store sales, but major growth in the gross profit. Of course, we reached a natural maturity curve, and then now we already have a significant volume of stores. That's why the component of contribution to the EBITDA is really important from 2024 onwards. Moving on, on slide number 17, we have the numbers related to the gross profit. About the main points, the company made a decision about managing this where you have an important food inflation in the overall country, actually, but in the Northeast, this is more intense.
And we had an increase in taxes as well in the states in the region. So we understood that it was an important moment to focus on profitability. And so I think the gross margin numbers demonstrate this. So this is especially that's where the company was able to ramp up. And really, we understand that respecting the seasonality quarter over quarter, this is an important level that's here to stay, right? And we're very confident about all of this and the strategy and how the commercial area got into this daily to be able to reach these levels in the year. The gross profit reaches BRL 7.2 billion, and the gross margin goes from 22.4% to 22.6%. And so, as I mentioned, this is, of course, a lot more intense from the second semester onwards.
When you remember, here you had an increase of PIS/COFINS on subventions. I think this is a relevant point. No doubt, this is going to bring in an additional focus on expanding this gross margin. Moving on to slide number 18, we have the operational expense numbers here, and I think this was a year of a lot of discipline on this point. We understand that we're in this important expansion process. We know we have to be very careful with this, especially to not hinder our expansion. We've been very careful.
Our first year was a lot more focused on administrative expenses, but we did share a greater discipline on the budgeting work and monitoring the targets so that we could really control the expenses related to all of the expansion block to be able to generate the increase in the EBITDA, so we experienced a moment in the first quarter of huge pressure, and from then on, we were able to keep an important dilution process going on, so we ended the quarter with 14.6% of the net revenue, and then we went from 15.1% to 14.9%, so I think here we have, it's one of the elements that is really important when we consider the ins and outs of our management daily.
So we know there's a group of stores that are in a maturity process, and here we need to really keep the discipline so that this contribution in the EBITDA can continue to happen. And I would also highlight the freight and logistics expenses, which in the second and fourth quarter were pretty much the same. And we were able to dilute this, and this is because of our work and maturity, as well as the greater volume of stores that the company has been operating with. And so moving on to slide 19, we have the numbers related to the EBITDA. And I think Jesuíno brought in this important highlight with the expansion of the EBITDA margin. We ended the quarter with 8.4% of the EBITDA margin.
And if we look at this throughout the year, we go from a first quarter of 6.9, then we have the 7.4, then we get into the agenda with the gross margin that leads on to 8.2 and then 8.4. And so the focus on profitability, that's really significant. And of course, anchored upon some important factors like the gross margin, the ramp-up of different processes as well. And of course, the issue related to the maturity of the stores and dilution of the operational expenses. So these are the three main vectors for the EBITDA margin. And in the year, the scenario was pretty much the same. So we end the year with BRL 2.5 billion in EBITDA. The growth is 26% in the quarter. This was even greater.
But I think here it's important to highlight this from an annualized perspective with an expansion of 0.4 in a macro scenario that is super challenging. Moving on to number 20, we have the numbers in the net income with BRL 382 million in the first quarter, a growth of 17% year over year. And here it's important to mention that we just exclude the non-recurring effects. But essentially, it was the numbers related to 2023, where we had a PIS/COFINS credit upon the accelerated depreciation. And here, another very important point is observing this net income trajectory despite a huge challenge from the tax perspective.
At the end of 2023, the beginning of 2024, we had a lot of people questioning us if it would be possible to keep the same levels of results in 2023 and 2024, because we also knew that everyone was aware of the size of the tax changes. I think this was significant pressure. Jesuíno talked about our convention today. I remember that last year, Mr. Ilson and Jesuíno really pushed the team in this direction, right, so that the operational team could really overcome this tax challenge. When we look at the numbers, we can really— Eu acho que aqui, sem dúvida nenhuma, foi uma— This was another important element, right, during 2024. Moving on to slide number 21, we have the numbers related to the cash flow and the working capital.
