Morning, thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Conference Call for the Earnings for Q1 2022 of Quero-Quero. I am Flavio Gomes Da Silva [Abrantes], Investor Relations Manager, and we have with us Mr. Peter Furukawa, Chairman of Lojas Quero-Quero, and Mr. Jean Pablo de Mello, CFO and Investor Relations Director. This webcast is being transmitted exclusively by the internet. Can be accessed at the address ri.queroquero.com.br. For the Q&A session, the questions should be sent through our webcast platform, and the webcast is being recorded and will be made available in our website. Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any declarations that may be made during this webcast concerning the business perspectives of the company's projections, operational financial goals are based on beliefs and assumptions of the board of Lojas Quero-Quero, as well as on information currently available to the company.
Considerations about the future are not guarantees of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. They refer to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry, and other factors may affect the future results of the company and may lead to results that may differ materially from those expressed in such considerations about the future. To begin our presentation, please go to slide number two. Our agenda today will cover general results, our pillars, the earnings of Q1 2022, and finally, we will have a Q&A session. Now let's go on to slide number three, and I pass the floor to the Chairman of Lojas Quero-Quero, Mr. Peter Furukawa. Mr. Peter, you may proceed.
Well, good morning. I don't know if you can see the charts. Yes, now we have the charts.
The organizer told me that if you have any difficulty to see the numbers, he can zoom on the numbers. I can still see the numbers, but if you wish, we may zoom. Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be with you again to talk about Q1 2022. Well, this year is an important year for us. As you have read in our release, we are becoming 55 years old, a company that has a long tradition and has been through difficult times already. We have a model that is very resilient in all these years, and we will be talking more about this. Also, we believe it's an important time for the company. We had one of the best grades from GPTW, so we're very happy to see that even in difficult times, the company is doing well. This makes us very happy.
As I had mentioned, this year is not an easy year. It's a challenging year, so it's an important year for us because it is during difficult years that we become even better, and when we come out of the crisis, we come out much stronger. This is what we want for this period. Well, the results of the quarter, as I said, they are in line with Q4. We had same-store sales of -1.5% in the quarter, and this shows to us that since we had grown 40% in Q1 2021, we were able to maintain this market share or even increase this share. As you can see on the right here, we continue to grow. We are being able to grow share. We continue to grow share. We continue growing more than the market.
The numbers I have seen in this segment shows us that it's a difficult segment in the last few months due to the economy of Brazil. We continue winning market share, and this is our objective. Our EBITDA was BRL 22 million, reminding you that we had investments in logistics and what we call our phygital platform. Without this, our EBITDA would be higher than in 2019. Also looking at net profit, which would be equal to 2019. The important decision we made, we could even have stopped the investments last year. We could have limited our expansion plan, reforms, and not made investments in logistics, but this would stop our growth in the future. We continue believing that our model is very good and we should grow, we should continue to invest. We will have some difficult times, ups and downs.
It's important that we continue building a solid company as we have done in the last few years, and we will continue doing this. We will continue to invest in the company as we have done. We will continue the investments we had planned for 2022. Next chart. Here, I believe you have already heard this. We want to win market, first pillar. Second is excellence in credit and collection. Third, doing more with less. The fourth, phygital sales. And the last one, our culture for high performance. We grew 6.6% in the quarter. In total, we had a drop of 1.5% in same-store sales, aligned with Q4 2021. Seven stores were transformed in phases I, II, and III, and we opened 14 new stores in Q1 2022.
We have now 479 stores, more than 480 stores because we opened some in April too. We continue with our focus, excellence in credit and collections. We're on the same level as we had foreseen and equal to Q1 2019. We have a delay of 10.9% on our credit card, and we are growing. Now, in terms of doing more with less, we have made more investments. As we mentioned during the IPO, we had plans. We already had our plans, deleverage this year due to the investments we made. We didn't even have the phygital at that time. We have three new distribution centers, and this puts pressure on numbers. We had in Q1. In the year, we should have some deleverage.
