Hello. Good afternoon, everyone. We're about to begin the video conference for the first quarter of Lojas Renner. We have Fabio Faccio, our CEO, and Daniel dos Santos, our CFO. Before handing over to them, I will give you a couple of messages. This is being recorded and streamed live. We will have the presentation in Portuguese on the screen, and you can click on the link in the chat to see the presentation in English. It's also on our IR website. For journalists, your questions can be directed to press office by phone, 3551-1316-59586.
Before we proceed, we would like to clarify that any potential statements made during this video conference related to business perspectives, operating and financial goals and projections are based on beliefs and assumptions based on information currently available and therefore are not guarantees of performance. For the Q&A session, the questions can be made by audio, so you can raise your hand here by clicking on the icon in the platform or in the Q&A icon. After the comments made by Fabio and Daniel, I'll explain how that will work better. Over to you, Daniel.
Thank you. Let's begin talking about our performance in net revenue in retail. We had robust growth in the first quarter at 63% year-over-year and 35% compared to the same quarter in 2019.
The sales performance, when we analyze that and compare it to the market, and that's based on the B2C, approximately 65% of growth that we see here. That means that Renner continues to grow its share in the segment and substantially higher than the market growth. In the first quarter, we saw sequential increase in some months. In January, we were impacted by Omicron, so we had tickets that were strongly affected, and some brick-and-mortar stores, given that moment we were going through in the pandemic. In February and March, we had an increase. The first quarter overall still had a flow of negative pieces and ticket, but in March, we were able to see positive figures compared to 2019. When we do the internal math based on that impact in January, if we had a normalized month, we would have grown 5%.
In the figures that we're showing here, 63.4% and 35%. What do we see here? On one side, we have the transition into fall/winter collection, and it's actually doing well in March. We already have positive sales in that. Also the omni supply with great operations, be it in stores or digitally. A highlight to the performance in our two divisions, where we have the two times of the consolidated, so growing 120%. That makes us feel very confident in relation to the strategy that we have in these two divisions. April is still moving fast in number of pieces and transactions compared to 2019. We see volume growth in number of pieces and ticket in two digits.
The Mother's Day event, digital or in brick-and-mortar, the assortment that we have is very well chosen, and the stores' teams are ready to enchant. Now, especially being so close to Mother's Day, we've had very positive sales. Moving on to the performance of our digital business. The growth of GMV in the quarter was approximately 38.7% year-over-year and 416% compared to 2019. A total of 15.2% or 1% in 1Q 2022. In April, we see that with the end of the restrictions and now people feel more comfortable going out into these shopping centers and sales centers, we see stronger movement in the stores. Even though brick-and-mortar has picked up, we're still growing our digital business.
Our omni strategy has clearly shown to be effective, where customers are able to choose the most convenient channel. If they're out and about, they can go to shopping centers, brick-and-mortar stores, and then they can shop digital when they're at home. It's been very efficient in this quarter and in the past month that we've seen a pickup in footfall. A good performance in digital because on one side, we have assortment in relation and content and fashion. Little by little, month after month. In that digital journey, we've been improving, be it in service level or be it through their experience on the website or the app. Today, the app accounts for 67% of online sales and balances in between our sales made by affiliates and website. We're still absolute leaders in MAU, and now we're the first leader.
For the first time, we're the leader in visits. Renner continues to be the top of mind in fashion retail. Gross margin. That was a bit of a concern in the last call. I'd like to highlight that we had an important recovery year-over-year. We achieved a gross margin of 55.1%, close to the pre-pandemic margin in 2019. That performance reflects the gains in efficiency, especially in relation to decrease in markdowns, which is at the lowest level in the past ten years. That's a result of the assertiveness of the collection. When you get the collection right, when consumers love it and want to buy, and the correct composition and makeup of inventory, and even with the partial makeup of inflation, has enabled us to go back to historical margins in 2019.
Without a doubt, maintaining healthy margins, that challenge will continue during the year given the economic environment. We believe that the right collection with less markdowns will enable us to maintain gross margin in line with the levels in 2019, and that's what we expect for 2022. Data share. We presented this slide on our last call, and I'd like to go over it again. I'd like to remind you that this is SG&A after for IFRS 16. That doesn't include rent costs. On the left, you see we have a very positive evolution year-over-year. Because of a bigger business scale, a growth of 60% has helped in gaining scale. At the same time we've had efficiency gains, especially in the digital operations.