Here, I think it's worth highlighting that we've been able to bring to the fourth quarter the working capital topics, considering a market trend improvement. Once again, we went from 74 days to 82. In the fourth quarter, despite the challenge with the sales in December, as Jesuíno reminded us, we were able to bring in the stock and improve this. We improved the cash cycle by five days, and we essentially got back to this trajectory of improvements. We know the company has opportunities. We know that throughout 2025, this topic will continue to be worked on, and it's in the goals for our executive teams. An important point to share is that now, in 2025, we're going to have the payment of the variable compensation regarding 2024, and that's where the executives are going to start feeling the actual impacts of this.
Those who had excellent results in the stock are going to make a bit more, and those that haven't done well will be impacted by this as well. I think the main message here is that we got back on track with the improvements and the ideas that we'll continue to work intensely on this topic. Moving on to slide number 22, I wanted to highlight the cash generation. During this period, I think it's a topic that's very important, and that includes profitability and growth in the business. This is an important factor we've been working on a lot, and we really value this, and here you have a third point, and so as we consider our own cash generation, this is a topic that Mr. Jesuíno really highlights a lot.
We were able to, once again, achieve this with the fourth quarter, generating major cash. This is mainly due to the generation of the business itself, but also considering the sequential improvement in the working capital. I think these two factors really generated a lot of stability and cash generation in the fourth quarter. The next slide, we'll see some more stability in the level of leverage. We closed the year with 0.29 times the EBITDA and a little better than the closing in 2023. This is all, of course, considering major expansion. It's been a challenging year from a tax perspective, but we've been combining these elements of the profitability we're searching for together, as well as the commitment to keep up with the level of leverage, 100%, as the numbers demonstrate.
On the next slide, we also considered the CapEx issues. We also think it's really important to confirm the construction project underway. During 2024, we held on to the expansion agenda a bit because we had to start considering this and that. Well, I mean, we migrated a bit. Here we have a bit of a disclosure of this BRL 178 million within the block of new stores, which were at that moment projects that were still underway, and also the block of land and properties that's already considering the future stores. Just to give you an overview and demonstrate that the expansion pace is really in alignment with the level of leverage that the company had been proposing. These are our initial comments, and from then on, we'll all be available with the questions. Thank you very much.
Now, we're going to begin the Q&A session. We would like to remind you that to submit questions, you should select the Q&A icon at the bottom part of the screen and write your question to enter the queue. As you're announced, a request to activate your mic will appear on the screen, and then you should activate your mic to submit your questions. We'd ask you to please submit all of your questions at once. Let's move on to our first question from Rodrigo Gachin at Itaú BBA. Rodrigo, we'll enable your audio so that you may submit your question. Rodrigo, you may proceed, please. Bom dia, pessoal.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, everyone. Two questions on my side. The first one is about the impact within the same-store sales of the stores that were open in the fourth quarter of 2023.
I think there are some quarters you guys have been talking about this impact on the sales and the ramp-up of the gross margins and also a worsening in the sales. And if you could share this a bit with how this impact was, considering the high pace of openings and also how the same-store sales were for the mature stores, that would be a point we'd like to understand. And then a lot of people asked about suppliers as well and if the working capital is pretty stable year over year with good improvements in the receivables. But the suppliers, year over year, may worsen a bit. And our big question is, what are the impacts with suppliers, if there are any changes in the gross margins and understanding a bit of this dynamic? Thank you very much.
[Foreign language]
Well, Gachin, first of all, thank you for the questions. I think you brought in a very important topic, which is the design of our maturity curve, and we've experienced the fourth quarter of 2023 with a huge amount of openings, and this made the stores fulfill 13 months of life in the fourth quarter, so basically, at this moment where it comes into the same-store sales base, what's happening at the store at that moment is an agenda to recover profitability. We normally open up the stores with a very aggressive approach to capture sales and gross margin, so it starts off selling quite a bit, and then throughout the year, when we already move on to our second year, we are getting into this agenda to recover profitability, and so what's happening normally in the store during this period is that the sales drop a bit year over year, but there's strong expansion in the gross profit.
