Good morning. I apologize. We had a problem with the audio. I think now it's working well. We'll start our video conference for earnings of the 4Q 2024. Fabio Faccio, our CEO, and Daniel dos Santos, our CFO, are here with me, and before I pass the floor, I would like to make some announcements. We're having this conference recorded and with simultaneous translation. For those who follow in English, the presentation is available here and on our website. Any questions can be sent to our PR, and before we continue, that any forward-looking statements, projections, goals are assumptions based on the information we have available today and do not ensure performance. That depends on circumstances that may or may not occur. In the Q&A, the questions can be asked only through audio. Therefore, Fabio, you have the floor.
Thank you, Carla. Good morning, and thank you for being with us. First, I would like to start thanking our team for their effort, dedication, and engagement with the purpose of enchanting all. I would also like to thank our more than 20 million customers for their trust, preference, recognition, and also suggestions. I would like to thank our thousands of business partners and shareholders for their trust, as well as our board of directors for the trust and excellent contributions. In 2024, we completed a cycle of investments that was the most significant in our history. We expanded our competitive advantages, we sped up our growth, and improved our profitability in a sustainable manner. Our results, especially in the second quarter of the year, second half of the year, already show part of this evolution.
Our business model is boosted by several important initiatives that restrengthen our position as a reference in the fashion execution sector, integrated operation, and experience to enchant the customer. Additionally, our growth also generated positive impact for our stakeholders through several initiatives of responsible fashion. We strongly believe that governance, sustainability, and social inclusion, in addition to being necessary to our society, are also strong allies of the greatest sustained generation of results. Our investments in the past years allowed us to leverage, through technology, use of data and AI, for a more agile, flexible, precise, and integrated model. We're proud of our accomplishments in 2024, a year that marks the beginning of a new cycle in our company. We're meeting our objectives and restrengthening our long and successful trajectory in the South American retail.
The benefits of the model will continue to evolve even more as the initiatives gain traction. Operating results of the fourth quarter restate the power of this model. We delivered sales growth above market average with a healthy gross margin and growing ROIC. The evolution of the collections, together with the flexibility, agility, and accuracy of our model, together with improvements in operating efficiency, allowed us to achieve a record generation of free cash flow. The evolutions that we did throughout the fourth quarter are related also to some of our main growth levers: store productivity, digitalization, omni-operation, and organic expansion. And these evolutions happened in all our business units that we have today and in all the countries. In fashion execution, the advanced use of data analysis to identify trends and speed up developing new collections benefited sales, including the periods of Black Friday and Christmas.
By leveraging the use of AI to recognize trends and identify products, we were able to capture new trends and act quickly with renewed products, which reflected in the inventory turnover during the time. This greater flexibility and agility allowed a larger part of our collection to be developed and produced during the season, expanding the volume of pieces sold and the volume of transactions. Healthy inventory resulted in a reduction of five days in the average time, and reducing old inventory reduced the fourth quarter, contributing to having a lower markdown in the fourth Q since 2016. We are well positioned with a strong value proposition and with the use of high-end technology to calibrate precisely the preference of our customers. Our renewed and adjusted inventory adapts quickly to changes to the new demand patterns, positioning us in a unique and differentiated way compared to the market.
We believe that this will boost new continuous gains in market share. Our Omni-supply model, we operate 100% per SKU, with reduced lead time to replenish stores, which significantly improved the level of service at stores and sales performance during the quarter. These advances reflect our continuous commitment and overcome consumer expectations with excellence in collections and a more customized, integrated, and enchanting journey. This fourth quarter was our fourth quarter in a row in which sales growth was driven by increase of pieces sold and by transaction volume reflects our well-adjusted pricing that adhered to our value proposition and driven by our positioning and the power of the brand. Our sales per square meter is referenced in the industry, and even with greater sizes than the average of the industry, this quarter showed again continuous growth of this important driver for growth and profitability.
Sales per square meter in the quarter increased 9%, result of increasing productivity in our operations. We started in January the last migration of e-commerce to the new distribution center, and the full transition is forecast for the second quarter of 2025, which should help even more this growth. Continuous digitalization of the customer journey also contributed relevantly for sales per square meter. We closed 2024 with almost 60% of Renner units with self-checkouts that have RFID technology and are considered by many as a global reference in the industry. As to e-commerce, once again, Renner App continues to rank first in number of downloads and monthly active users among all national fashion players, as we can see in the App Annie.