Gross profit grew 6% versus 2019, almost 60% growth. Operational expenses grew 20.6% in Q1 2022, but almost 4% below Q4 2021. Adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 22 million, as I said, discounting the BRL 7.2 million in investments in phygital and in the new distribution centers. These are investments for future growth. I always look at the company, and we did the IPO five years ago. Now we will continue investing and make the necessary investing to get to the numbers we want. In terms of phygital, the platform that we mentioned, I will talk more about this later. We want to increase the number of products we have and give these people in small communities to buy what they would buy in large home centers in large cities. We have the phygital sales.
We implemented this, and we began with this in all the stores in February. We began in October last year with 63 stores, then another 150 in December, and now all the stores are operating with this platform, phygital sales. Today, if we look at everything that is not part of the assortment of the stores, so phygital sales represent 17%. Our clients are buying, and we have made very interesting tests. We had 37 new managers who graduated. Last year, we had thousands of people who applied for our trainee program. We hired the best candidates, and this year we hired 15, half of this to for the positions of people who left. We still have focus, investing in people.
This is the most valuable thing we have in the company, the people, and this is the reality. We have excellent processes, but an interesting business too. It's unique in small communities, small cities with an interesting model, a lot of return, but people are at the front. People are doing this. We continue focusing on people. We want people to grow in our company. Well, now next chart, please. Here showing to you the evolution of the number of stores, 479. We have 40% of our stores outside the state of Rio Grande do Sul. People ask me where we will grow. Our growth will be in Santa Catarina and Paraná states, and we're beginning to open stores in São Paulo and Mato Grosso. We're beginning like we did in Santa Catarina years ago, like we did in Paraná.
We're beginning and feeling we have a good base already to continue expanding our activities. Right now, we have three stores in Mato Grosso do Sul and three stores in São Paulo state. The performance is like the first stores in Santa Catarina and Paraná. We're growing our base and building a good platform. The difference between the states is only a line on the map. Some cities are 30 kilometers from the border. As long as we continue opening stores, this is always our characteristic. 87% of our stores are in cities with less than 100,000 inhabitants. Here, 14 new stores. We continue growing the numbers of stores or winning markets. If the market drops, we have to maintain our revenue to win market from local competitors. We will continue in this way.
Once I said that we wanted to open 70 stores. Our internal goal is to open the 70 stores. There will be challenges. We may not find a good location, but our objective continues to be opening 70 new stores this year. Here, the transformations we made. We have stores type 1, 2, and 3. You know our models. When we increase the assortment, more SKUs, also trucks for quick delivery, we changed the size of the store when we can, the layout. In the first year, they grow 20 percentage points higher than the company. It's not every year, but in the first year we have a 20% growth. We have another 56 stores that are basic stores, and we have them because we can't find a good location to move to a new location. We're continuing to look for new locations.
We have 102 stores in phase II and now 29 stores in phase III. There's a lot of space for us to grow and improve the assortment number of SKUs. Next chart. Here. This is my last chart talking about phygital sales. This, these pictures shows what the client sees on the monitor. These are products that are not in the store, but we sell them and we deliver from the distribution center. The client sits down with the salesperson and walks inside this virtual store that we have in the monitor and chooses products that can be delivered from the distribution center. The salesperson shows they can click. They can talk to an online salesperson in the distribution center. They can zoom on specific products. We have more than 17,000 new SKUs totaling 25,000 SKUs. New categories of products.
We made a great investment. In reality, it's as if it were a startup because we're selling rugs, organizers, and pictures, paintings that we didn't have in our assortment in the past. We ran some tests. All the stores were operating with phygital sales. Some people were cautious in the companies whether this would be a success. I challenged recently our stores to sell more. We ran a test in 175 stores, and we had excellent results. Almost 50% more sales in these stores. Everyone is very happy with phygital sales. I'm very happy with the potential of these phygital sales. We have a director who has been in the company for 43 years. We have a great mixture, 43 years. Also Daniel, 20. We have also people with eight years in the company. Now more, 10 years, João and Roberto.
Daniel said there's no way back. Phygital sales are here to stay. They're very good. When communities learn that they can buy locally everything they could buy in a large city, it'll become even stronger. This is what we're proving now. I was always conservative in what I say to you. I was always cautious in terms of the size this can become in the short term. In the long term, it'll be very interesting. These tests really motivated us. We are very motivated, and we will have good results this year with this platform. There is demand. We can tell you this, there is demand. This is what we're seeing in the company. We're very motivated with phygital sales.