When we compare that to 2019, we still have a higher SG&A base, 4.7 percentage points higher than pre-pandemic levels. Let's read this together, so it'll give us more clarity of the share of SG&A in net operating revenue. First of all, we have a 2 percentage point increase, basically resulting from the inflation. What we call BAU is most of the expenses that the Renner stores have for operations. We had record inflation in this 13-year period or three-year period, and that puts pressure on the base, and we still have volume that's negative in the first quarter. We had an impact in January, and that made the entire base negative.
In addition, we have the cost of the new distribution center in the city of Taubaté, interior of the state of São Paulo, which will start up in April, or has started up in April. As it's being activated during the year, we're gonna have duplicate costs, especially in terms of staff. That cost during 2022, as we activate the distribution center, will decrease. In 2023, when it's fully operational, we'll have the gains and savings related to our logistics operations that we will see in 2023. Another important thing that we have to have in mind is the natural pressure from store expansion that were opened in the past two years. These stores are performing well, but they're not at the same maturity level that they would have been if we hadn't had the pandemic. Now, let's talk about the second block.
That's our digital operation. It still has a cost that's higher than we can model, and it generates an impact to the total SG&A. The third block is the expenses to gain efficiencies in our ecosystem. The entire framework that we have currently dedicated to build the ecosystem, the omni ecosystem. Let me put these last two blocks into context. There are important points here. The pandemic enabled digital to move faster from 4%-15%. Clearly, back then, when that moved faster, we weren't 100% ready to handle that growth, be it in shipping or digital marketing costs. Since then, we have been continuously gaining efficiency. That efficiency gain, on one hand, we have our new DC that, after implemented, will give us 3 percentage points of margin in digital. I already mentioned that in last call.
In addition, when we integrate the offline scale, the volume that we have in sourcing the digital operations and using the last mile and activating points will give us even more efficiencies in our digital logistics path. In data integration, all the focus that we have on data will enable us to have pricing decision and shipping decisions more streamlined and improving that equation. We also have CRM and loyalty initiatives from more customer retention to more recurrence. During 2022, we've already had efficiency gains in digital as a result of those initiatives. We see the results in freight acquisition and a reduction of 6.2%. There are efficiency gains that we've seen in the quarter of 2022 year-over-year. In 2023, by implementing the plans that we have, we will continue to have gains in efficiency.
During 2023, when the entire logistics operation is ready and working, the CRM framework and the loyalty program will see more structural profitability in the digital channel being closer to brick-and-mortar. In 2022 and 2023, we will continue to see an efficiency in the digital operations, having gains of scale, enabling us to move as had last year. Now, about Realize, the Realize portfolio. We had an increase in financial services results, mainly driven by the higher portfolio volume and portfolio in the spending of Meu Cartão, and that shows how we're spreading that product. In relation to losses, the first thing I'd like to highlight is that in the comparison to 2021 and 2020, it is affected because in the pandemic we had a strong provision given the scenario, and as the scenario showed to be less problematic, that provision went back to 2021.
We see a very high amount in 2020 and higher in 2021. It's not a comparable base for us to reach a conclusion. When we compare that to a more normalized base, we do see an increase in losses, but that is in line with our expectations and according to the history of similar economic moments that we're going through. It's not a surprise to us what we see in that portfolio in 2022. Around Repassa and in Meu Cartão, we're looking for more profitability and taking that to more normalized levels of that product. The delinquency levels of the total portfolio also reflects the current macroeconomic scenario. It's in line with our strategy to profitabilize the portfolio. As I mentioned, it's in line with historical levels and our expectations for the period.
We believe that in the second quarter we'll have continuous growth of the portfolio with replenishment of revenues. We have to bear in mind that that comparison to 2021 will still be affected by the 2020-2021 period and the dynamics in those two years and where we had the provision. We continue with the expectation for the full year of 2022. We would have absolute results similar to 2019. EBITDA, total EBITDA of 2Q 2022 was 12 times higher compared to 1Q 2021, mainly resulting from the improvement in retail and financial services in the operation. In addition to that, we see a net income that's 23% higher compared to 2019, also reflecting the positive operation.
Our cash position is higher and with an increase in the interest rate, we have the results of financial services that is more positive than the previous period. We also see lower income tax liability level, be it resulting from the follow-on we had last year and also tax incentives, especially the ones that we call that are related to investment and related to imports that are higher given the high level of imports. The behavior of that during the year is not exactly proportional to the sales. It's higher in Q1 when we have a higher level of imports to be able to operate the inventory levels during the year. It's higher in the first quarter. For the second quarter 2022, we expect to continue to increase our EBITDA.