GMV Digital, another important lever for our growth, grew 18% with a share of 13.7% in the quarter, which is a record for a fourth quarter at Renner. The improved NPS in all our businesses and channels during the quarter, as well as the milestone of more than 20 million active customers, are also a strong sign of an enchanting customer service that is very successful, and it reflects in past and future results. As Daniel will tell you soon, despite the increase in cost due to the exchange rate effects during the period, the gross margin in retail stayed at healthy levels, and we're satisfied with the positive trend that we have so far, boosted by precision and agility of our fashion execution. It's worth mentioning that we haven't achieved all the benefits of our model, which will be gradually captured as operations advance and gain traction.
At Camicado, the sales per square meter increased 70%, again with increase in volume of transactions and items per purchase, as well as strong increase of the gross margin of 3.1 percentage points, another record of the fourth quarter. Again, in another good quarter, the business shows we were right in reviewing the strategy at Camicado started a little over two years ago, in addition to continuing evolution of executing and managing sales and operations. We selectively closed some units, streamlining our number of stores, and today we can invest more in renovating the units and growing sales per square meter, expanding the development of our own brand and exclusive products. The light to efficient inventory management continues to provide growing results in sales and profitability for our brand, Camicado, even in a challenging landscape for this industry, showing the potential of our model also in this industry.
Youcom sales also significantly grew during the quarter, with a good acceptance of the high summer collection, strong operating execution, and greater engagement of our target brand with the brand. With an increase of 19% of sales, it was more than double market average, reflecting successful initiatives to support a more integrated and enchanting journey. Youcom still has great potential for growth and continuous evolution of profitability, both by increasing same-store sales as digital growth and organic expansion, which hasn't achieved half of its potential yet, and by the entry in an important phase in which we have the opportunity to expand the average square meters of the store, providing even more appeal to our customers and leveraging operating results for our business.
At Realize , we improved risk and credit management and the value proposition, offering exclusive benefits to our customers that have contributed to increase the customer base in retail. The strategy at Realize confirmed its relevance as driver for retail, both in financing sales, which increased its share, as well as making our customers loyal. And all this with profitability. The results grew significantly in the quarter and more than doubled in the year, with significant reduction of portfolio risk. I would like to pass the floor to Daniel to present a detailed analysis of our results.
Thank you, Fabio. Good day, everyone. About our growth in the quarter, in this fourth quarter, we achieved 9.7% growth. This is our fifth quarter in a row of sales growth, driven by increase of sold pieces and transactions.
This is due to our fourth brand positioning and value equation in our mix of products. Our fashion execution, leveraged by artificial intelligence, allows more renewal of collections, while our replenishing model by SKU offers more precision and agility. Another point to highlight is the increase of 9% sales per square meter in the quarter, which reflects our initiatives to improve customer journey, as well as digitalization of stores, which significantly improved convenience to our customers. Agility in fashion execution, as well as evolution in the replenishing model, lower lead time to deliver to stores, higher precision in allocating products, and fewer ruptures also helped our levels of sales per square meter. Next, we have one of the highest index of sales per square meter in fashion in Brazil. As Fabio said, our e-commerce continued to grow, GMV Digital showing 18% growth and 13.7 penetration in the quarter.
It's important to highlight that, once again, our business units grew more above the market. We closed the year with 8.2% growth and continue gaining market share. About gross margin, gross margin is also benefited by the fashion execution model that is more accurate and precise. We achieved our lowest level markdown in a quarter in the past eight years. Additionally, our average inventory time dropped, followed by significant reduction of old inventory. This is a result of a more agile development of our collections and a supply chain more and more integrated and responsive. Important to highlight that gross margin of fourth quarter was negatively impacted by the adjustment to present value, we call. Adjustment to present value is an accounting effect in our operations that brings to present value those sales in installments using interest rates and market.
It was higher than our expectations due to the high increase of interest rates compared to the interest rates dynamic of the same quarter last year. This impacted the positive expectation of gross margin we had for the beginning of the quarter. It's important to note that our gross margin, structural and operational, was 0.2 percentage point year-over-year, even with higher costs due to the effect and without repassing price. This effect of the interest rate curve will still impact the first half of 2025. It's important to clarify this hedging. We closed the fourth quarter with one third of the quarter hedged at a rate of less than 6%. Due to increase of FX, we increased our coverage, and today we have almost 100% of our first half hedged below 6%, six reais. As to operating expenses, we continue our commitment to keep our expenses under control.