Once again, we don't know how big this will become, but every day we're more and more motivated with this initiative. It was a great learning process for me and for Flávio. He is the Chairman of the council. We participated in Submarino, and we're now seeing a very good experience as we did in the other company. Significant growth in orders. We ran some tests, and we're very motivated. Well, this is what I had to say. Now Jean will give you more details about the numbers. This was my last chart, then I will be back with the Q&A session. Now Jean will be showing the numbers.
Good morning. It's a great pleasure to be here talking to you, showing the results Q1 2022 of Lojas Quero-Quero.
Peter already made a good introduction on the highlights, and now I will go into more detail about the numbers in Q1 2022. Let's begin with the three activities. The revenue, for example, first retail. As shown in the previous slide, we had a growth in same-store sales in Q3 2020, Q3 and 2021. We have a strong comparison here, but we delivered growth of same-store sales with a drop of 1.5%, aligned with Q4 last year growth. Total growth 6.6% in the retail activity. We can see that what we expected for the second semester and first semester we had same-store sales with a small drop, but a growth in total sales. This is maintaining, not very different from what we imagined for Q1 this year.
In relation to financial services, as you have seen, we had a strong growth of revenue from financial services, a growth of 31.5% in Q1 2022. If you compare with Q1 2019, we almost doubled the revenue from financial services. Right now, this is something we expected, reminding you that we had a very strong growth in retail between Q2 2020 and Q2 2021, and financial services grew less at the time. After that, we see a difference. We should continue with retail growing a little less and financial services growing more in the future. This is due to the recovery of the credit card. Finally, we have revenue from credit cards. It is the smallest, but is also growing. Revenue grew 8.4% in Q1 2022.
This growth comes from the greater usage of these credit cards outside our stores. A growth of 20% in Q1 2021, and 12.6% growth in the usage inside our stores. Greater usage of the cards, and this has an effect growing the revenue of financial services. Going on to the next slide, the consolidated growth of 11.7%. We arrived at BRL 603 million in revenue in Q1 2022. Revenue total BRL 603.2 million. We always compare with the previous quarter in 2019. When we look at this growth of revenue in the company, actually we have a growth of 70.3% in comparison with Q1 2019. Q1 normally is the one with the lowest revenue in retail for the company.
Even with this, we have shown growth in revenue and when we compare with the pre-pandemic, a growth of more than 70%. We have been growing revenue and especially in retail, winning market. The market grew more and to accompany this growth, and more important than this, winning market. We have 70% growth in relation to Q1 2019. One point that is important is net operational revenue totaled BRL 540 million in Q1 2022. Here we have an important point. As you can see, it's a growth of 24%, greater than the 11.7% in gross sales. The net, normally it is aligned. This year, from now on, you will see a change in this relationship because in 2019 we had a different situation.
We have a new tax regime with an impact of BRL 43.7 million in revenue. Less taxes on revenue on sales. That's why our operational net revenue grows more than the previous year, so it's not directly comparable. If I didn't have this tax change, this tax regime in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, my growth would be 14%, more aligned with gross revenue. We have a growth of 11.7% in gross revenue and 24% in net operational revenue. Going on to the next slide, I will take your time to show the impact of this change. First, we have a change. You can see that we transfer BRL 79 million of taxes that can be recovered to products. We have a new regime. You can see here.
Net operational revenue would be BRL 46 million. With a profit of, as we showed. A gross margin of 37% on gross revenue. With the adoption of the new regime, there is a change. Taxes are lower by BRL 44 million, but we have an equivalent increase in the products sold. Therefore, we have a larger net revenue and a higher cost for products. This is the first impact on net revenue. Also the gross margin on revenue. That's why we will follow during the year, not only gross margin, but gross margin on revenue. You can see that gross margin on net revenue would be 37% without adopting this regime, and gross margin on net revenue would be 31% when we adopt this regime. By increasing net revenue, it decreases my gross margin from 37% - 34%.
On the other hand, the margin on gross margin remains the same. In terms of comparison, we will follow this during this year, the margin on gross margin, profit on gross margin. This is very similar, therefore, to what we presented.
