Thank you for waiting for the conference call for Lojas Quero-Quero. We will begin the presentation. My name is Flavio Abrantes, Investor Relations Manager, and I will begin the presentation. Today, we will comment on the earnings concerning Q3 and the first nine months of 2022. Next, we will have a Q&A session. Now, I'd like to pass the floor to our chairman, Peter Furukawa, who will begin the presentation.
Good morning. Thank you for participating. We will talk about Q3. Okay, next slide, please. Well, we're celebrating this month the 55th anniversary of Lojas Quero-Quero. We inaugurated our store number 500 in a city called Nova Andradina. We are in Mato Grosso do Sul. The reception was very good. Next slide. Well, we have our five pillars, as I always mention.
In general, in Q3, I'm sure you looked at the results. It was more difficult this quarter than we had anticipated. Why? I hoped that since Q3 last year, we had less investments, we would have a better Q3 this year. This did not happen. It was a very difficult quarter. July began difficult. We had to review our strategy. When you compare with 2019, our growth CAGR was 19%, but our same-store sales was -7.6%. I personally expected that it would be positive, but we had more difficulties. We tested the elasticity also to see if we could invert this and produce more gross profit. We began campaigns with promotions, specific promotions, but what happened is that we sold only the products on promotion. We sold only those products with discounts.
We made a trade-off between volume and margin, but it didn't change the gross profit. We stopped this after August, and we're still in a scenario that I would say difficult. In Q1, we had same-store sales of 21.4% versus 2019 to 64.5% CAGR, as I said, 18% as we had in previous quarters. We opened 16 new stores, totaling 44 new stores. We made some transformations in some stores. We revamped some stores, and we have 509 stores. Now we're close to 514. I saw in the comments of some analysts since I had given a guidance in the direction of 70 stores. Actually, I hadn't given a guidance, but some thought it was a guidance. Now we're reviewing. We wrote between 60 and 70 stores. Why?
Because the rent has gone up in some locations. We don't want to force the opening of stores with high rent prices. Our business is making money, so we don't want to open stores paying any rent. When you do this, you have problems. We have a standard for rent, a standard value for rent, so we're choosing well. We have 65 stores already almost ready, and we will open between 60 and 70 stores, as Jean mentioned. Probably between 65 and 70 new stores this year. We're not going to force any store because of this number. We will open stores when we find good locations and with the right rent price. We continue with our strategy. We want to expand gaining share in credit and collections, we had a delay of 11.8%. Here also 1.3% above what we expected.
This, in the last two years, we had a lot of variation with a festivity called Semana Farroupilha. In this period, more people spent during these festivities. Collection was a little more difficult in September. In October, things went back to normal. It's clear this effect when you compare with other states. In the Rio Grande do Sul, collections were more difficult during these festivities, during this week, and this did not happen in the other states. Our credit portfolio continues to grow. Also our participation in retail. We're doing more with less. In credit and collections, we have a 0.3 difference versus what we had planned, but in line with 2019. To do more with less, we were able to hold back expenses. Here we have the number 6.8. We're trying to reduce as much as we can the expenses.
We generated cash in Q3. As I always say, our focus since the beginning of the year was cash, and in terms of cash, we're in line with the plan. We reduced our debt. We should close the year. Our expectation, we should close the year with net debt similar to last year, even with this scenario that is much more difficult than last year. Digital sales continued to grow. They grew one percentage point in the participation in sales. We reached 19% of our sales, digital sales, phygital sales. There's a lot of space for us to grow in digital sales, but we're doing things in the most healthy way, in the healthiest way. We want to continue growing phygital sales, but in a healthy way. Concerning our culture, we graduated 24 managers.
We have 362 managers, new managers being prepared and trained in the stores. Some already for 10 months. This part is working very well. We began the trainee program at Quero-Quero. We had 5,000 candidates from the best universities in Brazil, and we're selecting 10. We are attracting good people to work in Quero-Quero. Finally, when we look at these five pillars, these are the pillars we believe in. We continue investing in these pillars. We're going through difficult times with high inflation. This affected our clients, classes C and D. We're being resilient, and we're also managing our cash. Here we show store openings. Here, Rio Grande do Sul, one store. Santa Catarina, two stores. Paraná, various stores. Paraná, three stores. In São Paulo, one extra store. We have 509 stores, as I mentioned.