The fourth quarter, we presented operating leverage with SG&A with growth lower than revenue, allowing reduction of SG&A as percentage of sales at 0.8 percentage point year-over-year. We closed the year of 2024 with a 1.3 percentage point reduction year-over-year. Increase of sales expenses also reflected higher sales commission, as well as salary adjustments related to previous years. Growth and profit share of our employees also increased due to overcoming the targets for 2024 compared to the performance below target in 2023. Also, expenses are proportionally higher in the fourth quarter because they had accumulated at a lower level in previous periods. Also, it's worth mentioning that the benefits of recovering fiscal credits were significantly lower in the fourth quarter, 2024 quarter compared to 4Q 2023. Realize, our financial institution, delivered another quarter with significant improvement.
The result was positive in BRL 61.4 million in the quarter and almost BRL 168 million in the year. The share of our sales card also increased, showing that we continue to boost retail sales, increasing customer loyalty. The significant improvement in profitability reflects the evolution and sophistication of our credit risk models that allow to recover gradually the client base of Realize cards at the same time that support growth in retail. We continue with a positive evolution in the quality indicators in our portfolio, with over 90 achieving 14.2 in Q4, a decrease of 5.3 percentage points over 4Q 2023, and a short-term maturity achieved the lowest level in the past five years. One of the new rules of the Central Bank, Resolution 4966, will impact Realize. I'm going to explain how, especially in the first half.
For Realize, the new rules have a positive impact in 2024, especially the first half of this year, when the rules will be in effect. The most material impacts are the accrual of interests will increase to 60-90 days, benefiting revenue off writing off matured portfolio that will be done after 540 days. This will generate lower losses. These changes will be reflected in the results of the first quarter, but should not be used as a forecast for the rest of the year, and when we close the first quarter, we will communicate these effects in detail to make it clear to all of you. Our credit risk model is more robust. A healthy portfolio with a low risk profile positions Realize very well for the current credit cycle in Brazil.
We are extremely attentive to the macro environment, and our approach continues to be cautious and responsible, ensuring that we continue to support retail sales and maintain quality in the portfolio. In a consumption environment that is under pressure, credit is key, and a healthy portfolio of Realize puts us in a privileged position. About EBITDA. In recurring basis, the profitability of EBITDA of our business grew 19% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA of Q4 didn't follow the revenue growth for the reasons that I mentioned before. In the year, total adjusted EBITDA increased 26%, achieving around BRL 2.6 billion with free cash generation record of BRL 1.5 billion . As to net income, during the quarter, we had a drop in assets by BRL 133.5 million related to reducing operations in downtown in our distribution center in Rio de Janeiro, Realize system and impairment of Repassa.
A recurring basis, net profit net income increased 30%. We closed the year with a robust cash position of BRL 2.8 billion and continued to generate strong operating cash flow that grew more than 19% in a year. This financial soundness and flexibility position us in great competitive advantage in the current macro environment, which allows us to continue investing in growth as well as returning capital to our shareholders. I would pass the floor back to Fabio for his closing comments before we open to Q&A.
Thank you, Daniel. We concluded the most significant period of investments in the history of our company in order to evolve our business model. We are focused on long-term building, and we went into a renewed cycle of growth, profitability, and cash generation. All this without needing to make relevant investments in infrastructure and greater availability of investments for growth.
This puts us in a very favorable position with a strong cash position and robust free cash flow generation, which allows us to invest what we needed to grow our business in addition to returning capital to our shareholders by interest on own capital and also through repurchase shares of about BRL 1 billion as announced yesterday. These investments are totally aligned with our priorities to allocate capital related to growth levers in our brands, remodeling our stores, organic expansion in places where we have not penetrated yet, and improving our omnipresence. We believe that the current price of our shares do not adequately reflect the value of our company due to the growth and progress showed in the year and especially our potential and short, mid, and long-term expectations. The results of 2024 show clearly that the new model is working.
We're operating a company that has evolved its competitive advantages, its team, products, business model, and maintaining operating discipline exactly as we said we would do. These improvements will continue to evolve even more as the model gains traction. We know that 2025 still has external challenges, but we are still confident that the company will be able to enchant customers and that will reflect in gaining market share and generating value to shareholders. Also, we believe that the success shown by our evolved business model represents an important competitive advantage both in more challenging macro moments as well as in a more favorable landscape. And for this to happen, a strong culture and a competent and engaged team are key to continue enchanting our customers, generating value, and ensuring a unique position in the market.
