Intelbras S.A. - Indústria de Telecomunicação Eletrônica Brasileira (BVMF:INTB3)
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Sep 18, 2026, 5:04 PM GMT-3
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Earnings Call: Q1 2024

Apr 30, 2024

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Head of Investor Relations from the company, and it's a pleasure to be here with you today. With me is Alt air Silvestri, our CEO. Our CFO is also here, also Mr. Paulo, Henrique, and Marcio, our Business Superintendent. We're here to talk to you about our results for this quarter. We'd like to inform you that this video conference is being recorded, and it will be made available in the company's Investor Relations website, where this presentation is already available. So at this point, we'll begin the presentation, and at the end, we'll make the recording available to all of you. You may choose the language by clicking the icon interpretation below. For the Q&A session at the end, we would like to ask you to please submit your questions using the Q&A icon on the bottom of your screen.

Please write your name, your company, and the language in which you will be asking your question, and we will answer them in order. Once you're called upon, there will be a request to open up your microphone on the screen, and then you can do so and ask your question. The information in this presentation and any statements that may be made during the conference call about the business perspectives, projections, as well as operating and financial targets for Intelbras, are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the company's management and on currently available information. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not come to pass.

Investors should be aware that general economic and market conditions, as well as other operating factors, may affect the future performance of Intelbras and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. That said, I'll now give the floor to the speakers for our earnings calls.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

As usual, we'll start with the key highlights for the first quarter. Revenue has stabilized after three consecutive quarters showing a decline versus the previous year. That's a +0.2% increase. We've also had good results in terms of EBITDA, 16.1% growth up to BRL 167 million, and net profits are also increasing at the same rate, about 16.6% at about BRL 153 million. Our ROIC, our return on investment, is adequate, about 1.8 percentage points below the previous quarter, but in line with what we saw earlier. This is our historical numbers.

Our operation continues to grow at around 20%, despite the decline in revenue the previous year. As you can see, the revenue has been stabilized during the first quarter of this year. I would also like to talk a little bit more about our net revenue quarter-on-quarter. As I often say to our investors, sequentially speaking, the first quarter comes after the fourth quarter of the previous year, and that's usually a lower revenue level. But as the year progresses, revenue tends to go up, as you can see in the green arrow in 2022. Last year, however, we had a sequential drop in revenue, and this significantly differs from our track record and from our forecasts. For 2024, we're expecting revenue numbers to fluctuate according to our regular annual numbers or trends.

As we can see here, after the second quarter of 2022 and before the fourth quarter of 2022, we saw an inflow of revenue because of our acquisitions. We saw a spike in growth during the three or four quarters you see in front of you. This is also a result of the evolution of our solar business. This has led to a drop in revenue. If I were to plot a trend line across these numbers we see on screen, we will see that the numbers are pretty much as we expected, and we are resuming our growth trends now. The tough times are now behind us from a revenue perspective. Going forward, we expect our revenue to go back up, and we expect to see better results quarter-on-quarter, as we have mentioned.

In the first quarter, we have seen significant increase, 16% EBITDA growth, and this has been composed of an important improvement in gross profit. We have seen an increase in our margins, as well as a tight control over expenditures. This has led to an increase in margin from 14% to 16% between the first quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024. Our expenditures are growing at a rate lower than inflation. A quick comment. Let us talk about consolidated gross profit. Here, we must look at the way the operation is structured. The sum of the parts does not really reflect the strength of everything. This is the message, especially when we look at consolidated gross profit numbers. We have three business areas, and each of them is in a different stage. All three businesses together will make our business robust, our company robust.

This robustness is what sets us apart from the rest. Our margin is picking back up, especially after the fourth quarter, even despite any adjustments where we put aside the 30% gross margin we had before. Now we are seeing Energia contributing to this result. Sequentially, these margins have been improving over the last year. So this mix effect means that our margin is stronger.

This is how we see our business. We are always looking at ways to consolidate our business, both in terms of gross profit and EBITDA margins. Let us talk about each and every segment, give you a bit more information about the revenue. Security contributes with about 54% of our revenue. Now we know that our growth avenues are playing their roles. They are doing what they must. They are helping us move forward in the markets where we operate. We are increasing our space in those markets.

We mentioned this in the last quarter of last year, when we looked at the closing numbers. The drought in Manaus had a few effects, but we had to go through our safety stocks. We were only able to resume our levels of raw materials early this year. This means that our stores have to re-manage their inventory. They have to re-compose their portfolios, and this ultimately hindered our security numbers last quarter. When we look at sell-out, however, we will see that everything is going according to plan and things are turning. So it has been a good first quarter for security. In terms of communication, I would like to call your attention to the fact that we are now calling this ICT, Information and Communication Technologies. This is the new name for this category.