Eighteen stores were revamped. This performance was well. Those who follow our history, when I arrived here, we had 150 stores, so it's good to get to 500 stores. We're focusing on small cities where our model fits best. Next slide, please. Talking about phygital sales, a very good platform. Good opportunities for growth. 25,000 new SKUs. New categories. Phygital sales represent 19% of sales. So there's a lot of space for us to explore to grow in the next few years. Next slide. Yes, here, in spite of being in very difficult times, the team is working hard. We believe in our model. We are making investments. Within this context, we won awards during this quarter.
Great Place to Work. We were among the top 10 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, the only retail company in here, one of the best companies to work in Brazil, another award. We received the certificate of Top Employer for 2022. They say it's even more difficult than the first one. We were classified in second as a company that enchanting and also the best human resources company. We don't have a human resources director. I am the human resources director. We have an excellent team that takes care of these areas. We have some processes with the CFO, people development with me, and another area development of top managers also under me. It was very good to receive this award. We have the Avivar as the most admired company by the employees. This too was interesting.
They make a survey in social media sites, and they saw that Quero-Quero was the most admired company by its employees. This was very good. Institutional Investor classified as the third best company ESG. Our CFO among the top three in Latin American small caps. In terms of building the company, we're a very solid company, an excellent team, very motivated, working hard during difficult times. We believe we will continue this way. We're planning to continue our work, working hard, looking, waiting for better times. Better times would be a scenario where we would have lower interest rates. This would help us very much in a positive way. This is the scenario when we do best. Also the harvests. Good harvests help us, and we believe there will be a good harvest in Brazil.
On my part, this is what I had to say now. Jean will talk about the numbers, and then we come back for the Q&A session. Thank you once again.
Good morning. After the initial presentation by Peter, let's go into more details about the financial results of the company in Q3. In the next slide, we will see revenues. Quero-Quero has three activities. We have retail, financial services, and credit card. As Peter mentioned, in Q3, we had 65% growth in sales versus 2019. The performance in comparison with 2019 was aligned in Q1 and Q2, and we have same-store sales that is -7%, but a little better than what we had in Q2. CAGR in retail, in total sales, 18% in Q3.
Now, concerning financial services, we had a growth of 17% in relation to previous year and year to date, 22% growth. As mentioned in the previous quarters, financial services had a growth right now in relation to 2019. We had a lower penetration during the pandemic when people took out less loans. Also the revenue from credit cards is aligned with the growth of 10% in relation to Q3 2019. Thus, we closed the quarter with a growth of 4% in revenue versus previous year and 5% in relation to the first nine months of 2022 when we add the three activities. Now, going on to the next slide, we will comment on gross profit and margin. Profit, yes, we suffered a little more. Peter mentioned we had a drop in gross profit in this quarter, 9% drop.
Year to date, less than 3%. When you look at the margin, the best margin to look at is the margin on gross margin, 27.3% in this quarter, below the historical average and below the potential of the company. Peter mentioned that in relation to gross sales in retail, we had more competition, more promotions. We tried to leverage with new promotions, and this one led us to a profit margin of 21.3%. Five basis points lower than the previous quarter. We're gradually recovering. We're stopping the promotions to have a better margin. Retail margin is under pressure by the higher delinquency last year and also higher interest rates. With this revenue growing aligned with 2019, but with margin suffering, we have pressure on results. On the next slide, we will comment on the EBITDA.
Before the EBITDA on slide 13, we see that we continue doing what we believe is our homework and within our pillars, which is to do more with less. On slide 13, you can see that in retail, we're suffering with margin. We can still hold EBITDA, BRL 43 million, BRL 20 million EBIT, adjusted EBITDA, because our growth of expenses is even lower than inflation. Even opening the stores that we opened, we continue investing also. We invested in two new distribution centers last year and investments in phygital. We prepared ourselves for a more difficult year, and we were able to compensate partially the lower sales by controlling expenses. Thus, we get to an adjusted loss of minus BRL 3 million. Peter mentioned and minus BRL 8 million in accounting. This is aligned with the two previous quarters.