We believe that the absolute EBITDA pre-IFRS will continue to increase compared to the levels in 2019. That's our expectation for all of 2022, to end the year with a nominal EBITDA pre-IFRS similar to 2019. Now I'm going to hand over to Fabio.
Thank you, Daniel. It's important to mention that in addition to the sequential evolution that Daniel has showed us, our performance for the quarter and after the quarter, now that he's mentioned April and Mother's Day, we have positive expectations for the year and also maintain our focus in the long-term strategy. Our objective is to be the largest ecosystem in fashion and lifestyle in Latin America, offering a more complete and relevant journey for our customers. Enchantment is part of our purpose. That's why we're increasing our pace. In a growing way, increasing recurrence, lifetime value, stickiness.
On the next slide, I'll show you some of the advances that we've had to the main front. When we think about our priorities, one of them is to continue to advance in omni. Daniel has already mentioned that in the quarter it's shown to be the right strategy and we continue to advance it. It is our priority. We have deliveries in up to two days. We have same day, next day or maximum two days on a country average. We had an increase of 18 percentage points year-over-year. When we look at the metropolitan region, the Greater São Paulo area and Rio de Janeiro, where we have the biggest markets, we had an increase in same day and D plus one, so next day products of 27 percentage points year-over-year.
Even so, even with that improvement in service level concerning the cost per shipment, we had a reduction of 24% year-over-year, even with the entire inflationary pressure and improvement of service level. Now in April, we acquired Uello. It's a native digital logtech focused on experience and real-time management of the last mile. That's fundamental for last mile management, so we can gain more efficiency with more speed and quality. We're integrating with Uello. It hasn't positively impacted us yet, but we're absolutely sure that not only Uello as a company will be able to grow, but it can also add a lot to our logistics ecosystem. As Daniel mentioned, we started up the operation of our distribution center in April, and we started with the first operations for Camicado.
During the second half, we'll start the transfer of some of the operations in fashion. About channel diversification for the channels available and gaining relevance with a highlight to our favorite program on WhatsApp with that new channels marketplace, B2B, WhatsApp and favorite. That already accounts for 22% of the digital GMV. Obviously, our highest share, as Daniel mentioned, is app sales and that is our strategy app first. We're still growing a lot in app sales. In the stores operation, digitization has also advanced. We've been implementing more self-service checkout and using the Pague Digital, which was restricted to Cartão Renner and the Renner Card. Now we're using third-party cards and that should increase the Pague Digital tool even more. That's important for speed in stores, convenience and digitalization for the stores and customers by increasing our customer base on the Renner app.
We also have an expansion plan. We've inaugurated two units in the quarter, in the first quarter, one Renner and one Camicado. Up to the time being, to yesterday, we had 10 and now we have another one. It's 11 stores in the year. Out of those 11, 7 of them are in places where we were not present yet. That's additional sales, not only for click and mortar, but also digital. It's worth mentioning that when we open a store in a new place, we add on average 20 percentage points for digital sales in that same city or place as well. For the year, our expectation is to open approximately 40 stores. The share of omni customers has doubled compared to 2020, and it already accounts to 30% of revenues in our ecosystem.
That really increases our potential because omni customers have a higher spend on average three times higher than other customers too, that only buy on one channel. In CRM, we continue to advance. Daniel mentioned that was an important share that's been improving our performance in digital, not only in sales but also in channel profitability. We already have an active customer base of approximately 18.3 million active customers, with an evolution of 31.3% year-over-year, with an increase in retention of 10 percentage points, also higher than the previous year. It's also worth noting that that customer base, we have already found 85% of all our revenue, so that we know these customers better, their consumer data, their consumption data, so we can offer them a better journey. In the branding pillar, we've increased in content.
We've increased the participation of our influencers in new channels. You'll see 500 new ones. We've had more live sessions. We're bringing in more knowledge, flow, engagement, and customer profitability. We had 11 sessions in the quarter. In addition to a marathon with 25 sessions on Instagram alone in March. With that, we had an increase of 85% of the digital flow coming from this campaign and an increase in 20% in Instagram posts. We lowered the customer acquisition cost on digital, so that shows us that we're on the right path to strengthen the brand presence in digital, to gain flow, to gain value with efficiency, with increasingly more efficiency. About marketplace. That's an important action in our advances in digital.