Very similar to Q3, Q4. The company's margin in Q3, Q4 last year. Going on to the next slide, after this explanation, we can discuss in a better way the gross profit and the company's margin. You can see that we have a growth of gross margin of 6% in this quarter, so a growth of almost 60% versus the first quarter of 2019. We're here showing a gross margin of 30.7%. This margin on gross revenue, which is comparable, it's important to know that it's very similar to the margin of the last two quarters, 31%. We're seeing the consolidated of 30.7%, a little below the first quarter of 2021, but aligned with the third and fourth quarters. We calculate the gross margin on net revenue.
We have this drop of 38% versus 34%. Most of the drop is, as I said before, only due to the change in the regime that impacts the company's accounting. When we look at the numbers that are comparable, which is the last graph, you can see, you can all see that the retail margin, it maintains itself roughly aligned. We had this in the first quarter, but we hope to have in the next quarters the same as we had in 2021. Right now, we have the lowest margin in financial services, as you can see. The margin on gross revenue of financial services. There are some reasons for this. First, as we had mentioned to you in previous calls, we see an increase in the cost of interest due to the increase in interest rates.
It was 2% and now more than 11%, and we see that it may increase more in the next few months. The cost of interest is higher and we're increasing these interests for consumers, so this helps in the revenue for financial services. Since the revenue grows more, to obtain the same profit, we would need more revenue to compensate the cost of interest, and this makes the margin drop. We also have, versus the semesters of 2021, we have an increase in delinquency. I will comment that for you. Although delinquency is very similar to 2019, but when we have this increases our accruals or provisions. Seasonally, the first semester of 2022 has lower margins for financial services.
Although when you calculate gross profit, not on revenue, but on the size of the portfolio, you will see that we have a profitability very close to that of 2019. To summarize, we continue growing with a consolidated margin that is very similar to Q3, Q4 of last year, as we already expected and mentioned in the last calls. We have this change, this accounting change, so we suggest a follow-up. Going on to the next slide, since we already mentioned revenue and gross profit, the impacts on margin, let's comment on EBITDA. We get to an accounting EBITDA of BRL 42 million in the first quarter this year and an Adjusted EBITDA of BRL 22 million.
It's important to highlight, you can see in this first graph that not only seasonally is it the quarter with lower sales and also lower results in EBITDA or net profit for the company. You can see here versus 2020, 2019 that the first semester is when we have the lowest EBITDAs of the company due to operational leverage of the company. We have, yes, a drop of EBITDA versus 2021 and EBITDA very close to 2019. It's important to highlight, this was already mentioned, what we have is not totally comparable due to the additional investments we made during these last quarters, especially in phygital sales. In the first quarter of this year, we have an investment expense more than BRL 3 million in phygital sales.
If I remove this additional investment, which will result in profitability, but it impacts the result in the short term, we would have an EBITDA of BRL 25 million. During last year, we inaugurated the two new distribution centers and so more than BRL 2 million more in expenses in this first semester in logistics. BRL 5 million versus 2021. BRL 7 million in additional investments versus 2019. These investments are necessary. They're important for growth in the medium and long term, and we have this result, an Adjusted EBITDA of BRL 22 million.
Now going on to the next slide, you will see this impact on net profit and adjusted net profit of the company. Here we have this EBITDA, this difference in EBITDA that goes to net profit and also an impact of the increase in interest rates. Due to inflation, this led to this accounting loss of BRL 10 million. Due to IFRS BRL 6 million, the increase in interest rates increases the cost of loans of the company, more interest, and also on IFRS and adjusted to the present value in the company's year-end report. Net profit is not directly comparable with previous quarters due to the additional investments we're making. Reminding you that if you look at the graph seasonally, on average we have these results in Q1.
Even in a difficult situation, we were able to reverse this, but it's a reversal with an adjusted loss. Now here we have seen the results, and now let's give you more details now on the next slide. As we had mentioned, talking about our receivables and the delay on the receivables. Yes, since the second semester of last year, we're in more difficult times in the Brazilian economy. We see a trend that we had already mentioned in times like this one, an increase in the use of credit, and that's why we have a growth of practically 16% in our credit card. The credit card grew. We have a total portfolio with interest, equivalent to BRL 636 million. This is important for growth bringing new clients and better results.