This is the DRE, what we delivered in terms of results in the quarter. It's important to give you more detail, the assumptions, the variables that led to these results. Going on to the next slide, it's very important to comment how our credit portfolio is and delinquency. This was a hot topic in the market, so we closed Q3 with a delay on the portfolio more than 90 days, 11.8%. These are aligned with 2019 and a little below the delay of Q2 in the portfolio. We are maintaining ourselves with a growth, gradual growth in the portfolio, reminding you that during the pandemic, we saw a lower demand for credit. The penetration of the credit card dropped.
Today, we see the penetration of the credit card recovering gradually, but it's still below the levels before the pandemic because we are being more conservative in giving credit due to the situation. We're more conservative, but we are growing the portfolio in a healthy way, and this is our objective for this year. With this controlled delinquency and growth in the portfolio, we will go on to the next slide and comment on the usage of the credit card. This growth in portfolio comes from the gradual increase of the penetration of the credit card inside our stores and also outside our stores. It grew 11%, the use of the credit card, and grew 13% in the first nine months of 2022, with a total accumulated growth of 41% versus 2019.
Reminding you that we have more than 3.6 million cards issued, BRL 1.6 billion in transactions with our card, and of this, 54% are used outside the stores, the credit cards. It's important to remind you that the credit card is the preferred method of payment and most widely used by our clients for purchases within our store. Going on to the next slide 16. Another point that is very important within the context and operational model of the company. Here we have operational cash flow. Looking at the lower graph, net adjusted debt, we reported a drop in net debt in Q2, and we reported now once again in Q3 another reduction of the net adjusted debt.
We closed Q3 with BRL 196 million in adjusted net debt, reminding you that this improvement in net debt comes from the management of working capital of the company. We made investments during the previous years, investments in expansion, opening of new stores, new distribution centers to support the growth, and we made investments in phygital and investments in working capital, reminding you that during 2021, 2022, we had difficulty in the supply chain, so we made additional investments in inventory. This year, we began prepared. During the year, we adjusted working capital to go back to generate free operational cash flow. Another point that we want to stress is that we took out a loan of BRL 300 million, and we have a good rating from Standard & Poor's.
This helps us for funding for the growth of the portfolio. This management of capital, this generation of cash flow, and a drop in net debt is done at a time when we continue investing in the growth of the company. Peter mentioned the importance of this quarter. We're celebrating 55 years, store number 500, but we closed Q3 with these stores in operation. We invested BRL 13.5 million, BRL 50 million in CapEx this year. The strategy is the same. We're investing in growth with a long-term vision for the company. With this, I'd like to close the details of the results in Q3, and now we'd like to go on to the Q&A session. I will pass the microphone to Flavio, and he will be heading this session.
Thank you, Jean. Now we'd like to begin the Q&A session. The first question is from Vinicius Prieto, Bank of America, and Peter will be answering.
How do you see the performance in the new states where you're opening stores and the acceptance of the card? What are the learning points until now in these regions?
Good morning. Very good to talk to you again. Well, concerning new stores in new states, the general performance of the new stores is similar to the situation when we began the stores in Santa Catarina and Paraná. Mato Grosso do Sul is doing a little better, and the stores in the state of São Paulo are following the same standard as stores in other states. We had a better reception in Mato Grosso.
Will this happen in all stores?
No. We opened 10 stores in the state of São Paulo, another 10 stores in Mato Grosso, so we can't tell you that this will be the same. We don't see many differences. We have three stores in São Paulo where we had problems with the managers. In the end, it didn't work very well. You were with us here. You know that when managers have a problem, it takes some time to recover. This happened in São Paulo. We don't see any difference, actually, any significant difference in the different states. Now, concerning the card we use, we use Elo in the new regions. The brand Elo activation is faster than our green card when we as we did when we opened in Santa Catarina and Paraná. The usage is different from what we had foreseen for these new stores.
What's happening is that the general volume, the market is more difficult comparing now, talking more about performance. The performance of the old stores suffers less because they have a larger portfolio, especially because in these portfolios you have a better client mix. When the economy suffers, you suffer less in the old stores. The new stores are building their portfolio, so they suffer a little more. This is what we have seen happening in these last 12 months. Nothing abnormal. No, we're not concerned. We're not worried with the performance of the new stores. It's taking a little longer, but new stores, for us, take some time, and so we should continue waiting for an improvement in the economy also. This is happening in the new stores. Some are doing better, some are doing worse. I hope I answered your question. No difference, I would say.