The whole portfolio has been well-structured, it's quite visible, and we've actually started selling it under a broader, more holistic perspective. Let's talk about seasonality. Let's compare the fourth quarter to the first quarter. There's been a slight drop in revenue, and this is seasonal, especially because the Ku-band has experienced a seasonal drop, and this is important to our business as a whole. New portfolios have been introduced and are being worked on within our plan. Perception from our customers has been very positive. We're expediting the material, we're bringing the product because we want to make the most of this very positive window. Even though our revenue did not increase as we expected, even though it's still according to plan, we know that the ICT category has already started to respond.

We've been seeing a significant improvement in operational results for the first quarter, and this is what we expect to see happen over the coming quarters as well. Let's talk about Energia. That accounts for 25% of our revenue. As we always say, our Energia portfolio goes beyond just solar. It's been growing higher, in fact, than the company's average numbers, and this was the case in this quarter as well. For solar power, there's been an increase in demand. There's a lot of credit available. Price levels are quite attractive at the moment. People are buying generators. So the situation is overall very positive in the first quarter across all of our Energia businesses. The main point for this segment is the fact that we want to once again deliver operational results, and that's what we've been doing in the first quarter of this year.

The results have been resumed and we want this to continue over the course of this year. Cash management is also important. Our cash flow is quite robust. We're about BRL 212 million this quarter in terms of cash flow. We have investments and other activities going on according to plan. It's really important that we keep an eye on the robustness of our cash flow so that we may continue our investment. Let's look at our CapEx. Our CapEx is also within our expected parameters, both in terms of maintenance and expansion. This is a snapshot of our distribution center. We've been discussing it over the last few quarters. It's there, and it's been nearly finalized, and it's going to go into operations probably in July. It's now in its final stages of construction.

For the rest of the year, for the second half of the year, we expect our historical CapEx levels to go down, especially compared to 2022 and 2023. For the first and second quarters, we'll continue to see an increase in CapEx, but after that number is expected to drop. Let's conclude our presentation and move on to our Q&A session in just a few seconds. Before we do that, let's talk about our forecasts. We expect to continue to execute our plans. We mentioned this several times in our earnings calls. We believe that this year is the year when our three areas will continue to grow. They will recover. It's going to be an expressive recovery in terms of results. Results are actually expected to grow in excess of our revenue.

This is what we saw in the first quarter, and we expect this to continue over the course of this year. Our ICT revenue lines are expected to start in the second quarter. We expect that to gain strength in the second half of this year. What is most important here is that we keep an eye on all of our businesses. We need to continue to grow over the next years, and in order to do so, we have had multiple discussions.

We have conducted a review of our growth plans with assistance from a large consultancy company from another country. This means that there is ample room for growth within the company's core business. Growing our core business is a great opportunity, and we are challenging ourselves to avail ourselves of this opportunity as much as we can. We want this growth to be accompanied by as little risk as possible. This takes into account, of course, our execution capacity that will be put to the test, but we have significantly positive growth plans in our core business, and we expect our core business to continue to grow as the years go by. This is the end of the presentation.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

I will go to the questions and answers section right now. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, and we will answer them. I will call upon you to ask your questions as you submit them on a first-come, first-served basis. The first person is Bernardo. Let us open up his mic. Bernardo, feel free to ask your question. Good morning.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Bruno. Good morning to the Intelbras team. Thank you for the opportunity. My question is twofold. First, about the revenue levels for security. We saw that this was affected by the problems in Manaus. Now, I understand that distributors have to replenish their inventory. They have to recover from the sell-out. I wonder how that has been going on in April. Have you managed to accelerate and fill that particular gap? I want to understand how you expect to bring things back to normal in the second quarter.

My second question has to do with the consolidated margin. It seems that you have several clear levers that you can pull to adjust costs and expenditures whenever growth is subpar. It is also clear that you are very excited with the sequential growth rates that you have been experiencing and what you expect to achieve over the rest of the year. My question to you is this margin sustainable, or should you maybe devote some of that margin towards expediting sales? I would like to hear your thoughts on that matter.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. I will give the floor to Paulo. He will answer your first question, Bernardo, and then I will give the floor to Mr. Altair so he can answer the second part of your question. Is that okay? Paulo, over to you.