It's important to stress that our strategy is to increase assortment, especially in categories that add on to our core business. In that sense, Renner and Camicado are still working on sellers and categories with a lot of curatorship and selected items. In Renner, we have approximately 240 sellers, 37% increase in the assortment, focusing on adding on to products, categories, and price ranges. In Camicado, we have 245 sellers, and we continue to advance in the curatorship with our partners, focusing on categories that will better add on. We can strengthen the synergy of brands in the ecosystem. Taika and Youcom in the Renner marketplace are among the top five sellers at Renner.
When we bring together the two marketplaces, Renner and Camicado, they already account for 7.2% of GMV in digital, bringing in more flow and the benefit of cross-selling for our 1P product, in addition to the convenience to customers, new add-ons, different categories, and price ranges, increasing the flow for all of us and our sellers. On the next slide, we talk about Realize, our financial services company that continues with a number of new initiatives to occupy our ecosystem. We've increased our active customer base by 27% year-over-year. With that, we had a growth of 63% in total payment volume, achieving BRL 2.7 billion. The customer base growth brought on a very positive reflection on the spend of these customers out of the ecosystem, and it already accounts for 56% of the quarter.
The churn is lower by 63% year-over-year as well. In the Realize digitization, it's worth mentioning that 90% of our customer base has already interacted digitally with Realize. Access to our digital channels grew 31% year-over-year. We also had advances in prioritizing the offer of non-card channel, an increase of 11% in how many were captured. We already have that in 100% of the Camicado stores, which wasn't a reality in the past. That's why we're expanding Realize presence in our ecosystem. 56% of our active base comprised of non-card channel customers, a growth of 17.7 percentage points year-over-year as well. For the Renner Card, we've already had...
We've also had evolution as well with the highlight of the card in all the Youcom stores as well. In digital with the pilot, we're doing a co-building process with a complete solution and to expand that solution to more places as of the second quarter. About the leveraging of our ecosystem and using data and technology, we continue to advance by applying AI in deciding the assortment and guiding us in each store according to local customer preference and also the e-commerce orders in that region, positioning our inventory levels even better and improving service for our customers. About the sales forecast, we have stability in the forecast models. Also increases the use of our system in recommending actions with the changing trends, that assortment and presentation of subclasses and SKUs to improve the performance of each unit as well.
Replenishment, that's a front that we started a while back, so we continue to advance on that as well. We maintain replenishment with AI in the fast fashion items that account for 43% of sales. We've also been advancing more and installs to CRM to gain more granularity in that service level. In addition, Uello is also coming in with a couple of items that already account for 11% of sales in that model, and in Camicado, 10% of sales are already being replenished with AI. In addition to replenishment, assortment decisions. Upon purchase, we have tools for volume suggestion, which enables our inventory to become increasingly more assertive, as well as a more integrated production chain to avoid any rupture or excess items.
In regards to prices, we continue to work on our markdown engine, and our pricing engine is evolving at Camicado, where we have 16% of sales that are already under that pricing engine model. On the next slide, I'm going to talk about ESG. We're very happy to say that in this quarter we've inaugurated our second circular store with a concept of circular economy, circularity, in addition to digital transformation. For the sixth consecutive year, we are part of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. We've evolved into the gold ranking, and we had the highest global score among all retailers. With that, we'd like to stress our commitment to promote respect towards sustainability. In social, we recently signed the commitment letter of the Economic Empowerment for Refugees and Migrants from UN Women.
We were also recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project as a leader in supplier engagement and the only Brazilian retailer, fashion retailer in that ranking. In governance, we had our general shareholders meeting in April, on April 27, which was partially digital and in person. It was hybrid, so 22% of our capital stock was present, and all of the agenda was approved. In January also, the board approved the buyback program. The total number of shares to be acquired is 18 million shares in up to 18 months. It's worth noting that by the end of April, we had already bought back 56.7% of the total amount approved by the program. In summary, we've done a lot already, but there's still more to come.
On this slide, we're trying to give you the order of magnitude of our initiatives last year and this year, but showing that we still have more to do. We said that there are still many gains in efficiency to achieve in 2022, 2023 and 2024. We want to give you some estimates here. An example, in digital assortment, where we've already increased by 24% in the quarter, but we have an ambition of increasing that even more, expanding or increasing the assortment for our customers and consequently increasing sales. In CRM, base has grown 31.1%. It will continue to grow. Our service level for online customers, where we started at zero deliveries and we've increased that by 18 percentage points year-over-year.
