Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is 11:00, so welcome to the Intelbras 2Q 2021 earnings call. My name is Bruno Teixeira. I am in charge of investor relations at the company, and it is a great pleasure to be here with you today. We also have Mr. Altair Silvestri, our CEO, and Rafael Boeing, our CFO, to start the results presentation. This conference call is being recorded, and the recording will be made available at the company's investor relations website, where you can also find the presentation for download. You can download the presentation by clicking on the link that is available in the chat box. For those of you who need simultaneous translation, we have a translation tool here at the platform.
You can click on interpretation and choose your language of preference, Engli sh or Portuguese. For those of you who are listening to the presentation in English, you can mute the original audio by clicking on mute original audio. During the Q&A session, please send out your question by using the Q&A icon that you can find at the bottom of your screen. Please type in your name, your organization, and also the language you are going to use to ask your question. The questions will be answered in the same order. When I call your name, please click okay in the message that is going to pop up in your screen asking you to open your microphone. During the presentation, all of you will be on a listen only mode.
The information contained in this presentation and other statements that may be made during the conference related to the business perspectives, forecasts, and operating and financial targets of Intelbras are based on the management's beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee performance. They involve risks and uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors can affect the performance of the company and cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. With that, I would like to start the presentation, and at the end of the presentation, we are going to be available to take your questions.
I'm going to start with the highlights of the first and second quarters 2021. We finished the first half of the year 2021 with net revenues amounting to BRL 725 million, and that is 109% higher year-on-year. Mr. Altair, I believe your audio is open. Your microphone is unmuted. Could you please mute it for me? Thank you. Our EBITDA reached BRL 95 million, 31.9% higher year-on-year, and the net profit came to BRL 85 million, 67% higher year-on-year. Our ROIC was 33.3% in line with the same period of the previous year. It is important to highlight that the second quarter 2020 was the first period in which we had the effects of the pandemic. The month of April 2020 was very difficult. We had many uncertainties, and the revenue was much lower.
The growth that we had in the second quarter of 2021 need to take that into account. The reference was not strong. It was a weaker reference. Also, the quarterly comparison was very strong. We grew in our revenues and presented great results, even in comparison with the first quarter of 2021. Another point that should be highlighted that you can see here on this slide is the growth that the company had over the past 10 years. We have grown at the average of 20% per year. From 2017, we had a CAGR of almost 18%, and we should consider that in 2017 and 2018, we had non-recurring revenues coming from the sales of the analog to digital TV converters.
If we look at the comparison between the two halves of 2021 and 2020, we can see that we had an 18% increase in CAGR, and the same thing happens for EBITDA. Our CAGR was 22%. Here, we are not considering the one-off events of last year, which is related to our win in the lawsuit for the removal of the ICMS tax from the calculation basis of the PIS and COFINS taxes. You can see that our EBITDA and revenues have been growing since 2017, which is extremely important for us and our strategies. Actually, in the first half of the year, we had almost 42% growth in EBITDA and 32% in the second quarter in comparison with the same period of the previous year.
Now here, I would like to highlight the progress of our EBITDA over the last 12 months. I would like to highlight that the 13%-14% EBITDA margin is the forecast that we have always used at the company, and it is what we have achieved over the past years. The 21% EBITDA margin that we had last year in the second quarter of 2020 was possible because of the passing on of costs because of the FX variations, and also our costs did not reflect the new FX levels. Also, we had a very intense expenses discipline in April, May, and June 2020 because the company was still trying to structure our strategy to go through the crisis, and we decreased our expenses, and we increased our prices.
That's why the EBITDA margin was higher in the second quarter of 2020. But the current levels and the future levels will be around 13% and 14%. That's our assumption, and that's what we have been achieving. Now, I would like to talk about our three main segments and the main highlights for each one. Here we have security, which amounted to 52% of our revenues in the second quarter. I would like to highlight that we had an increase in the gross margin, showing that we can pass on costs. Regardless of the increase of costs and the FX variations, we were able to keep a good margin level. Our growth was also significant in terms of volumes and quantities.
Although we had the problems related to supply, as we have reported to you in terms of the supply of chipsets, security has been still growing in terms of revenue and quantities. For those of you who like to pay attention to average ticket, you can see that there was a reduction in the average ticket, but it is important to highlight that that is not related to what we saw at the end of the quarter with the BRL a little bit lower than the beginning of the quarter. But the average ticket is not related to the reduction of prices. It is rather related to the mix of products sold, and therefore, our average ticket was a little bit lower.