Paulo Daniel Correa
Security Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Hello. Good morning, Bernardo. Thank you for the question. Yes, there has been an impact. The drought in Manaus really affected our inventory recomposition. We used a lot more of our safety inventory in the final quarter of last year, and this had an impact on our first quarter of this year. Of course, we have a lot of raw material, and the factory is in the process of replenishing its inventory. Of course, this may have led to the loss of a sale or two because of lack of product.

Now in the second quarter, we expect things to normalize in terms of supply, both in terms of our security or safety inventory, as well as our channels, so that we can once again achieve the levels of sales we had prior to the impact we had late last year, so that we can go back to business as usual. Without really changing anything about our forecasts for the rest of the year. We expect the rest of the year to progress as it should.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. Next up is Mr. Altair. You seem to be muted. So Altair, please click on the mic icon on the bottom of your screen to unmute yourself. There we go.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

Apologies. Thank you, Bernardo, for the question. Let me add to Paulo's response. Now we're quite at ease when it comes to our revenue, because all of this had been included in our plan. We had expected such difficulties with our inventory, with our regulators. Our ramp-up has been normal. New products, new partners are being established gradually as we continue to manage our factory. Everything is normal. As for EBITDA levels, of course, yes, we also expect good results this year, as we mentioned in previous calls.

We expect those results to be even better than the results for our revenue, which is going back to previous levels. There can be some variation due to the composition of the mix or any increase in competitiveness in the market, but it is not in our plan to reduce our margin significantly. No. It should be at the very least in accordance with historical levels, which means an EBITDA level in excess of 14%. So above what we saw in the past. There can be small variations, of course, but we're not expecting to differ too much from that EBITDA margin I mentioned.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Paulo. Thank you, Altair.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Thank you, Bernardo. Next question is from Andre. Andre is next. I don't know if he left the meeting, maybe. Anyway, so next up is Marcelo Santos. He's a sell-side analyst from JP Morgan. You may take the mic.

Marcelo Santos
Sell-Side Analyst, JPMorgan

Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I wanted to focus a bit more on the margin. Let's begin by focusing on the Energia business. If we look at the margin in the ITR, it seems that that's been a very strong number, especially quarter-on-quarter, but also year-on-year. So I'd like to ask you about the sustainability of that margin. Is it sustainable? That's question one.

Question two. Now let's focus on the safety margin. From previous earnings calls, I understood that we need to put a bit more pressure on that margin, that the margin would be a bit lower than expected, but it turned out to be quite good. So from a security perspective, what has caused this good performance, and what could change going forward? What are your forecasts for the future?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Let's begin with Marcio and then Paulo.

Marcio Ferreira da Silva
Energy Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Okay. Hello, good morning. My answer may actually answer similar questions along the same lines. As we've said for many, many months now, the Energia business is not just solar power, it's a very complex mix, as we mentioned in Investor Day late last year. The mix composition is, as we have said earlier, solar growth is experiencing lower growth with a greater focus on profit, whereas the other items that are part of our Energia business are becoming more and more representative as well. This particular channel has been growing at rates above the company's average rates.

Now, step-by-step, quarter on quarter, we are maintaining these levels. We are sustaining them so that over time we will not be overly dependent on solar. We know that solar power may be negatively affected by changes in regulations, so we want to achieve sustainability. As for margin sustainability, well, with the exception of last year, because that was an outlier because of different reasons, right? Especially between 2023. We are looking for levels that match historical levels and may even lead to growth. There could be a bit of a fluctuation, but we are always striving for our historical average. We believe that the mix is strong enough to achieve that. As we have been saying, Energia business is not restricted to solar, and it continues to be strong as ever.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Thank you, Paulo?

Paulo Daniel Correa
Security Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Hello, Marcelo. Let us talk about our safety margin. As you can see, it is in line with the margin we showed you in the previous quarter. There has been no significant change. This small change is largely because of the mix. In some semesters, we see greater performance in certain projects or products. There is a bit of a variation, but if we look at the situation quarter on quarter, we see that the numbers remain largely the same. There has been no major change. This is a mix, as I said. We have been achieving greater productivity, greater operational results, and this has been contributing positively to our sustainability. We can maintain that sustainability without, however, impacting our margin in any way.

Marcelo Santos
Sell-Side Analyst, JPMorgan

Okay. Thank you so much for your answer.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Thank you, Marcelo. Andre is also in the call. Andre, you are next from UBS.

Speaker 7

Hello, can you hear me?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Yes, we can.