No difference in terms of the different states. We're continuing with the same type of cities, small cities, 50,000 inhabitants, maximum 80,000 inhabitants. We're working in these communities, and our performance is very similar in the different states.
Thank you, Peter. The second question is from Thiago Macruz, Itaú BBA. This will be answered by Jean.
We saw that in this quarter, the growth of the portfolio 18% was a little higher than the growth of financial services, 17%. We'd like to understand this. Could you give us a color about the increase in prices due to the cost of funding, higher cost?
Good morning. I'll begin with the second part of the question. Yes, we increased prices due to the cost of funding. That was at the end of the second semester of last year.
We had in mind an interest rate for 2022, but we saw that the interest rate became higher due to things that happened. Now, during 2022, we did not increase the prices again. We increased the prices partially. We had a partial increase. That's the first point. This led to the portfolio growing. We had more. We had a growth in revenue last year since we did not increase prices even more. You saw in Q2 and now in Q3 of this year what we should have as normal from now on. Some variations, but the growth of revenue and financial services aligned with the growth of the portfolio. Revenue much higher was an impact during the time. You should know that our portfolio normally is in people buying 12 installments.
Now we're aligned with the increases we made at the end of last year. This should be the normal Macruz growth of revenue aligned with the growth of the portfolio. Specifically in this quarter, we had even mentioned in previous quarters we also made some promotions to try to increase the length of the portfolio. We tried to bring more clients by selling in more installments. Our credit concession is controlled, and we have the option to lengthen payment terms so people will be able to buy more. This helps us also to maintain the growth of the portfolio.
Thank you, Jean. The next question is from João Andrade, Bradesco BBI.
Good morning. Thank you. I'd like to know the trend in terms of rent prices because of inflation. Is there a clear trend? And can we expect higher rents for openings in next year?
Good morning, João. Thank you for the question. Rent has been under pressure in the last 24 months because of inflation. We have been able to renegotiate contracts with the majority of the owners of our stores. Once again, we celebrated 55 years. We always paid on time our rent, and the owners are our partners. Yes, concerning new stores, there has been a pressure to increase the price of stores. We have resisted. We have negotiated in order to follow the standard we have with the other stores. The other stores also had price increases, so we don't want to allow higher prices. We had cases, for example, people said, "If this candidate wins the elections, we accept." The owner said, "We accept this price." Now we will see.
We don't want to start stores with rent prices we don't believe in. Now, concerning the return, the average price of rent per store is 15,000 BRL, $3,000. 15,000 BRL to rent a store is a low price. We don't like to pay neither 16 nor 17 or 18, so we always fight for a hundred dollars. What affects us is sales. It's not the rent. Our return is more linked to sales, with sales that we believe we will have at these new stores. There were moments when we had the pandemic when we had super results and times like now that where we're suffering a little more. We went through more difficult times. This is also a difficult time. Let's see what will happen from now on.
One thing that I have to mention to all of you. I'm using this. We have usage of our credit cards outside the stores. When we measure with market numbers, we have a higher number of clients that have an income up to BRL 2,000 , $400. This class was hurt by inflation. We see clearly by income bracket that higher income people continued spending more, but lower income families had problems. We're waiting a little to see how this lower income class will behave in the next few years. Our model always worked with high interest rates, but not with inflation. We hadn't had a period of inflation in food that has affected the population with lower income as we had in the last periods. This is our challenge at Quero-Quero.
Thank you, Peter. The next question.
Jean, good morning. I'd like to know what you expect in terms of gross margin at the end of the year next year with the end of the discounts. My second question: With this scenario of gross margin and reduction in same-store sales, how are you planning the opening of new stores next year?
Good morning. I have to make clear, we don't have a guidance for gross sales or new store openings for the next quarters or next year. What we always work with within the pillars of the company, within the focus to control delinquency and to control cash flow, we want to continue investing in long-term growth of the company, as mentioned before. What do we see? The scenario of Q3 was more competitive and with greater promotions. The macro scenario has an impact on the company's margins.
We will see what happens in Q4. We don't see a great change in relation to Q3 in terms of impact on sales, but we will try to have less promotions than in Q3 to have a better margin. Now, in relation to same-store sales, reminding you that yes, we had same-store sales -7.6%, but it is improving in relation to Q2 when it had dropped 10.8%, and in Q3 last year we were still growing. The drop in same-store sales appeared in our results after Q4 last year.