For those of you who like to pay attention to those details, that point should be highlighted. Now, moving on to the communication segment. In the 2Q21, this line accounted for 34% of our revenue, and we can see that there was a slight drop in margin. Although we passed on costs over the quarter, we were able to increase prices, especially in the networks business unit. We saw an increased share of routers in this line. They are part of the home and office line, and that caused our margins to be a bit lower. I would like to highlight the significant increase of volumes. If we look at the first quarter, you can see that there was an increase, which shows that the market is still very hot.
Networks is still suffering because of the shortage of chipsets. Even though we have that problem, we are still delivering the results and meeting the plans that we had for this quarter. I am now highlighting here the comparison against the 2Q20, but I would like to highlight the fact that the communication segment in the 2Q20 did not suffer as much. Both networks and communication benefited from the movement that happened in that period with people working from home. So those segments were not so impacted in that period. Now, as for the energy segment, it accounted for 14% of our revenues in 2Q21.
I believe it is important to highlight here that we saw a slight drop in margins, but that is part of a very important strategy that we have in terms of increasing volumes in the two business units that we have here, which are energy and solar. We can see a very significant growth in comparison with the same period of the previous year, and we continue to grow as well in the quarterly comparison. It is very interesting to see that our strategies and the way we develop our business are being well accepted by the market. As you can see here, we have over 13,000 technicians trained in the entire country. They allow us to access over 8,000 resellers.
So we have 13,000 technicians and 8,000 resellers that already have access to our sales platform for the solar business. Our initial target is to have around 30,000 resellers in our solar platform. So we are executing our plan. We are adding new resellers to our base, and those are the resellers that have been helping us grow in the solar business. These are very significant figures, and we know that in the second half of the year, with the good level of inventories that we have and the training sessions taking place, we are going to have a very good second half of 2021 in the energy segment, especially when it comes to solar energy. I would like to talk about our hedge policy.
Over the past two quarters in our presentations, we talked about the change in our policy that happened in the second half 2020, and this is the conclusion of our hedge policy in the first half 2021. We have been able to hedge 90% of our negative FX variation that could have happened. In the first half of 2020, we had almost BRL 137 million in negative FX variations. This year, that number was a little bit north of BRL 8 million. You can see that this policy has been very well executed by our treasury department, and this is contributing for us to have a stable result. You can also see in our documents that the net FX result for this quarter was virtually zero.
Our hedge policy worked very well, and this is how we intend to continue to work in the coming quarters. I would like to talk about our cash. I have two highlights here. The first one is related to investments. We have been investing according to our plan to expand our production capacity in Manaus and also in the new plant in Tubarão. We opened a new unit in the northeast region to improve the logistics in that region, which is extremely important in Brazil. We acquired Khomp. We concluded the acquisition in the month of April. We have been investing, and we have been consuming our cash throughout the year by those investments.
From an operating perspective, I would like to highlight something that I had already mentioned before, that we would have a negative cash generation in the second quarter. In June, already in June, we saw a positive cash generation. We finished our process of forfeiting. Because of that, we are going to be able to see positive cash generation in the coming quarters, as we have been doing historically. Lastly, I would like to talk about our CapEx. In the second quarter 2021, we had already some investment operations, and the expansion CapEx was stronger at BRL 120 million. According to what I just said in relation to cash, we have a factory in Tubarão and Manaus, a new unit, and the acquisition of Khomp.
Now, to wrap up our presentation and leave time for the Q&A session so that we can delve deeper into your questions, I would like to talk about our perspectives. We believe that the first half of the year was very good. We ended it on a very good note. We thought that the third and fourth quarters of 2020 were very strong, and they were, but still, we were able to grow even more in comparison with the second half of 2020. We finished this half of 2021 with a lot of strength to have even more momentum going into the second half of 2021. Our strategies bring great perspectives for this year in the solar business so that we can even outperform our plans. The Northeast unit was opened with great expectations.
All of our partners and everybody in the region understand that this is going to contribute for us to be able to deliver better results in the Northeast and gain even more share. Here, we are also highlighting the launch of the Gate Automation line. These products have been demanded by the market from us and our partners and distributors as well. It was launched in the month of July. The channel has already the materials, the products in their shelves. They are already being trained to use those products. We have great expectations for this line, which is going to be part of the access control unit. Lastly, we know that we are going through the issues related to logistics in terms of the chipset supply, which is still very challenging.