You saw the increase in revenue and financial services. More important than this, we have been growing consistently the results of the company, but with controlled delinquency levels. Our expectation, as we had mentioned before, is to see levels of delinquency in 2022 close to those of 2019. Yes, this is what happened in Q1 2022. We're finishing the quarter with 10.9% delinquency, and this is for the portfolio above 90 days. If you look at 2019, we're a little above but very well aligned. Between 2020 and 2021, we saw a level of delinquency that was historically low. This was due to a more conservative positioning on our part and the strengthening of credit and collections and the macro environment. At that time, our clients had more income available, so we had a drop in delinquency.
Now we see this portfolio, this delinquency going back to levels comparable to the pre-pandemic levels, 2019, and we hope to continue with this trend in 2022. Going on to the next slide, you will see that this growth comes due to a greater use of the Verde Card, our credit card. We had 16.17% growth, a growth of 12.6% in the cards for the usage inside our stores. This difference, we saw an increase of the usage of the cards inside our stores and also outside our stores. The economy is a little more difficult, so our clients are demanding a little more credit, especially outside our stores, 20.4%. A growth of 20.4 usage of the cards outside our stores.
Now going on to the next slide, I will comment on cash management, cash and the company's activities. It's important to remind you that seasonally we have in Q1, in reality in the first semester of the year, a cash consumption. We consume cash. This is due to the increase in working capital due to the payment of the purchases that we made in the second semester of the previous year. We consume more cash. This always happens if you look at our history, and we generate more cash during the second semester. We close this first quarter with 1.6 in terms of leverage, lower than in 2019. If you look at 2019, that you will see that there was a trend to decrease this leverage, financial leverage.
It's important to comment that we took out debentures BRL 150 million, seven years maturity date, so we can lengthen the maturity of the debt and with a lower spread. We will have a longer debt. This will allow us to go through these challenging times especially in the next quarters, especially due to the increase in interest rates and inflation. Finally, I'd like to comment on the next slide. As Peter mentioned previously, we continue investing because we see that these investments that we made in the last few years in investments have been giving us results, and this is our strategy to continue to invest to have a robust growth for the company. We invested BRL 17.8 million in the first quarter, growth of 17.6% versus Q1 2021.
We invested in new stores, logistics. We opened 14 stores in Q1 this year, more than the 9 stores we opened in Q1 2020. We also made 7 transformations of existing stores, so a greater investment in new stores and also an investment in logistics and others. Here we're also continuing to invest in phygital sales. With this, I would like to close my participation here in terms of results, and I will pass the floor once again to Flavio for the Q&A session to clarify any points you may have.
Thank you, Jean. The first question is from Thiago Macruz, Itaú BBA, will be answered by Peter. The question is: You said that phygital sales represented 17% of the sales. Could you give us more details about this? We'd like to understand what is your opinion for the future.
Well, good morning, Macruz. Well, in Q1 we had 8% in terms of phygital, plus 9% of products that are not in the stores. They are not part of the assortment in the store, but they are part of the assortment in another store. They can sell these products this way too. We have other products that are not in any store. We have 8% this way and 9% that exist in some stores and are part of the assortment. The two are growing actually. We have growth in products that are not in that store. People are getting used to this, so this is very positive. We have growth in both. What will grow more are those that are what we call pure digital, these 8% that are on the digital platform.
Now, concerning the evolution of these categories, it's difficult to tell you what will happen. I am very motivated. We wanted to run tests in all the network, but people in sales were concerned. We did this only with 165 stores, and we're positively surprised with this. During this quarter, we're running more tests, and we're learning to see the best way to make these sales. We can have campaigns on television, which is expensive, or only digital paying for this, or doing this only internally. Using our internal tools. We're working on different segments to see where we have more leverage and lower cost in this process. We're also learning how we can get more new clients in pure phygital.
Selling to the same clients is easy because they go to the store, and they see these products. We have to work on awareness and trial. We're working on this. I don't want to give you numbers. We will have a tour on the eighteenth and nineteenth of this month. We invited journalists to see this, and so after this, we can talk more about this once they can visit our stores and see what we have. Don't know if I answered your question, Macruz. That's this. If you have more questions, please send them.
The next question is also from Mr. Macruz, Itaú BBA, will be answered by Peter. We have seen the standardization of this supply chain. How do you see rupture in this quarter, lack of products and the next quarters?