We should achieve a bigger, even bigger pace, approximately 80% in the next year based on the service level that we believe is the minimum to service our customers at a lower cost. In Omni, our customer base continues to increase. We currently have 18 million customers that are present in different channels, and we've continued to grow. About cost to attract our customers. The customer acquisition cost over revenues has been sequentially dropping. At Realize, the revenues from services have gained relevance and will continue to increase. We move into the second quarter of the year. Daniel has already mentioned that the sales are still very good. In the beginning of May, we're close to Mother's Day, sales are positive. April and May, they're greater than our initial expectations. We're very much ready for the reality that we've been seeing now and moving forward.
We continue committed to our purpose to consolidate as the leading ecosystem in Latin America, and we're very optimistic about the short term. We've seen a very significant demand for our products, market gains. We're absolutely sure that the investments that we've made in the pandemic and are still making now have brought on a differential for our company. We continue to act on our priorities, executing online, growing digital share, increasing our omni customer base, investing in logistics and technological platforms as they are essential for us to advance in the service level and gain productivity. Making many improvements in responsiveness and demand in time to market. Having the right product at the right time in the right space, so we can have a chain that's increasingly more integrated and fast.
Our investments at Realize, which on its own is already a very important business and adds value to all of us and our partners in the ecosystem. With all of that and being highly focused, we're looking for generating more value, productivity, and efficiency in our operations. Daniel, I believe, has already mentioned just how much we're growing above the market. This is a line of the IBGE Monthly Survey of Trade. You can see that there is market consolidation going on. We still see that happening. As what happens in different times, we've been expanding our market gain. We believe that this time we have an even better opportunity to do that.
As a result of the debt, of the crisis and the significance of this crisis, the market frailty, and at the same time, all the efforts and investments and initiatives that we have done in that sense to improve our company. Based on the consumer point of view, because it's a moment where a consumer will look for a brand that they trust more, and we've been investing so that they will not only trust us based on our past performance, but also for the future as well. That's how we believe we can gain even more with that. To conclude the presentation, you can see that the trust and the investments that we've been making, we can tell that customers can see the value in our investments.
You can see that during the past years, we've exceeded our historical level of our intent to lead. Once again, in first quarter of 2022, we beat our record. That's to show that we do know that there's many things for us to improve. That's why we're still investing. It does show us that we're on the right path. Even though there's still a number of different opportunities, the strategy is right, the path is right, and we believe we will see growing gains for every period that's coming. I think we talked too much, right? We want to leave some time for Q&A. I'll hand back over to Carla.
Thank you, Fabio and Daniel. Now we're going to begin the Q&A session. You can ask them out loud. Just press the button, raise your hand or ask a question in the Q&A button.
I'm gonna start with the audio questions from Helena Villares from Itaú. You can unmute.
Hi, everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Okay. We have two questions on our side at Itaú. Thank you for taking our questions. The first one is that you've shared a lot about logistics, the distribution center, the Uello, everything that you've been doing. What do you think about the midterm, about what's still missing or was that the investments that you wanted? During the call, you also shared about how we could think about the ramp up. Thinking three, four years into the future, how big do you think the Uello operation would be or distribution center capacity? We want to look at logistics in the midterm.
Second thing that you shared during the call in the release is the use of AI and how you've been focusing on that in many different areas of the operation, and that's a very interesting aspect. We see in global players that have very successful operations. We see that as well. What do you think are the main learnings in using AI? What have been the main challenges? Those are two questions.
Thank you. I'll start, Helena, and then Daniel can add afterwards. About your first question, and thank you for your question. About logistics.
We have a strategy, an important strategy in our logistics platform, which is positioning, inventory, the entire logistics operation, fulfillment and network and supply handling and supply to customers. When we look at the investments, relevant investments that we made in the new DC, it's hard, I'd say, for brick-and-mortar stores and last mile and the omni operations, digital operations. It's very modern technologies in the distribution center. It will be the most modern in our segment in Latin America. That will bring on higher levels of efficiency for our operation. When I say efficiency, not only in speed but also in cost, in replenishing stores and also delivering to our customers. Also an opportunity to scale that up, which is very important in logistics. We'll have a win-win situation.
We're going to bring in all our operations to the same engine, so the same heart, and we gain synergy in shipping, transportation and can even service our partners and we can deal, gain more scale, frequency, cost reduction and gain in service level for everyone. That's not just the DC operation. That's an important thing. There's also the positioning of the inventory to gain efficiency in cost and speed. About Uello, managing the last mile, I think we can help to scale up Uello's presence, and he can give us better management in our last mile, giving us more efficiency. For investment, we definitely still have some things to do. A more relevant part of that was focused on the new distribution center when we think of investment. Daniel? Yeah.