We have been able to meet our plans. I remember that in the first quarter presentation, the 1Q 2021 presentation, we said that the second and third quarters this year would be the most challenging ones. The second quarter was good, and we are now starting the third quarter, and we believe that we are going to continue to meet our targets. The Supply chain team is deeply engaged for us to be able to deliver the growth that we planned for, and so that we have a very significant share of the market in all segments we are present. I try to be as fast as possible during the presentation so that we can take advantage of Mr. Altair and Boeing being here so that we can answer your questions.
Thank you very much, and we are now at your full disposal to take any questions you might have. Before we start the Q&A session, I would just like to explain once again that you have to click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen, and please enter your name, your organization, and the language you are going to use to ask your question. We are going to move through the questions in the same order that they are asked. I can see already some questions here. The first one is from Enrico with Itaú BBA, and he's asking two questions, Mr. Altair. The first one is related to incremental sales. Can you give us some more color about how much more we could have sold if it weren't for the lockdown restrictions in April?
Also the difficulties in relation to the chipsets. Do you believe that there is a suppressed demand that can be met in the second half of the year? Please, Mr. Altair, the floor is yours. We can hear you now, Mr. Altair. You may proceed.
Well, good morning, everybody. Indeed, I believe that we are meeting our targets or even outperforming our plans. We are exceeding the growth expectations that we had, and many people didn't believe we were able to do it. That happened despite the shortage of chipsets. If we didn't have that shortage, we would be able to deliver much more. We have been able to deliver and keep our promises despite of the shortage of chipsets. In the communication and security segments, we would have been able to have 15% more than what we did. Yes, the shortage of chipsets has come in the way of our performance, and absolutely, I believe that we could have done more in those two segments. There is a market for there, and there is a possibility of increasing our share even further.
All of that would have been possible if we had those components.
Enrico is asking a second question about expenses and also the acquisition of Khomp . He says that G&A expenses were a bit higher, and he says that that is related probably to the acquisition of Khomp . He is asking us to give some more color about the impact of Khomp as an expense, or if we could give any more information about expenses.
The G&A expenses, and I believe that you are referring to our comparison with the previous year, right? In 2020, we tried to control our expenses as much as possible. Nobody was traveling, and we actually reduced wages and working hours at that time. We tried to control our investments as much as possible. Many expenses are indeed investments for us, especially in the commercial department. Now we are resuming the normal levels according to our historical levels. If you look at our numbers, at our margins, we have been able to keep our historical margins. They are in line with the historical levels. What happened is that last year, we had an expenses level that was not normal.
Okay. Now I'm going to turn the floor over to João, a CD analyst. We are go ing to open your microphone now so that you can ask your question, João. João, the floor is yours. We can hear you now, João. You may proceed.
Hello. Good morning, Bruno, Altair, Rafael. I have two questions. You talked about the chipset supplies, and I believe that there has been a shortage of raw materials in many other supply chains. I would like to know if there is a risk in any other business line, for example, a shortage of solar panels. I would like to know if there is a risk of shortage of raw materials in other segments, and also I would like to know if your inventories are at the appropriate level to meet an increased demand. Then I'll ask my second question.
Well, no. Apart from communication and security, especially in the energy and solar segments, we don't have any problems. We were prepared for that, and now we are going to gain speed. Actually, we started to gain speed in June in terms of sales, and we are prepared with the appropriate inventory levels so that we are able to outperform our plans for this year.
Okay. That's clear. Thank you. What about M&A deals? I remember that in the IPO process, you said that you had probably four or five advanced negotiations for security software, and you also had some targets in the cloud and energy sectors. Can you give us more detail about the M&A perspectives in the short term?
We have a number of targets right now being analyzed. Just so you have an idea, we have a pipeline for targets where we already have an NDA signed. If you put all of those deals together, it would amount to BRL 1.3 billion in possibilities. Of course, probably many of them are not going to become concrete deals, but we are analyzing many targets, and some of them are closer to closing. Some are more for the medium term, but the volume, the number of targets being analyzed right now is very large. We already had a plan, but even after the IPO, the list of targets increased. It did because of the help of our investors who brought new opportunities, and also because the companies, the targets themselves, they knew about the IPO.