Thank you, Jean. The next question from João Andrade, Bradesco BBI, for Peter Furukawa.
Please comment the dynamics between categories and the next few months.
Thank you for the question. This is interesting. I look at this. I hope there's a difference between the categories, but every day, every month, every year we look, they're very similar. There was a year because of the pandemic that construction material became more expensive than other categories and dropped less. In the last quarters, it has been the same. The categories are the same. This drop of 7.6% in same-store sales is similar in the categories. It doesn't change much in the categories. We have 60% of construction material, 30% electrical materials, 10% furniture. We haven't seen a change. The categories are very similar.
Now, if you look at November, there's a Black Friday when we will sell more electrical materials, but there isn't a great variance. We have promotions in the three categories. We have goals, so everyone is after construction material, electrical material and furniture.
Thank you, Peter. The last question is from Vinicius Prieto, Bank of A merica, for Jean.
How do you see the prices in industry, and how is competition and, what is the situation of the retailers in this time?
Well, what we have seen, it's important to remember the context. We had strong inflation in 2020. We increased prices, strong inflation also in 2021. What have we seen this year? We expected that inflation of the products we sell would be more aligned with the IPCA index. If you look at the history of the company, the inflation in cost is always linked to the inflation in the country. There are differences between some categories, and we see this year, but we expected a greater alignment, and this has happened.
At the beginning of this year, we had higher inflation due to the macro scenario, also with an impact from price of commodities. We see inflation dropping. We see some categories even with deflation in the last few months. The trend we see, we expect that this will stabilize, that gradually we have not seen scenarios as difficult as previous years in the supply chain. We hope this inflation will normalize. When we look at competition as a whole, when we see the performance of the company, negative same-store sales, this is the way the market is behaving. The same way that we're going through more difficult times in terms of income available for consumption, we believe all our competitors, local competitors, are also having the same situation.
I believe this led to higher number of promotions that we saw in the last few months. This has an impact on all of us. We have worked in this scenario to maintain our long-term vision, to maintain investment, but in a sustainable way, maintaining controlled working capital and cash flow generation. We believe that this macro scenario may change, and we will be prepared to continue winning market share as we did during the last few years and during the histo ry of the company.
Thank you, Jean. One more question from Felipe Andreoli, Verde Asset. It will be answered by Peter.
In the second semester of 2021, we had a strong drought in the country, especially in the south, and this had an impact on the harvest. This year, rain is coming early in good quantities, so we're optimistic with the harvest in the south. Other factors are to be seen. With a normal harvest in comparison with last year, will this help a better performance in sales?
Felipe, thank you for the question. I didn't want to say this in Q1 because I didn't want this to. We were affected by the drought in the south of the country. This also affected Santa Catarina and Paraná. I didn't want this to be an excuse. That's why I didn't mention this in Q1. We believe that this year the harvest will be better. We hear from all sides that the harvest will be better and there is no forecast of a drought. There has been a positive scenario for the next harvest.
We will try hard to take advantage of this improvement. When we have a good harvest, yes, we see a positive impact. When harvest is bad, we also suffer. So it helps a lot when we have a good harvest. I expect, I hope. This is not a guidance. We will have better goals due to this potential of improvement in the next harvest. This improvement is also relative. We have to bear this in mind. Since agro was very capitalized due to the good harvest, high prices of commodities, so farmers recapitalized, the drought hurt them, but things are not that bad. So now we will have a recovery, and I hope this will happen and bring us benefits too.
Thank you, Peter. Thus, we'd like to close the Q&A session. Thank you very much for the questions. Now I'd like to pass the floor to Jean for his final comments. Jean?
I'd like to thank once again. We are all available in the Investor Relations team to clarify future accounts. I'd like to thank you for your interest as investors. Thank you. Now Peter.
Well, so speaking after the third best manager of small caps in Latin America, there's not much I can say. I love my team. Very good people. I also do what I like. We have a very good team, hardworking people, better and better. We're During difficult times, some were the same that were here when things were going very well. Now we want to improve. We want to get even better than we were. When the water goes down, we see the stones.
We will learn from this. When water goes up again, we will be even better. Thank you very much for the interest in Lojas Quero-Quero. We will continue building the company of our dreams. Thank you.
Thank you. We would like to conclude the conference call of Lojas Quero-Quero.