So, our year two for the store to fulfill a full year of existence and heading to its second year of existence, there's a drop in the year-over-year comparison because we have the store opening process and that initial ramp where we're really aggressive in the margins. The sales are very strong. But then we start this agenda with the expansion of the profitability. So the peak in the gross profit is very big. And so if you exclude this effect with the fourth quarter, I think our same-store sales will maybe head to a level that's closer to the inflation, the average inflation rate. So I think that's an important point.
And then about suppliers, I think here there's another point that's important to reflect on, which is if we take a look at the number of suppliers in the cash cycle from a sequential perspective, we were already operating at this level of 45 days ever since the first quarter of 2024. The first quarter was 44, then 45, and then now 45 again. And so the number that was really different or stood out was the fourth quarter of 2023. So we understand that 45 is a level we should continue to work on. Of course, as I mentioned during our presentation, we continue to be focused on working capital topics. And so there are some tactical initiatives that we've been working on with the commercial as well. Agora, não tem nenhum tipo de correlação.
There's no type of correlation between the number of suppliers and the cash cycle and the margin perspective or performance. So if we look at the third quarter, we had already taken on an important leap in our gross margin, as we had mentioned, and the level of suppliers was also about 45 days. So we kept the 45 days and we took on another step in regards to our gross margin.
[Foreign language]
But let's move on to the next question from Ruben Couto at Santander. Ruben, we'll enable the audio so that you can perform your question. Ruben, please, you may proceed.
Bom dia, pessoal. Tudo bem?
Good morning, guys. How's it going? Just a follow-up here on the same-store sales.
Could you share how this year started off and if you had some reversal and the impacts that you mentioned now, Túlio, if it's just more of a market situation? Was it something that's occasional? And the second question for you, Túlio, is when you had the beginning of 2024, the market questioned this rate between 10 and 20. And we would also like to understand what we could expect in 2025. Passam a talvez não ser tão relevantes quanto foram. And so maybe that's not as relevant. But if there's any range of the level that we should expect from 2025 onwards. Well, Ruben, the first point is that January started off better than December, but still at a level that is below what we expect. But no doubt, it's better than December. And I want to call your attention to another point, Ruben.
We noticed that there's an important trend in some categories that are super important for retail, such as beverages, hygiene and beauty, and cleaning, with higher inflation in the Northeast than in the rest of the country. So if you look at a basket of beverages, there's like three points more than in the Northeast than in the rest of the country. So there's this movement going on. We've been very dedicated to this topic, Ruben, to be able to understand in greater depth what could be done. And so we could also reverse this scenario and try to maybe ease it up a bit. But the results in January are still a little lower than what we imagined, but better than December. And that's a bit of the scenario I hope to have answered. And then we had another question also.
Just to add on a bit, Jesuíno, I think this vision on the profitability continues in the same-store sales, as you mentioned. But we have this agenda still going on, focused on profitability and working on the ins and outs in our day-to-day activities. So searching for opportunities to keep the profitability levels. And then when you consider the effective rate, Ruben, which is your second question, I think that is a point that maybe we dedicated our time to quite a bit in the end of 2023. And of course, you had a potential impact for the company that was really significant. But in 2024, I think the entire team really dedicated their time to the tax committees, working on these different levers, as we've been sharing with you all. Of course, we continue to search for opportunities. But I agree.
There were some elements that when you kind of turn the key, the impact is more intense initially. And so I would start off with an effective rate of income tax of about 18%-19% or so to be a more consistent topic from now on. We experienced some quarters this year with an effective rate that was maybe 1%, very low because of some turnarounds in some topics that we see greater intensity with. But anyways, I think we've created some pillars that are very important. And of course, we're focused on continuing to work on some other pillars because we know that the issue with the accumulated losses are definitely a point that we have a date for it to finish, right? So we need to develop this pillar to substitute this.