In 2024, we achieved historical record engagement of our teams, which makes us even more confident in positive results in the future. And to conclude, I would like to share with you that 2025 will be a very special year for us here at the company. We are celebrating 20 years of corporation, the first corporation in Brazil, and 60 years of the company. We have a lot to celebrate, not only historically, but also the expectation of celebrating another good year of results. I would like to invite you all to be part of our General Assembly of shareholders that will take place on April 24th. I would like Carla to start our Q&A.
Thank you, Fabio. With this, we start our Q&A session to ask questions. Please raise your hand.
And to streamline our time and be able to answer more questions, we ask you to please ask one question at a time. If necessary, please go back to the end of the line to ask your follow-up questions. I would like to start with our first question from Dani from XP.
Hi everyone, thank you for taking my question. I have two. The first is an overview of growth compared to profitability. We see that this discussion is permeating retail overall among categories as well, especially looking at 2025. So if possible, could you give us your outlook? Fabio, you said in your comment about having a more challenging environment still in 2025. Do you have any strategy to hold back this repass of cost effects in the fourth quarter?
Or, if you could please help us to understand this balance between growth and margin and connecting to this path of gross margin compared to 2019. I think we use this year as a reference of targets. How much can we imagine that this will evolve? And about the growth in the quarter, if you could explain what was the impact of Argentina, that would be interesting. And about your comment of growth volume, that would be interesting. My second question is related to payment of bonuses. There's an expected movement, but it did surprise us the amount paid. So what are the main metrics that you look for internally? I think that probably changes for managers and executives. I don't know if there's any readjustment for 2025 of the metrics you're using. If it's gross margin, EBITDA, that would also be interesting to know. Thank you.
Thank you, Dani.
Well, actually, I wrote down four questions, but let's try to answer all of them. First, about growth and profitability. I don't know if we were clear enough in our talk and in the PowerPoint. We continue to have growth with profitability. Gross margin, what we meant was that despite the effects of FX and all the other issues, we still have a growing gross margin. We grew 0.2 percentage points in a comparison base. We have a non-recurring effect that Daniel explained, that's what happens when you have an increase of the interest rate that eats up a little bit of the margin. In a landscape of growing interest rates, that can impact our margin. With it stabilized, it doesn't impact any future rates. That helps us. Commercially speaking, even with the FX effects, we grew 0.2 percentage points on the margin.
We continue to expect healthy margins even in this landscape. If the landscape were better, our expectation of margin growth would be higher. But we do understand that we can continue to grow healthily even in this landscape because we invested highly in our business model. We're working, as we have highlighted, in cash generation. And that's very important for retail. Work sales growth with smaller inventories is very important. Sometimes you grow sales with greater inventories, but we're growing inventory. We're growing sales with smaller inventory, but they are constantly renewed. So you have always some novelty in the store which brings in customers, increasing sales and margins. So we can offset the hedging of FX or any growing cost by gaining efficiency in the model.
We can transfer good prices to our customers with great margins for us, even in a landscape in which cost increases are putting pressure on the margins and other factors, and generating inventory, we bring more sales, more margin, and a better financial cycle, generating more cash flow. Our expectation going forward is to continue to grow above market average with a healthy margin and with good inventory management. It's continuous improvement as the model gains traction. About the impact of Argentina in the past quarter, it's not relevant. It's a small operation for us, but yes, Argentina. I'm sorry, I lost connection with. [Foreign language]
Just now. Yes, I think you froze for a minute. You were talking about Argentina that was helping.
Argentina is very small in our operations, with very little effect on our overall growth, but it helps.
The recovery of Argentina is helping and is positive. About the quarter, we've been seeing that sales are in line with our expectations. We expect to grow above the market average. So we understand that it's still in line, and we haven't seen any issues in the market. About paying profit share. We actually, profit share was balanced with our past history. It was similar to 2019. We normalized payment. The difference is compared to 2023. The outliers 2023, our profit share is not a percentage of our profits, actually. It's targets of overcoming targets for our team. So in 2023, we were below our expectations in performance, so the profit share was lower. When we look at 2024 compared year-over-year, I have a high growth because 2023 was low. 2024 was our normal results. It wasn't an outlier.