Speaker 7

Great. Wonderful. Thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. I have two questions about communication. Is there a lot of demand for Ku-band converters? Even though this is a positive impact on revenue, the impact on consolidated margin is not as good. How do you perceive that demand over the next few quarters? As for communication, maybe you could provide a bit more detail about the revenue mix. Maybe talk about the traditional items on the portfolio and new partnerships, especially with fiber to the home, whether the demand has been bigger or smaller than what you expected.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Let me give the floor now to Henrique. Henrique, it seems you are muted. Go ahead. Sorry, Henrique, you are still muted. We cannot hear you. It seems you are muted.

Henrique Fernandez
ICT Business Unit Superintendent Director, Intelbras

How about now? Can you hear me?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Yes, we can. We can hear you well.

Henrique Fernandez
ICT Business Unit Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Thank you, Andre, for your wonderful question. Let us talk about the Ku-band. Now we are still working closely with IAF, and by the end of the year, we will see a few opportunities pop up, such as an auction. That is going to encompass all the converters, about 5- 6 million converters purchased so far. So far, 4 million have been purchased. We are still taking part in some of these bids, and we are expecting to avail ourselves of about 20%-30% of all the opportunities that show up in the market. That is our forecast. Hopefully by the end of the year, we will have gone through all of the converters available, which are about 1 million.

Let us talk about what we expect from our partnerships. FiberHome, for example, is certainly exceeding our expectations when it comes to the market. There are plenty of opportunities. We have been working very closely with our suppliers because of new technologies, because of their position, because of the proper pricing. Now we have a foot in the door. In the past, we did not. Now the volume of investments going into that channel has also increased significantly. This has made us confident enough to continue with our plan.

We are still in accordance with the plan. In fact, it has been exceeding our expectations to an extent. That is why we have been investing a lot on inventory. As for the percentage, it is about 15% of our revenue that comes from these partnerships. These partnerships represent about 15%, which is still a very small number considering the wealth of opportunities around us.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you, Henrique. Can I do a follow-up question very quickly? I would like to know more about the margins of these partnerships. Is this very different compared to your traditional portfolio or about the same?

Henrique Fernandez
ICT Business Unit Superintendent Director, Intelbras

The mix here is very, very different. Cable business is pretty much a commodity, so the margin there is lower. It is not in line with our current margin levels because of the mix. We are always building this brick by brick, and as I say in all of our earnings calls, this is about our growth. Our gross margin may be lower, but our operations are very well-honed, and they have been improving every day, leading to an even higher operational profit. That is basically the rationale behind this particular business.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

Okay. Andre. We have spoken a bit about this before, right? We have many different products, a very diversified mix, large-scale products. This means that the margins are also different. The gross margin may go slightly up or slightly down, but we remain steadfast in our EBITDA margin. We want to continue, or we want to keep healthy margins. Usually, products may have a lower margin, but a larger scale and lower operational expenses tied to it. We need to be aware of all these factors and place great emphasis on the EBITDA margin, because this is really important to us.

Speaker 7

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Altair. That was very clear. Thanks for answering my questions and my follow-up question.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. Thank you, Andre. Let us go now to Thiago, BBA analyst.

Speaker 9

Hello, everyone. Can you hear me?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Yes, we can hear you.

Speaker 9

Great. Thank you for the opportunity to be here asking questions. I have two questions for you about security. Most of the questions today have been about security, but I have two specific questions about that business area. First, it is the situation in Manaus. We know that that was the main problem you had to contend with in the first quarter of this year. Could you update us on that situation? Do we expect any impact from the Manaus situation in the second quarter, or do you expect that to be settled or to be resolved? I would also like to know more about the competitiveness scenario for security and how that may affect your forecasts when it comes to growth in revenue, and whatever else you can tell us about the competitiveness scenario would be of great help.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Paulo?

Paulo Daniel Correa
Security Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Okay. Thank you. Let us talk about Manaus. Most of the impact came in the fourth quarter of last year. That is when the inventory was significantly impacted. Now, we have been able to rectify that in the first quarter of this year, but it will take the factory some time to ramp up and replenish its security stock and be able to cater to its mix. It does take time for that to happen. That was a major impact during the first quarter. We had to replenish our stocks, our inventory. Now things are beginning to normalize in the second quarter. Over Q2, we expect our inventory levels to be on par with our internal policies and also with our deliveries to our partners and suppliers. I think, yeah, the problem is behind us. We are once again healthy in terms of production and inventory.