That's what we're working on, really, on focusing and continuing to keep up with the discipline in the tax committees. We have a weekly routine working on this topic. I want to remind you that there's a tax reform work also to take place. We actually created a program in the company focusing on this topic that we understand is going to be something perennial because the size of this change is very relevant. You need to have a team dedicated to this looking at this closely. I think that's pretty much it.
[Foreign language]
Very clear, guys. Thanks. Our next question is from João Soares at Citi. João, we'll enable your audio so that you may perform your question. João, you may proceed, please.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, guys. Question here that I think I want to restructure. If you were to extend the payment terms for suppliers today, do you think that would affect this agenda you mentioned here with the improvement in profitability and gross profits? The second point, and so when we consider the same-store sales, that's going to be closer to the inflation. I imagine you're talking about the headline, not the food inflation, right? I just wanted to understand this better. We had this conversation with other competitors as well on the work with the inflation and the cash and carry and how there's still this lag in the food inflation. I wanted to explore if there's an opportunity to catch up a bit more and closer to what's going on with the food sector and how we should imagine this. Thank you. Do you want to start off, Túlio?
I think the first point in regards to the payment conditions for suppliers, João, first of all, thank you for the questions. I think here, just to make things clear, we've been working on this topic. I remember that in 2022, we continued some initial work that had been initiated. We saw some improvements in the cash conversion cycle. The first concern was due to this, if this would maybe have effects in the margin or since the working capital was changing. At the time, we had about 115 days in the cash conversion cycle. Now we're operating with 77 days with a gross margin at levels that are pretty positive, right, for profitability. We understand that 45 days would be a topic we're going to continue to work on, right? Ever since the beginning, we've been talking about this, right?
We're not going to do the working capital work by giving up on pricing or profitability. We're going to test the limits of where we can fit this in and how we can work on this. And we know that in some segments, we have opportunities. And we have suppliers. That's one of the points. We have opportunities even to have some tactical initiatives in this front. And we're already working on this for the first quarter and then also for negotiation. And so suppliers, when they negotiate, there's maybe a direct negotiation process. And for example, for the stock aspects, we understand that there's in-house opportunities if you think about processes and if you think about our variable compensations, as you see this example of connecting this topic more and more and encourage teams, etc.
So when we think about the relationship with the DC and the stores, and so this is a path that we consider to be very important. And we must continue to work on this. We understand that there are opportunities. But we have never, in the work we've already done and the work we intend to do, we're not working on an assumption of searching for payment terms or an exchange for pricing, right, when we negotiate. So when we get into your second question here, and Jesuíno, feel free to hop in if you'd like to, as well as any of you. When it comes to food inflation, when I referred to this, I was talking about an average general inflation, not specifically for food. But here, it's worth mentioning what's the best strategy to search for at this moment, right?
So we need to understand the context that Jesuíno mentioned initially and really considering an important food inflation context within this intensity. And we're experiencing an increase of taxes in basically all of the states we operate in, and even Maranhão, where the intensity was very significant. So I think customers need to really consider this, right? And we know that profit doesn't necessarily follow the same pace at the same moment. So you must understand the strategy you're going to have for this context. And we understood that we should mention a profitability strategy. And so in this scenario, we also need to consider the objectives when we consider the net income and the dilution of expenses in regards to the gross profit and when we see the entire strategy for this cash generation. But you need to make a choice, right?
So within this, are you going to focus on generating more volume or also considering a profitability agenda considering this? And then you need to balance it out and understand how you're going to change these intensities, right? So what we're thinking is really this. And that's a bit of the context. And so we also discussed the need to choose our battles. And we need to consider the last line of our results, right, and what we expect. And so we also have this multi-channel approach. We need to balance these different aspects and understand that some moments you could sell more on wholesale or cash and carry or maybe through retail. And so working on density of these new routes, and that could help us a lot more in the margins. And that is one of the advantages, right, in this multi-channel approach.