The most relevant part is behind us already, and our priorities going forward are executing all of that, really starting that up, integrating well with the operation. Unless we have a very giant volume growth, which would make us very happy and we would consider additional investment. The DC is sufficiently priced to operate, to work with our operations for the next 5-6 years. Second question, Helena. The learnings in AI and algorithms, and so on. There are many. Just modeling that in a scenario with so much volatility is really hard. We could have even deployed some solutions even faster. We're a bit conservative, I'd say, in some aspects, because if you automate some solutions without being sure of it, you'll make it worse. I'd say that we're being very realistic.
We don't want to move up too fast. Staying still can help, of course, but in times of volatility could even make things worse. We're scaling that up in a very conscientious manner so that we can use the tools and the solutions to have gains in efficiency and profitability and positioning of inventory and pricing and volume decisions that are better. We've been looking to be very careful and not speed things up too much and worsen the net at the end. That's why we've had gains. If we were just focusing on doing faster, I don't think our gains would have been so good.
Thank you. Very clear.
Next question is from Ruben from Santander. Go ahead.
Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to follow up on Helena's question about investment.
It seems like most of it has already been done. Can you give us an update on your CapEx expectations for the year? I think there was some ups and downs because of the distribution center opening and store openings. How do you think about the amount for the year, what we should expect? Given that most of the investments have already been made, how should we think about capital allocation going forward? The cash generation should improve during the year, as you mentioned. The payout and the share buyback, can you give us an update on that? Fabio mentioned that the program that you just started at the beginning of the year, you already bought back almost 60%. Is there room to increase that buyback program or speed that up?
Thank you, Ruben.
Starting off with CapEx, our vision for this year in investment is approximately BRL 1 billion. In that, we have strong investments in the ecosystem which are related to technology. We still have some last investments in the DC and then store openings and expansion. About the buyback. We already bought back 56%. Obviously. We've been monitoring the shares and all of them are operating at lower levels. We'd like to take advantage of lower prices and at some point we might speed up. In that existing program that we've already disclosed in the beginning of January, we should be able to execute that and initiate earlier.
Okay, thank you.
Next question is from Danniela Eiger from XP. Go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question.
My first one is pretty much a follow-up to Ruben's question, but more on a capital framework angle. I'd like to know, what do you think about your current framework? I know that there's a macro challenge, which is good. Sometimes you have higher liquidity buffer. I'd like to hear your vision, Daniel. What would be the ideal capital framework? Would be a higher payout level to what Ruben said. I'd like to hear your vision on that. The other one is about EBITDA margin dynamics. Daniel, you mentioned dilution of SG&A as one specific point. I think I lost that. When will we start seeing the margin, the gross margin going back to normal and being reflected on the EBITDA margin? What do you think would be a nor malized EBITDA margin in your ecosystem with digital share?
We'd have more pressure, margin pressure on that. That's all. Those are my questions.
Thank you, Danniela. Let's take that step by step. First of all, let's talk about the capital structure. As you mentioned, it was adequate for the moment that we were going through the follow-on when it happened, and you see all the investment that was made. When we consider 2021 and 2022, 2021 we considered CapEx and OpEx BRL 1.3 billion and 2022 OpEx, CapEx, Uello and the distribution center, all of that would total approximately BRL 3 billion. We're using those funds that entered the company last year. We are aware that we still have a high cash position, so the capital structure could be improved. That discussion is part of the agenda.
We're looking at our strategy in relation to new businesses, maybe new acquisitions that can be done to streamline and expedite the building of our ecosystem. Now in August, September, we should look at what we can do to improve our capital structure. That's what we can share with you at this time. About your second point, what was that again? The EBITDA margin. Evolution in the short term, evolution and what would be a normal level. Thank you. That's the number one question always, right? In the next quarters we'll see a sequential evolution, an improvement of our EBITDA margin. All of us have the 2019 EBITDA margin as reference. At this time, what I can share is that we will continue to see a positive evolution of the EBITDA margin.
Given it's a new business model, because before we only had brick-and-mortar and now we're going to have digital stores and ecosystem, new services. What we've been making very clear is that we believe that our EBITDA generation and for company growth and EBITDA generation will be higher. It will be different. Considering a capital return from 15%-20%, that's what we want to achieve. Being able to achieve the same level of the 2019 EBITDA is something that's hard to say when and if it's possible to get there. In the upcoming quarters we'll have a sequential improvement and that gap will become increasingly smaller.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from João Soares, Citi. Hi, João. Unmute, please.
Hi, Carla. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to hear about your sales.