Now, for your second question, you asked about the market dynamics and competitiveness. Since last year, we have seen newcomers come into the market, and we have been monitoring them very closely. Now we have remained competitive. Last year, we have had a few price reductions in order to maintain competitiveness with the rest of the market. There have been other lines added as well, such as, for example, project solutions. We have been bringing that to our channels, and we also believe we can do a lot by working with our partners. There are other growth avenues as well in the form of new markets. We have space to build new markets here. The dynamic is not too different from what we saw last year. We do not expect this to impact our evolution and growth plans for this year at all.

What happened last year and early this year was not actually fully unexpected and will not cause us to deviate from our previous plan.

Speaker 9

Okay.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

There has been more competition. We have seen such competitors in the past, threats in the past. We need to be mindful of productivity. We remain steadfast in our purpose, which is to look after ourselves, make sure our relationship with our channels is ever stronger. We need to make sure our customers remain loyal to our channel. We need to incorporate new technologies, new innovations. We need to make sure that our brand remains highly recognizable. In doing so, we will be shielded from competition, from producers who can offer similar products at lower prices, because that is what sets us apart from the rest.

Speaker 9

Okay. That was clear. Thank you for your answer.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Thank you, Thiago. Have a good day. Next question from Lucca, BofA Analyst.

Speaker 10

Hello. This i s Lucca. Can you hear me?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Yes, we can hear you.

Speaker 10

Actually, two questions. One of them is about the margin. The provisioning adjustments, did that have any effect on this quarter based on what we discussed the final quarter of last year? That's question one. Question two is about Energia. Is this segment seasonal now that we've reached a certain level of normalcy? I'd like to know from you whether we can expect a seasonal improvement next quarter, or are we still seeing the effects from previous quarters where some of the revenue is actually affected. Can you give us your forecast about the revenue for the rest of the year?

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

We've been saying this since last year. All of what's happened is going on according to plan, and we're very excited. Of course, we've stabilized our inventory. It was not just about that. However, we were also very concerned about the whole situation last year. This is why we reined in our inventory, and that was admittedly a mistake. As Henrique said, we have a lot of partnerships. We are being very careful. We are ensuring quality and growth in our factories, and we are very excited about that. But once again, this year is when we resume our normal growth rates from before 2023.

We want to become more and more profitable. Each quarter will be more positive than the last, especially vis-à-vis revenue now that we are normalizing our inventory. This month, we have had very positive signs, much more so than the previous quarter, so we are very excited. However, from a sectoral perspective, maybe Bruno can add. But before I give the floor to Marcio, let me just say that the whole provisioning issue had very little effect. This year, provisions will happen as they should. A provisioning, considering our history, is irrelevant, especially considering our first quarter of this year. Let me give the floor now to Marcio so he can add to my answer about Energia.

Marcio Ferreira da Silva
Energy Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Thank you, Lucca, for the question. We do not often talk about quarter-on-quarter revenue. The numbers for this year are as expected. We wanted to reduce our harmful inventory in solar last year, and we did. We started this year with healthier sales. Energia Power has been growing more so than the average for the company. We are quite aggressive about that. And for this year, the objective is to be according to the plan and to provide results to the company. That is the main message we want to get across when it comes to our Energia business. We are taking this on a step-by-step basis.

And like I said earlier, we need to keep in mind the long term. We need to strike a balance so as to protect ourselves from any changes in regulation that may impact the solar industry. Now, we know there may be highs and lows in this sector, not because of the players, but because of the government. So this unit needs to grow in a consolidated fashion and needs to take into account and be resilient to these changes in government decision. Now, there are multiple growth avenues to make that happen in our Energia market. And all of the measures we had to take, we did take last year. Hopefully, the solar business will help the company's profit. The increase in revenue is not as strong as we mentioned earlier.

But there is an objective, a very clear objective, and over the course of this year, we will be working to deliver these results. But we are not talking about a quarter-on-quarter comparison here at all.

Speaker 10

Okay. That was very clear. Thank you for your answer.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. Thank you, Lucca. Now we are moving on to the last two questions. These are two questions from two buy-side analysts. Let me read them out to you. First has to do with gross margin gains. He wants to know whether the detractor over the last quarters was Energia as mentioned. Maybe Marcio wants to talk about the mix and what we have done in that sense. Well, we mentioned how that improves profit, right? Anything you would like to add to what you have said already?

Marcio Ferreira da Silva
Energy Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Well, I think the solar market experienced a few things last year that were common to the entire market, and that had a bearing on our results here at the company. We've mentioned this a number of times, and we've rectified our structure to make sure it is the right size. We've done that. Now all that's left is carrying out the plan.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. Considering the sequential growth of revenue, do you believe there's room for expanding the margin over the course of this year?