Macruz, we made an investment, large investment in inventory concerned with what could happen. Today we're not increasing sales. If we're not increasing sales, it's not because of lack of inventory. We increased our level of inventory. One example, telephony for us is a challenge, for us and the whole market. There are some products that are missing, but our out of stock is the same as before the pandemic, 6%-7%. It's not due to lack of products or rupture that we're not growing more. The market is more difficult, so it's not a limiting factor for our sales force. For the time being, I don't see a great problem like we had during the pandemic, 20% rupture. Our rupture is 6%-7%, similar to the period before the pandemic. The next questions are from Bob Furlan.
They will be answered by Jean Pablo de Mello. Good morning. Thank you. What do you think about same-store sales and profitability during the last years? What are you thinking about consolidation in the sector right now?
Good morning. Concerning these points that you raised, the first is same-store sales. What we have seen, I believe that with the previous results of Lojas Quero-Quero, we need to compare to what we had, reminding you that we had strong growth between Q3 2020 of 35% in comparison with 2021. At the end of last year and beginning of this year, we would have a same-store sales that would be this way, would not be growing. Now we have -1.5%. We believe that Q2 should not be very different from what we saw in the previous two quarters.
Now, in the second semester, we will have a better base for comparison. We will have a base that will be more difficult. We believe that in the second semester of this year, our expectation internally is that we will have growth in sales, greater growth in sales when we have this time. There's this seasonality during the year in same-store sales and retail sales. Of course, it still depends on the macroeconomic scenario, the impact of inflation on consumers' income, and we will see the demand. We're following the market, the performance. We're still gaining market. We're still growing. In relation to credit to consumers, we've seen this in the past. We're seeing this again. In difficult times, consumers need more credits.
We saw this in Q1 in the usage, greater usage of the card and the growth of the receivables. Also growth in revenue from financial services. This happened in previous quarters, happened now in Q1, and should be the trend for the next quarter. We see our receivables portfolio growing more than retail. Our business has this in difficult times, the demand for financial services becomes even greater than retail, and this helps us to have a growth in revenue that is more constant during the year. Now, concerning profitability in the year-end report. First, in relation to retail, it should be a margin that is more stable, like we saw in Q3 for last year. The margin for financial services has seasonality during the year.
Normally, the margin for financial services is better in the second semester of the year, so we will have a lower profitability in the first semester due to the increase in the cost of loans and delinquency. When we look at the whole year, it shouldn't be very different from what we had in previous years in relation to return on investment. Although we expect a profitability in the credit portfolio similar to that of 2019, delinquency similar to 2019, even with the cost of loans higher, we can increase the interest, so very similar to 2019. I believe the last point concerning consolidation in the market, the environment this year is more difficult than in the last two years, so there will be opportunities to win market or to grow and open more stores. Yes, the environment will be more difficult. We're doing our homework.
We continue with a profitable operation. There will be opportunities to consolidate even more the sector like we saw in the past. We saw this, opportunities for Quero-Quero to win even more market, but our first pillar is to win market, so we have to go after this. There will be opportunities during this year.
Thank you, Jean. The next questions are from Carlos Herrera and will be answered by Peter. How do you see the next quarter and the year with the higher interest rates? Do you intend to decrease the growth of the company?
Good morning, Carlos. We're not allowed to talk about the current quarter nor the next quarters. In macro terms, what I can tell you, we don't see any difference. We don't see any difference in the market because nothing different from the previous quarter. We will continue.
We will be trying to win market in a difficult scenario. The whole year will be a difficult year. I don't see a great difference. Now, concerning debt, I didn't understand your question. We have a level of net debt similar to what we had in the past. It's important to say, we did not consume cash to grow. We generated cash for our growth. If you look at our numbers in the past, you will see that. Now concerning decreasing the growth, we continue believing in our model. We don't intend to decrease. We went through the worst recession in Brazil at the time of President Dilma, the worst recession we had. We continued investing, we continued growing. We intend to continue doing the same now.