We have now more targets than what we had in our previous plans. We have a very good number of targets being analyzed, for example, in the software department, which would be a very good complement for the security and communication business. We also have some targets in the energy sector. Some of the targets are very large companies. We did not have those companies initially in our plans. We had companies with BRL 60 million to BRL 100 million in revenues. But now we are analyzing some targets with larger revenues. This movement is moving on, and we are going to see soon some results of that work.
Just a follow-up question about something you said about the IPO process catching the attention of many companies. If we compare the current moment with before the IPO, what do you think is happening with the valuation of those companies? Do you think that the prices went up because of the IPO?
Well, it did in the beginning. But now we believe that the market is accepting lower prices. We are decreasing that level of pressure. But we have companies that work with hardware and software, and we are using 8 to 9.5 the EBITDA that they have. For recurring revenue companies only, we are using that number is 12. So this is what we are working with.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you, João. Well, now I am going to move on to the next question that comes from Adriano Bittar with Tower Three. Adriano, we are going to open your microphone now. The floor is yours.
H ello, Bruno and Altair. How are you? Good morning. It is a great pleasure to talk to you and congratulations on the results. My question is about the chipset supply issue. I would like to understand something that Altair said when he was answering Enrico's question. You said that in the communication and security businesses, you could have sold 15% more. Does that mean that you would have grown 15% more quarter-on-quarter? Or do you think that you could have had a 15% higher result than what you had? The second question is that we know that you conduct market research for market share and that you are very close to the distribution channels. Do you think that your competitors are able to sell more right now, so maybe you are losing sales and there is no suppressed demand?
Do you think that everybody is struggling just as much as you are, and when things go back to normal, Intelbras will be able to outperform the competition, and in 2022, Intelbras can grow more and faster than the competition?
Well, I believe that in this quarter that just ended, we would have had revenues 15% larger than what we had. Then you would have to do the math to know how much that would be. Now, when it comes to communication and security, in the security business, the other competitors struggle just as much as we do, if not more. Even though we know that we could have sold 15% more, we still increased our market share. In the networks business in the beginning of the quarter, the company did not have the components, but the competition had access to components. But afterwards, towards the end of the quarter, the entire market started struggling with that shortage. So the availability is similar for everybody in the sector and the network business.
Okay, so what we can understand here is that there will be a suppressed demand, and since you have a distribution channel that is very large and spread out across the entire country, you would be able to emerge from that crisis at a better level than the competition.
Yes, there will be a suppressed demand. If we had the components available, the market will be larger.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Adriano. We also have a question here from Augusto Taddei with Safra Invest. Augusto, the floor is yours.
Bruno, before that, if I could make an additional comment. Right now, Intelbras is refraining from investing in the commercial department and in the pre-sales department because of the lack of components. We are not going to pursue more share in the market because it would be pointless for us to invest more if we cannot deliver more. We are limited by volume, right? We always want to have additional volume so that we can increase our revenues, but we are limited because we do not have components available.
Okay, so now I would like to turn it over to Augusto Crapa with Safra Invest.
Hello. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much, and congratul ations on the results. I would like to know more about the energy segment. I would like to see a breakdown of the sh are of the revenue, and revenues were about BRL 100 million. I would like to know how much of that comes from solar, and also how much did that business grow in comparison with the previous quarter. Can you break down those figures for me, please?
Would you like to take that one, Mr. Altair?
No, Bruno, you can take that one. Go ahead.
Okay. So in general, we are reporting those figures in one single line because of a strategic issue. But just so you have a reference, we ended 2020 with 60% of those revenues coming from solar and 40% coming from the power business, which includes other energy lines. That growth happens in the two business lines. The two are growing, but solar is growing a little bit more indeed. So we are going to see a migration of revenues throughout the year so that solar accounts for more than 60% of those revenues. So this is how much we can break the numbers down for you. I do not know, maybe Mr. Altair can add more comments.
Our plan for the solar business in 2021 and 2022 does not take into account the acquisitions. It takes into account the organic growth only, and we are going to grow 130% this year and next year. The energy business is going to grow from 60% to 70%. So we are going to see a lot of growth here.
Yes, absolutely. That is why I asked that question. Thank you very much, Altair and Bruno, and congratulations once again.
Thank you, Augusto. Now we have a question here from Augusto Gazzola with Genoa. He is asking us to explain more details about the 13,000 technicians and the 8,000 resellers. Are we focusing on bringing new resellers or training the current ones? We learned a lot over the years, right?