We see sales going faster and your breakdown was very clear with traffic, with price. In the short term, I'd like to know about the evolution. What's driving the sales now? Is it the predictability is coming back and prices are heating up? Can you give us some flavor? How do you see the sales sustainability? Another interesting aspect is the market share dynamics that you've shared. Can you talk more about where you're getting market share gains? Where do you see better opportunities for growth and with speed? Last, if you allow me, about the portfolio. Daniel mentioned that a lot and that you expect growth in the short term. I'd like to hear about and like you mentioned, absolute results in the year shouldn't be similar to 2019. What about delinquency? In the Realize results, what is your opinion about delinquency?
João will answer your first question and Daniel will answer the rest. Well, about sales. We've seen growing movement. I think January was an outlier because of Omicron. February was good, March better, April even better, and May seems good as well. We're still in the beginning and in the most important moment of the month. March was very good. April and May has been very good in sales. Part of that, we see market share gains. We also see a recovery in the industry. The increase in population mobility leads to a demand for fashion items, even more higher demand. People have more demand and higher consumption because more mobility. They're gonna go to parties, social events, go back to work. That's with the entire industry. In the industry, we do have market share gains.
That usually happens during times like these, where companies that have a better value proposition and that consumers trust. The other part is because of the better assertiveness of our collection, a great product, excellent value proposition. The other aspect, because of the investments that we've made. Because in fact, we have invested, especially in 2021 and 2022, and the investment brings the return. It's starting to show why it was made. We have better service level. We have more channels working. Growth comes from all sides. Important recovery in brick-and-mortar, but continuous growth in digital as well. It's a consolidated increase in demand, gain in market share, and that gain in market share is because a very adequate value proposition and because of all the investments we've made for that. That's very sustainable during the year.
Obviously, it's hard to say how that will be going forward. We still have the rest of May ahead of us. June, we have Valentine's Day in Brazil, and then we still have the middle of winter, and then we have the election in the second half. There are many different variables. We can't really say how things will be going forward. What we see currently is even higher than what we expected, and let's see how that will behave. The market gains and the investments that we made are long-lasting and sustainable. I believe that that should continue. João, about the Realize portfolio and how we see that going forward. We will see an increase in that. We'll continue to explore that. We'll be fully using the Renner customer base, be it by offering cards through Youcom, Camicado, or even the Renner stores.
We'll see that increasing. Obviously, granting credit, because we're going to monitor that, and their credit team has been monitoring that on a daily basis about how we can manage risk in the current situation. Fortunately, we have a number of information that's available and the team can calibrate that. Be it a place, a region, they can calibrate credit supply for the portfolio. When you increase the portfolio in nominal losses, the amount will increase. With the credit policy that we will have, we should be able to adjust that and have good profitability and reach the level that we expect. Which is to achieve the total EBITDA that we had in 2019.
Great. Congratulations on your results.
Thank you, João.
Next question is from Richard from BBI.
Hi, Carla. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question.
I'd like to know about 5/25. Will you show us the progress that you've had in some metrics and KPIs in the ecosystem and what you have for 2024 and 2025? Others that you've been advancing, active customers, new customer base and so on. I'd like to know if you're more advanced for what you expected at this time. If it, in the upcoming quarters and next year, the goals will be reviewed upwards. Just understand where you're at on that journey. If you had an even bolder goal for the future.
Thank you for your questions . Without specifically going into one in the consolidated of everything. When we look at the first quarter. It's very much in line with the expectations, not only in results but also in deliveries. When we evolve sequentially in sales and deliveries, we've evolved sequentially.
I say that snapshot at the end of the first quarter, we are according to expectations, very close, a bit higher, and also in the deliveries as well. We see a sequential improvement. At this time, still the beginning of the second quarter, not only in sales but also delivery, we see a sequential improvement. In the snapshot we're above our expectations in deliveries as well. There's still a lot to consider if that will reflect an improvement from 2025. First quarter is in line and now we're detaching from that and improving in our expectations and deliveries as well.
Okay, that's all. Thank you, Fabio.
Next question is from Joseph, from JPMorgan. How are you?
Good afternoon, Carla, Fabio, Daniel. Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to talk about the connection of Realize with the company's fashion ecosystem.