We have no plans, we didn't even discuss this in the council, to stop growing or focusing only on the short term. We believe in our model. We have capacity to invest. We will continue investing, and we don't want to increase our net debt. The debt we have is to renew previous debts. We're not decreasing our debt, so we renew the loans, but we're not taking out new loans for growth. It's not our model. We never did this. I hope I answered your question. If you have more questions, please, we're available. I'd like to supplement. This is important, the investment cycle of the company. It's important to highlight this issue, as Peter mentioned, cash capex, cash consumption net debt. It's important to bear in mind that if you look at the history of the company, we have a seasonality during the year.
Normally, we consume cash in the first semester, and then we accumulate cash in the second semester. If you look at 2019, 2020, even 2021, this happened. In the first quarter, you can see that historically we consume working capital. It's not that we're changing our strategy or our payment terms. It's due to the payments of the purchases of the previous quarters. In this first quarter, 2022, we have an impact since in 2021 we grew 40% in same-store sales. Our inventory turnover was better. In first Q1 2022, if you compare same-store sales, we had a drop of 1.5%. There is no change in our strategy, I can tell you. It's the impact of seasonality and in the speed of growth.
When the company can grow more, we can generate cash and inventory. When you have a drop in same-store sales, this makes you consume more cash without any change in the company's strategy, whether it be of investment or cash management.
Thank you, Jean. The next questions are from Guilherme from Eleven. They will be answered by Jean. Good morning. Congratulations for the result. The evolution of competition with a more challenging scenario, we'd like to understand the pressure on gross margin in financial services. Do you see a recovery from now on?
Hi, Guilherme. I believe that the first point, the competition in more difficult times, it's important. We have been preparing ourselves. We were expecting to have a more difficult year, so we're prepared for this. It's important to highlight that we decided to invest in growth, a lower EBITDA initially.
We could have improved and given you a better result in the short term, but this would have hurt growth. We want to grow. During the year, the environment being more difficult, Lojas Quero-Quero is well prepared to continue winning market. Of course, it'll depend on consumption, the behavior of our clients, but we're well prepared in terms of commercial structure, capital structure. We're prepared to continue growing and winning market. To take advantage of these opportunities with a more difficult market, we're well positioned to win market in relation to smaller competitors, and this is what we will do in a more difficult situation, but this was expected. Now, concerning the margin in financial services, it's important to divide this into two questions. In terms of profitability on the portfolio, we expect one similar to 2019.
You can see that we have delinquency levels close to 2019, cost of loans higher. Yes, interest rates are higher, but we were able to increase our interest rates too. When you look at profitability of the portfolio, very close to that of 2019. In relation to margin, specifically the margin of financial services, there are some impacts that are a little different. Since I increase more my interest rates, my revenue grows, so this decreases my margin in financial services for this year. Reminding you that I began increasing our interest rates during the second semester of last year, and our portfolio has an average of 180 days. Only after the third quarter, we will have a normal situation with revenue normalized and the cost of loans and delinquency. Delinquency, we're close to 2019. We're well aligned.
Now, in relation to margin, there will be an alignment, better alignment in second quarter and also in the third quarter. Reminding you once again that the financial services margin is also seasonal with the exception of last year. Seasonally, in a more stable year, the margins are a little higher in the second semester in relation to the first.
Thank you, Jean. Well, we'd like to close the Q&A session. Thank you for the questions, and now I'd like to pass the floor to Jean and then Peter for their final comments. Well, I'd like to thank you all for participating. We are available, myself, Flavio, to clarify any points, and we wish you a good week and invite you all to visit our website, our releases, the presentation, and we're available to clarify any additional points. Thank you.
Well, I'd like to thank all the participants, and I'd like to say that in this race, like Paris-Dakar, we have a very motivated team, very focused, and as I said, very motivated. We have a fantastic team. This makes me very happy. Everyone conscious of decreasing costs, increasing sales, our internal numbers. The effort that is being done is to win market, to have more clients outside the store. We're making a great effort when we compare with the numbers before the pandemic, inside, outside the stores. The effort that people have made is very great. I'm very proud of our team of employees in the company. Yes, we have a difficult year, but it's during difficult years that we remove the stones from our path. Everyone is working hard to remove the stones from our way and to grow.
Once the economy improves, we will be much better. I'm very happy to see the effort on the part of the company, the professional growth that people have reached in our company. I invite you to come and get to know the company, get to know the people here, and see the potential we have for growth. Thank you and bye-bye.