[Foreign language]
Very clear. Thanks, guys. Our next question is from Danniela Eiger from XP. Danniela, we'll enable your audio so that you can submit your question. Please, Danniela, you may proceed.
[Foreign language]
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the results. I have two here on my side. We heard from you guys, and it's really important for us to get the competitive perspective, right, from the regionals. Even they all mentioned the Northeast as a region that's more competitive. Since you guys are involved in this region, you have more visibility. We wanted you guys to bring in some color on how you've been seeing this, right? You mentioned you're adopting this strategy for profitability and just so we can understand this and if there's some movement towards in a more mandatory manner, right?
So it would be great if you guys could maybe mention this competitive dynamic and also from another side when we get into efficiency, especially when it comes to operational expenses, how much you guys still view in this regards. This is an important and also when it comes to the stock. And so if you could give us some more color on payment terms and if you think we're already going to be normalized in the next three years, just so we can try to understand a bit of the opportunity here. So, well, Danniela, good morning. About the competitive scenario, what I can share with you is, first of all, we noticed that there's inflation. It's a little more acute. This is something that we're still studying, but we want to really be able to share this with you guys during the teleconferences as well.
But this is an important point, right? And this more acute inflation with the ICMS transfers, as we mentioned, we really noticed that consumers' income have been having a bit of a challenge. And so our growth is mainly price-oriented, right, in this quarter. And now in the competitive scenario itself, Danniela, it didn't really change significantly in this quarter. So this scenario is a lot more related to the market scenario, inflation and taxes, as I shared with you. So we don't feel any impact from the perspective of payment conditions and installment options, etc. But the market has worked on that. But we decided to not get into this, and we don't want to lever this in any way. So we follow with a spirit of optimism in this quarter. The first quarter, of course, has some specific points because we have seasonality aspects.
Easter is going to change. February has a day less, so it's a moment where we have to fine-tune and adjust. That's, of course, something that we're always keeping our eyes open. We're very disciplined in how we take care of this so that we can work towards these different initiatives and improve as much as we can, but it's important to also say that despite this entire scenario we're going through, our focus has been to deliver the best results possible, especially for EBITDA margins, as we delivered this year in the fourth quarter, as Mr. Ilson and Túlio already mentioned, keeping up a balance with everything, and so this multi-channel approach contributes to this entire scenario because external sales keep up. We have 45,000 sales points just for B2B, and this channel grows a lot, so you probably saw this in our release.
And we've been trying to, in every way we can, soften up these impacts. But overall, this is a bit of what we're seeing, not only in regards to the competitive scenario, but because of the inflation and ICMS transfers, considering consumer purchase powers, etc. And so we're going to share with you guys the next discussions to share more clarity on this. And when it comes to the stock, we're going to, we can also talk about this from a stock perspective. Yes, we do see perspective on this. And this is something Túlio has brought as well. We've been very disciplined with this. And so we have the bonuses of our teams connected to this indicator. But we want to work on this more and more. It's maybe difficult to give you a vision of what this is going to be in the next two years.
But we are aware what's important to mention is the expense issue, right? So thanks for the questions. And on the expenses here, this is a topic we've been working on with a lot of caution, right, to be able to not face any risks with getting things wrong or hindering the company. So I think the first perspective is always about handling the expenses that don't have direct contact with the end consumer. So that was the main agenda in 2024. And that's something we worked on with administrative expenses. We also worked on the sales expenses, really considering direct contact with the service levels as well. But I think that this first phase was a lot more related to discipline than to actual searches for or intense searches for greater productivity.
And as we knew there was this movement towards the maturity of this group of the regionals, we really needed to have this agenda with the necessary disciplines that the dilution could happen among this group that's reaching maturity. So I think most of the strategy was administrative, but also intense discipline in the markets that are under maturity. Another point Ilson mentioned in his initial presentation definitely helps this process in the macro is the development and growth of wholesale and also with the vector of the convenience stores. So when you consider the convenience stores, where is there growth and billing sources of revenue? Well, that's definitely from the wholesale. And when it grows, it really helps dilute expenses as a whole. And that's an important vector as well. Ilson and Mr. Jesuíno also talked about this.