On the contrary, it was very much similar to our past history, and there are related to ROIC, EBIT, and sales. I don't know if I forgot anything. No, the only thing that I mentioned is when we look at the phases along the quarter, they were different. The fourth quarter was heavier, but we had a second quarter very challenging, and when we started to recover in the Q3 and Q4, we reiterated our forecast, so what Fabio said is in line with the average of 2019. Now it's a little bit heavier in the fourth quarter, and that's how we provisioned. We do provisions by quarter, and since it was lower in the fourth quarter, the forecast is lower.
Okay, thank you very much for your answers.
Thank you, Dani. Before we open to Q&A, I would like to reiterate our request to only ask one question per analyst due to time restraints so we can answer as many questions as possible. Our next question is from Pedro Pinto from Bradesco BBI. For you? Did we drop again? [Foreign language] we can hear you. I don't know if you can hear me, but I can hear you. We just can't see you. Oh, for us, the connection dropped. We hear you, but we can't see you. Oh, now you're back. [Foreign language] So I think Pedro has to speak and not me. [Foreign Language]
Oh, can you hear me now?
Yes, yes, we can.
Okay, great. [Foreign language] . Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for answering my question. To respect, one question only. Follow-up [Foreign language] . I'm going to follow up on Dani's question about profit share. After the fourth quarter of 2021, you recalibrated the rules. And I think that this year, especially this quarter, at some level, there was a mismatch in the expectations of the company and the figures. And benefiting the timing, the beginning of the year with the budget and target already established internally, maybe it's a good opportunity for us to learn about the thresholds. You mentioned ROIC, EBIT, and sales. Growing sales above market. How much do you expect the market to grow? The EBIT margin. What is your expectation? Maybe some guidance from 2022.
Just some ideas so we don't expect too much and details about what I just mentioned.
well, Pedro, you're correct. In the first phase, we implemented some rules in our variable compensation for the whole team, and we have some ceilings so we don't have an amount that offends our result. Also, using the quarters as a calendar in the middle of the year because of the floods in the first half of the year, we had lower figures so we produced less, and in the third and fourth quarter, the results were more aligned with our expectations so we went back to that forecast, but if you look at the whole year, it's very similar to 2019 or previous years. The outlier is 2023. An important point is we don't provide guidance of growth or EBIT margin.
So what we do expect is to have healthy growth above market average. So gaining market share and doing this, increasing profitability, increasing sales and above expenses, and very much in line with what we are doing.
. Okay, thank you very much.
Have a great day. Thank you. A [Foreign language] . Our next question, Eric Huang from Santander. Hi, Eric.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. My question is looking at profitability, especially. We saw in this quarter specifically some dilution lines, but sales maybe dropped a little bit less than we were expecting.
Speaking of growth, looking at profitability, I would like to understand better what we can consider overall in terms of dilution potential for expenses now in 2025, especially keeping in mind the phasing of the new distribution center and understand how these things should relate to each other for this margin, especially for expenses in 2025.
Thank you, Eric. In line with what Fabio mentioned, when we look at 2025, what we expect is first growth above market average and specifically in expenses continue to work leveraged. We had expenses growth below the growth of revenues. When we have one month in the calendar, we have a quarter that is more leveraged, another less leveraged. This was what happened in 2024. We have to keep that in mind. But looking at the whole year, that's our expectation.
We're going to continue to seek growing our expenses below the growth of revenue. So we have an increase in the EBIT margin.
[Foreign language] Perfect. Just a quick follow-up. I apologize. Continue of G&A sales. Do you think there's one that has a little higher expectation, or do you think it's similar to what we have in 2024?
I think it will be more balanced. Eric, there's nothing specifically in sales or SG&A that deserve a highlight. So the trend is to have this leverage balance throughout the year.
[Foreign language] Thank you. Perfect.
Thank you, Eric. Our next question is from Gustavo Fratini from Bank of America. How are you, Fratini?
[Foreign language] Hi, everyone. Thank you for answering our question. I think it's a follow-up. A different approach of Eric's question. I would like to understand what drove[Foreign language] .
A lower than expectation in sales for this quarter. I think that really stood out not only for us, but from the market overall. Is there anything that Daniel mentioned? Maybe the calendar use that had a greater weight in 2024? Is there anything different for 2025?