You're mentioning a lot using the Realize portfolio. That's very expressive. I'd like to explore how the Realize customer has behaved in the omni world and how that compares. When you compare the Realize customer in omni or the purely digital customer to see the real actual power of that ecosystem. The second point is, what are you doing in opportunities? You mentioned financial incentives like cashback and if that's a driver for you and engagement subject to what you've seen in that sense. Lastly, looking at the system makeup. The surprise for the quarter was Youcom. How do you see the potential to build digital native brands in Renner for the fashion ecosystem? You.com is a spin-off of the Renner lifestyle. Maybe building other brands and other categories. Thank you.
Thank you, Joseph.
The first part of your question about the importance of the Realize customer and Realize importance to the ecosystem, it's very relevant. Let me give you an example. You mentioned Realize customers and their relationship with our brands. We talk a lot about how many customers have three times more spend than the ones that spend on just one channel. When we talk about Realize that work in more ecosystems of Renner and Youcom, Renner and Camicado, that type of customer spends seven times more than other customers. Yes, it is an important customer. When we see Realize customer, if it's one channel, they have a higher spend. If it's Omni, they have a higher spend. If it's multi-brand in the ecosystem, that's even higher spend. The importance of the Realize customer is very relevant.
Realize as a business on its own still has a lot to grow and a lot of opportunities and increase assortment and services and be more present in the ecosystem. It is very much focused on the Renner brand and now it's starting to have more of that with Camicado, Youcom and other partners in that ecosystem. We can also foster and offer that benefit for customers. We're in the test and the pilot of our loyalty program that should be launched by the end of the year. We've been testing that a lot because we don't want to just be a cashback program.
We know it's a benefit for customers, but we see a lot of that and we've been testing that a lot in the pilot and offering benefits for our customers that make sense for them and leverage their experience, making them a cross brand customer that don't just depend on cashback. We're creating a program that we believe will be something that is very different for our customers and for us as well, because they're very important for all the brands that you mentioned. About your second question about Youcom. We've seen important growth at You.com. It's something that we launched a while back and we've been working on it a lot. We've been improving that model, and I believe that we're at a very good level. The collections are very nice. Our Youcom customers, our brand fans, they strongly interact with the brand.
It's a loved brand, and it's been making us very happy. We've done great work with it. It is a different model than what we had in the main operation at Renner. Yes, it does enable us to think that we can have an opportunity for another brand, a specialized brand for a specific target audience. Right now, we don't have anything in mind. No projects to be launched. Yes, it shows us that there's an opportunity for having projects like that for specific target audiences, as we had for Youcom and, as you can see, has had significant growth.
Thank you, Fabio.
I have a question from I rma, Goldman Sachs.
I'd like to know about the competition of third-party cards.
At what level do you see the share in sales being stabilized, and what are the differentials that you are offering and will still offer to defend and grow the base and share of your own card plan?
Thank you, Irma, for your question. Well, first of all, let's put that into context, right? What's been happening in the past two years? A great source of growth in card issuance is the stores. The stores were closed. They lost footfall. The major source of growth went through a very difficult situation. Now, with store openings and recovery, you see that that's coming back. That will continue, especially because now we have Camicado, we have Renner, we have Youcom. We have a base that's available where we can explore the card issuance even more.
On the other hand, we have initiatives to increase the share of the cards in the strategy where we leave the private label, like just Renner and with a bigger brand, then it's another way to increase share. It's gonna have all the advantages for customers to buy at Renner. Many installments, interest-free and other campaigns that can happen through the card. It will still maintain an advantage in buying in the Renner store chain and stores and ecosystem. These initiatives in the ecosystem will coexist with the card. When you think of the loyalty program, the CRM program, a Realize card is going to be an essential aspect of that program. We believe that that will enable us to recover the Renner share or the Renner Card share in the Renner sales.
Thank you, Daniel.
We have one more question on the chat, which is related to the delinquency. I think it was already answered. In collection or risk, if you have nothing to say about that, Daniel, we would end the current session.
No, I think I've already addressed that.
Thank you everyone for your attention. Daniel, Fabio, would you like to make any final comments?
We'd like to thank everyone for your presence. It's the first quarter that we see post-pandemic, so we're very satisfied with our Q1, Q2 results, and even more happy about the results we're seeing in the second quarter. I believe the next call will be in August. Have a great Mother's Day. Thank you everyone.
As Daniel mentioned, for the first quarter, it was almost clean.
I'd say we still had an impact in the beginning, and in the second quarter, I hope things will be increasingly more normal. In that more normal context, we see that very favorable and especially for the company because we've been working a lot for that to happen in the past months. There's a trend, an expectation that we will see significant improvement in the upcoming months. Thank you for your attention and presence. Happy Mother's Day. Congratulations to all the mothers out there and have a great day.