So the growth of wholesale is an ally in this process overall. And so that's another agenda we're keeping our eyes open and we really believe in from now on.
[Foreign language]
Very clear. Thank you, guys, for the answers and congrats on your results once again. Thank you. Our next question comes from Nicolas Larrain from JP Morgan. Nicolas, we'll enable your audio so that you may perform your questions. Nicolas, you may proceed, please.
[Foreign language]
Goord morning, guys. Thanks for taking our question. I have two. Actually, the first one is still in the inflation topic. We understand food inflation is not 100% adherent to the cash and carry market. So if you could give us some color on what your internal inflation is like versus the general inflation and food inflation and specifically for cash and carry. And the second question is about working capital.
Could you talk about how the situation is with the stock? Maybe that was a bit different or out of the curve. So I wanted to know if the receivables had the same impact, right? We had a drop in the receivables. I wanted to understand the dynamic for this or if it really was just because the base was better. Well, I think I'll answer the first question and then my team will help with the other one. But that's a great question. If you take a look at the month of October, for example, Nicolas, our internal inflation was very similar to the market's inflation. The month of November was maybe a little lower than the market inflation, and December was higher than market inflation. So there's a mix, but generally, it's a bit of this, right?
If you look at the month of December, if you consider it's 1 percentage point above the market inflation. So very similar. There's no big delta that calls our attention. So they're walking hand in hand, and I hope I answered that question. Then Nicolas, about the working capital, we were able to improve this a little bit compared to the third quarter. And I had mentioned that if the sales in December had been at a level that was normalized in the quarter, then this level would have improved a bit better. We also consider this to have a level of performance. And since December was a little below, as we discussed here, that kind of feeds the receivables account a little less, right? So however, there's two other elements that are similar.
One element that's important is the provision we had created of about BRL 30 million compared to the receivables of funds and also from suppliers. So that also reduced our receivables. I'd say these are the two effects that went from 37 days in the third quarter to 34 days in the fourth quarter. That's the effect of December and this provision as well of approximately BRL 30 million that we created. If you look up ahead, as Jesuíno mentioned in the block of previous questions, since we don't have in our plan any kind of idea with differential payments, I think the accounts receivable here shouldn't generate any surprises. If you look at the quarters over the year, we can see that in the first quarter of 2024, we had 35 days. In the second quarter of 2024, we had 35.
Then in the third quarter, it went up a bit to 37. Now we go back to the level of 34, which is pretty much the same as is as the first and second quarter. So here, it's not something we should be so surprised about. The two main blocks we continue to work on when we consider the working capital, it's the stock flows. Also when it comes to suppliers, where you have a level of limitation due to the negotiations. But there are some tactical opportunities as well to implement, which is what we're considering in the first quarter as well. Perfect. Very clear, guys. Thank you. Our Q&A session is officially ended. Now we would like to pass the floor back to the company for their final remarks. Well. All on behalf of our company here.
I want to thank God for allowing us to be here and wrapping up another earnings call. And I also want to personally thank Jesuíno, our chair, our CEO, and Túlio, our VP, and Sandro, our VP, and all of our directors and managers, the over 60,000 employees that worked so much day and night to be able to achieve these results. They're definitely important warriors that are really focused on our success. And that's our main focus, right? What we are searching for is the final results. And we had a lot of restructuring done, and we're actually working on the restructuring in variable compensation as well of our operational base.
Our focus is to really be able to search for these objectives daily and reinforce what Jesuíno mentioned with how tomorrow we're going to have a meeting with all of our team, all of our directors and managers. We're going to be really happy to organize this big celebration here. We are going to have each of the directors here tomorrow. We also want to deliver major results. We're really happy and want to thank everyone, our investors, etc., for continuing to trust us. Thank you, guys. The earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2024 at Grupo Mateus is officially ended, and the investor relations department is available to answer any other questions. Thank you so much and have a great day.