Well, Gustavo, a little bit of what I mentioned in the slide. When we look at the sales expenses and compare to the other quarters, it was a little bit above. But fourth quarter is very strong in sales, where you have to prepare and have to have inventory at the stores. And there are two points that I mentioned that when we calendar the expenses, maybe in one year it's in one quarter, the other is in another quarter, and some specific expenses of sales, some salary adjustments that were retroactive that made it a little bit higher.
But there's nothing special, nothing that indicates that the expenses will grow for the year of 2025. I reiterate that 2025 is a year that we will continue operating leverage, and that's the vision we have for the year. And this can fluctuate throughout the quarters, but closing the year, having a yearly view with a very strong operating cash flow.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Very clear.
Thank you, Gustavo. Next question. João Soares from Citibank. Hi, João.
Hi, Carla and everyone. I want to understand this gross margin dynamic because there are several issues here. Help us to understand the effect of hedging. You also mentioned in the release that it will have an effect that will extend through the first half. You also have improved turnover efficiency in the DC. What should we imagine is preponderant in this quarter?
Can you help us to better understand the effects and the size of this hedge?
Well, João, thank you for your question. We can't give you figures, but I can comment the concept. What we mentioned about FX. So first, there is an FX pressure. This FX pressure, we explain at the level of hedging that we have. It's below six BRLs that we are hedged for the first half. It's important to remember that when we think about the whole model, there are several variables we have. Inventory management efficiency that is very important. We start the quarter with a balanced level of inventory, much lower than the previous quarter. You start repassing price. In the fourth quarter, we didn't repass much.
Now we start a new collection, and it already comes with a different pricing point, offsetting price cost, gaining efficiency that we had throughout the supply chain with the inventory. You also have the impact of the CD in the first quarter, but we have to look at the whole year. We still have a healthy margin and relatively stable compared to last year. Of course, we have potential. It depends on how these cost variables and FX variables will evolve throughout the year, but we have healthy margins and relatively stable margins.
Very clear, Daniel. I have one just point to ask about the explanation note. Could you talk about that explanation note?
It's okay. It's interesting because I think that's something that other people might not know. That fine was about subvention of ICMS.
So it's about when we have a decision of the court in São Paulo that is very clear that the investment we made was correct. That's why the lawyers, and we discussed this with the auditing team, we consider that low risk. We don't need to provision for that. But since it's a relevant fine that came after we closed the year, we have the obligation to put it as a subsequent event to be transparent. But we're very calm about this decision about the court in São Paulo that makes clear that it was done correctly.
Thank you very much.[Foreign language] .
Our next question is from Vinícius Strano from UBS.
Hi, Carla. Hi, Fabio and Daniel. Thank you for taking my question. I would like to talk about the distribution center.
I would like you to comment more what gains you still expect to capture that we haven't seen yet in the second half. And can you quantify how much in gain of productivity, gross margin, inventory, and also the rollout of e-commerce to the DC and Cabreúva and how this could help? And if you're thinking about deactivating the DC and Rio, that could help costs.
Thank you for your question, Vinícius. Our expectation is to continue to capture gains at the distribution center that are linked to our parameters. The gains first, because the model improves. We're going to work with the distribution algorithms and the granularity we have in operation. That helps us to do things better and better. So we understand, we learn, the AI also improves the algorithms, and we tend to have gain and traction of learning both of operations and AI.
We expect growing and gradual gains in the model. That's what we mean by traction. Another gain is in the science of the operation. We have a learning curve and gain productivity. So in terms of cost, we expect gradual reduction of cost as we gain efficiency. It's a model that is already operating, but we operate better and better. So we gain efficiency and productivity, and this reflects also in costs and better lead time. So we gain margin, sales, costs, but gradually. We don't have a big bank. About migrating digital from Rio de Janeiro to Cabreúva, it started in January. It was the last phase, as we mentioned. This phase ends. We're doing it every day, every week. We increase the percentage to Cabreúva and reduce it in Rio de Janeiro until we conclude that 100% this year.
Doing so, we have important benefits of reducing lead time for the end consumer, integrating the omni operations and logistics, which also reduces costs both in operations and replenishing and gain efficiency and lead time. Also, we effectively have 100% of the inventory available for the customers, for the digital customers, because we had part for the stores and part of the distribution center for digital customers. Now we have all the stores and all digital inventory available. So you expand the assortment and a number of products, increasing the possibility of conversion, reducing operating costs, delivery costs, and speeding up the delivery time. So these are important aspects that we will capture both in the evolution curve of what was done and migrating digital from Rio to São Paulo. As to the distribution center in Rio de Janeiro, it continues to operate very little. It's receiving, cross-docking.