We also had the pandemic that came in the way of training, but not so much. We noticed that the training of technicians is a little bit more complex than the other training sessions, for example, in the communication, network, and security, and other sectors. This segment is related to energy. There are many factors related to safety, for example, and climbing up the roofs of the customers. We need in-person training sessions. We also need to go together with the technicians at the installation sites. We need to have a team together with the technicians in the first or second projects so that they gain confidence in what they are doing. So it takes longer to train these technicians than we expected.
Right now, not only are we training new resellers, but we are also intensifying and investing more in our pre-sale structure and also in accompanying the technicians in the projects for the ones that have already been trained.
Just an additional piece of information, Augusto, you asked why we have 13,000 technicia ns and 8,000 resellers. Some resellers train more than one technician. The 8,000 resellers are the ones that are accredited in our platform. We accredit the resellers as companies. They are the ones that sell to the projects, and we support the resellers. As Mr. Altair said, we try to support them so that they can start selling the products after the training sessions, and so they can start accelerating the solar businesses.
As a matter of fact, the other day, I was talking to a distributor, and he told me that if he had that kind of support, if he had the trained professionals, he could have been selling 10 times as much as he is now. Here we are only focusing in the market that we have right now, the solar panels, the solar business, and also distributed energy for smaller and medium-sized businesses. So we are confident that we are treading the right path. It has taken us a while to train these professionals, but we have already trained many of them, so we are treading a right path.
Yes. We have another question coming from Augusto. He asked about our unit in the Northeast region. He is asking about what we expect for that unit and if we are going to have any tax benefit or other benefit besides the logistics benefits that we are going to have because we are now present in that region.
Well, we are taking advantage of the benefits, and those benefits actually make up for the costs that we have to keep a structure there. Our main goal was not really related to the benefits. We had been planning for that for a long time, and now we were able to execute it. This is the first of many. We intend to open about three units in other regions, trying to be closer to customers and serve them faster, and also to be able to support our resellers better. It is like having a factory right next to the distributors.
I was talking to a partner of ours when we opened the Northeast unit, and I told him that we wanted them to feel just like the distributors feel here in the state of Santa Catarina because they are very close to the factory here in the state of Santa Catarina, and they were very happy about that. Our goal is to be faster and closer to them. Of course, there are many other advantages related to costs. For example, sending full trucks to the Northeast instead of sending small batches of products directly to the customers.
We have another question here related to the new launches. Besides Gate Automation and the connected home lines, what do you expect in terms of new launches?
Well, we have so many technologies and products to be launched. We have new things. Our IoT line, for example, was just launched, and now we are becoming known in the market because of that line. The retail segment consider that we are the most complete, thorough line in the market, and there are many products to be launched still in the access control segment, the security segment, and I believe that you already know that probably. You are aware of the fact that we want to be pioneers in the 5G business. There are many good things to come. A lot of good news to present to you to make sure that we are going to grow according to plan.
Just an additional comment. I was talking to the marketing team yesterday, and they told me that we launched 280 new products in the first half 2021. So in 180 days, we launched 280 products, more than one product per day. If you look at the past two years, we have been launching much more than one product per day. Our launch rate is very high. Yes, the percentage of revenues from new products, the products launched over the past three to four years, have been increasing quarter-over-quarter, and the trend is to increase even more.
We have a question here about solar energy from Guilherme. He wants to know when we are going to reach the 30,000 accredited resellers. I believe that the second part of his question was already answered, which is about the breakdown of the energy revenues.
Well, I believe that now that we are resuming in-person trainings, we are making a very good progress, and we believe that by the end of the year, we are going to get very close to reaching that number, 30,000 resellers. We might even be able to reach 30,000 by the end of the year.
We have another two questions here. The first one comes from João Gabriel de Souza about our perspectives when it comes to the duty-free area in Manaus and also the impacts from the tax reform that is pending before the Congress. Rafael, would you like to take that one?
Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. When it comes to the duty-free area in Manaus, we do not have any perspective for changes. There are no projects ongoing right now related to that. As for the tax reform pending before the Congress, which would change income tax and remove the interest on own capital from the calculation basis. In that context, we made simulations here at Intelbras, and we got to the conclusion that we are going to have very little impact on our operations in terms of reducing the income tax rate and JCP. Our simulations show that we would have a 2% reduction in our net profit. That would be the impact from the tax reform that is pending before the Congress. So 2% reduction in the bottom line, that would be the impact.