Marcio Ferreira da Silva
Energy Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

As Altair said, the revenue is going up. There may be a bit of a fluctuation in the gross or EBITDA margins, yes. But we know that considering our net results and our operational results, those are going to far exceed the revenue growth by the end of the year. We need to take that into account when we plan for the upcoming quarters in 2024. Is that clear, Ricardo?

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay, we have a final question from Pedro Moura, also a buy-side analyst from Reach Capital. What could you tell us about the sell-in, sell-out dynamic this quarter? Well, maybe Paulo can take this one. We discussed sell-in and sell-out in the third quarter. We were focused mostly on security back then. So let me give the floor to Paulo so he can address your question.

Paulo Daniel Correa
Security Business Superintendent Director, Intelbras

Okay. There was a bit of a mismatch in the third quarter, as I showed you in the graph in a previous presentation. In the fourth quarter, however, we noticed that the curve was stabilizing. Sell-out was happening as expected in the market. We didn't see anything outside the ordinary. So I think third quarter was really a one-off situation. Since then, we've seen a positive sell-out dynamic in the market. The market is seasonal, and that's normal as we saw. So the sell-out levels are according to plan.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay. Thank you, Paulo.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

Of course, all of these challenges we faced when it comes to inventory, et cetera, all of this means that the inventory is not suitable at the moment for that channel. We need to recover our inventory, and we've been doing just that. We're investing in that sense, and that may have a bearing on our cash because we're investing in production, because we want to normalize our inventory for our channel.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Okay, thank you, Mr. Altair. We have a final question from Nelson Niero, a journalist from Valor Econômico. He would like us to actually talk a little bit about the interest rates and the exchange rates and how that actually affects the company, especially when it comes to costs. Let me take this one. From an interest rate perspective, we've been working with higher interest rates for a while now. As you can see in our financial results, we've structured our cash flow quite well.

So this does really impact our operation much. In fact, some of the operational results may be positive because there's a better match between our cash and our debt levels. So the perception is that if interest rates go down, that's actually going to play positively to our business. As for the exchange rate situation, we've been in the electronics industry in the country for a long time.

We are not strangers to market fluctuations, and we know how to deal with it because we know that some of our components are imported. Managing that has been part of our daily operations for a long time. We do not see that as a cause for concern. We do not expect the increase in exchange rates to affect us much. Now let us wait to see just where the exchange rate will go in the near future. When it comes to repercussion or immediate impact, I do not think there is any cause for concern. Okay, Nelson? We have no more questions, so without further ado, let me give the floor to Altair for his closing remarks and final message. Go right ahead, Mr. Altair.

Altair Silvestri
CEO, Intelbras

Okay. Everyone, thank you so much for your participation. As I have said in our last few earnings calls, I would like to reiterate that this is a moment in time when we must be confident. All of the negative events are in the past. All of that turbulence has been addressed, and it is now a thing of the past. The plan is moving forward as we expected. Our portfolio, our ramp-up of new products and new technologies is going on. Our inventory is recovering. Our processes, our structures internally have been changed. They have been tweaked, they have been adjusted, and they are working well, very productively.

We have had multiple investments in branding and other areas. We have also had investment in the channels for getting new clients, for ensuring loyalty, as well as our traditional avenues of growth that we have mentioned to you on several different occasions. So once again, this year, we are fully back to our growth rates. First quarter was not an outlier. It was expected. It was according to plan. Our revenue will continue to grow at the traditional levels we have seen in the past. With a stronger focus on improving our results, our EBITDA. Our plans for the future are quite exciting. As Bruno said, we had a meeting with the board, with all the managers to make sure we were all on the same page, all aligned. We discussed our core business because we do not want to lose our focus, right?

We also commissioned a renowned international company to help coordinate this work. They really helped us significantly. At the end of the process, we were very, very happy with our potential, with our market potential, considering the market we operate in, and also the markets we want to venture into. We want to continue the growth at the same rates over the next decade. Now it is all about stepping on the gas and being confident for the upcoming years. I think we are going to be very positive over the next 10 years. Once again, thank you so much for your participation, and we will see you in our next call. Thank you.

Bruno Machado Teixeira
Head of Investor Relations, Intelbras

Thank you, Mr. Altair. Thank you for your kind words. This completes the first earnings call for 2024, and we wish you all a great day.