As for margins, the impact would be 0.2 or 0.3, and we would be able to adjust prices or adjust our expenses to make up for that. So I believe we are not going to have many problems about that. Yes, absolutely. Such a change would not just reduce our profits. We would have to adjust prices because the competition would also do that. They also use those incentives, at least most of them. So we do not see many problems with that.
There is a last question here from Marcos Silva. He is an individual investor, and he says that he truly believes in the company. He is a small investor, and he is asking us how we see a small investor as parts of our shareholding base.
W ell, thank you very much, Marcos. I believe that our conference call here today with cameras and a presentation differently from what we did before, and the fact that we are broadcasting the conference on YouTube show our interest in reaching the individual investors and being closer to them. We are aware that Brazilian people are now investing more in stock exchange, and Intelbras is present in people's lives and businesses and homes. We believe that the relationship that we have built over the years with our end customers can also become an investing relationship. We are interested in understanding your demands and interacting with individual investors, and we believe that this is a very strong movement that is going to continue. So we would appreciate having more individual investors in our base.
Today, we have about 33,000 to 34,000 individual investors in our base, and we believe that we can increase that number even further, and we are taking actions to that end. Yes, absolutely. We are interested in being closer to our customers with the products that we are launching, the products that are suited to that market, and also the way that we sell our products. So besides taking new technologies and satisfaction to our customers, we can also give them confidence in terms of investments. They can believe in our technology and products, but also in us as a company to invest in.
I do not think we have any more questions in our pipeline here. I believe that I have answered all of them. Would you like to ask any more questions? Would you like to make any comments, taking advantage of Mr. Altair and Mr. Rafael being here? I am going to give you some more seconds to ask any other questions you might have. If not, I am going to turn it over to Mr. Altair for his closing remarks. We have another question here, I believe, from Williams Cordeiro. He is ask ing about our expectations for revenues in the third quarter. I think we can talk about the revenues for the third quarter and the second half of the year as a whole. Mr. Altair, what are your expectations?
I think you are on mute, Mr. Altair.
During the IPO process, we said that we were going to grow 27% in 2021. People said that that was too much, that we did not grow so much in 2020. But we actually updated our plans upwards. We are going to grow more than that in 2021. We had a meeting recently, and we changed our budget, our plans for the next five years, and we increased our targets for the next five years without considering the acquisitions. We are only considering organic growth. We are very optimistic about the future of the company, especially now with the support that we are getting from our partners and the new opportunities ahead of us, the new opportunities that emerge for us as a publicly listed company. I would just say that we are not expecting 100% growth in revenues anymore.
I think that is important to make that clear. Our comparison basis is different now. The second quarter 2020 was weaker, but we have perspectives for growth, of course, in a tighter basis, but the company as a whole has been growing. After the IPO, the company is going to continue to grow over the next five to seven years at a higher average than we had over the past 10 years as we presented in the IPO process because of the investments that we have made, of course.
We have another question here from Daniela with Valor Econômico. She is asking a question about the supply chain and the shortage of components. She is asking when we believe that things are going to go back to the normal levels. What is your expectation for the next months and quarters?
As I said in our previous conference call, we do not believe that the situation is going to get worse. We do not see that happening in the coming months. We believe that the situation is going to remain the same according to our plans and our communications with our suppliers. This quarter, it is going to continue in line with what we had in the past quarters. We believe that we are going to see improvements in the last quarter of the year, and it is going to improve even more in the first quarter 2022. In the second quarter of 2022, we are going to go back to normal levels. This is what we believe it is going to happen. It is a very complex situation, of course.
We can see some improvements, and we believe that things are going to improve towards the end of the year and in the beginning of 2022. But maybe we are going to go back to normal levels towards the middle of 2022. But we are going to start the year with some difficulties.
Well, I don't see any more questions here. If that is the case, I would like to close the Q&A session and turn it over to Mr. Altair for his closing remarks.
Well, thank you all very much for being here for our second results presentation after the IPO. Although we had some difficulties, we are very happy about our results. We are meeting our goals and even outperforming our plans with great expectations and great businesses that we can see ahead of us. And we believe that we are going to go back quarter after quarter, bringing good news to you and giving you confidence in our company. With that, thank you very much, and see you next time.
Thank you, Mr. Altair. With that, I would like to conclude our conference call about the results for the 2Q21. The Investor Relations department is at your full disposal to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you all very much for being here, and have a good day. Thank you. See you next time.
Thank you all. See you next time.