They're reducing operations, and that's why we wrote off a lot of the costs from the distribution center in Rio de Janeiro. So they're non-recurring in the results of the fourth quarter, but they also link to the expense base from now on. So it's non-recurring, it's specific, and it's positive from now on. So we continue to operate just a little there, but at a lower cost base. I don't know if Daniel wants to add anything.
No, that's it.
Okay, perfect. Thank you, Fabio.
Thank you, Vinícius.
Our next question is from Felipe Rached from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, Carla. Thank you. Thank you, Fabio, Daniel. I would like to explore expansion from 25 to 35 openings, most in new places. Can you give us a little bit more flavor of this new profile of stores?
These new locations have street stores, but a lot of stores in shopping malls. Could you tell us a little bit about this mix and how you see the opening of street stores and mall stores?
Yes, I think we have a lot to say about that. Very positive things that might not be that evident when we provide the figures. But let's break down the expansions. Renner, we estimate opening 15-20 stores, which is already a good number in line with the previous years. Deeply focused in the cities where we don't have any existing stores. So that's an expansion that really pleases us because both the results of the stores by themselves are positive and above average of the same stores with the same age of opening.
It's a model that proves to be positive for us when we look at the P&L of the unit. But more than that, it's even better because it has zero capitalization and increases the sales of digital for that location. It's a P&L above average, and it's better for the entire system. It doesn't reduce anything, and it adds. We're very happy with the expansion model. We continue with Renner expansion focused on that. Most of the openings will be in new cities. We have expansion of Youcom between 10-15 stores. When we say 25-35, we are basically talking about Renner and Youcom. We have a greater opportunity also in cities and locations where we don't have any presence, but also in large cities. Youcom, we closed the year with 135 stores.
If we look at the future potential for expansion of Youcom, it's more than double the number of stores. If we look at Renner, we're talking about stores in cities where we don't have any presence yet. If we think about 400 cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants where we don't have any presence, we can have a Renner. And in most of them, you have a huge potential for Renner for future expansion and a large potential for Youcom in all the cities. And Youcom has an additional factor. In addition to double potentially the number of stores, we're talking to 10-15 this year. The brand has a great opportunity because of the power of the brand and the importance it has in the market. It's the main youth brand in the market. It can increase assortment and have larger stores.
We did some tests last year that were successful. So we have the opportunity both for new Youcom stores to be a little bit better than the average size and also the assortment be greater in these bigger stores. So you have bigger stores or increasing the size of the stores. Camicado are specific store openings. We did a good management of Camicado portfolio. We closed the stores we had to close. We also did that for Renner in the past two years. Youcom also 2023 and 2024, we kept a good number of stores opened, but it was above our normal number to clean up our portfolio. This movement is over. So 25 to 35 stores, including Renner, Youcom, and a little bit of Camicado. This basically is the net growth of the number of stores.
We can close a store here and there, but this year it will be very few and specific. On the contrary, the number of net openings in 2023 was one store. 2024 was 14. Now we're going to have almost a 100% increase and also some opportunities for expansion.
Thank you. Very clear. Thank you, Fabio.
Thank you.
Thank you, Felipe. Our next question. Joseph Giordano for JP Morgan.
Good morning, Carla, Fabio, and Daniel. Thank you for taking my question. You talked about the main variables of the DC. Now looking outside of Renner, when we look for the past five, six years, we see a consistent drop of the company's ticket in actual terms that repositions the company about the floors.
I would like to understand from you how we could think about building a higher average ticket, price repass, taking into account the FX environment, maybe have a different mix from now on in a more challenging environment. And about Realize, can you speed up if there's a potential to speed up? There was a Realize had a positive result if it could be something positive for the top line in 2025.
Thank you, Joseph. About the average ticket and price repass. In 2024, we were able to maintain our prices very stable and even in some important prices have a slight reduction despite the FX pressure and inflation. With this, we had a growth in 2024 based on volume. We didn't have an increase in price. We had a growth in volume.
When we look at 2025, and if inflation continues to grow and price adjustment of the competitors, they're already coming with higher prices. So what we've been working on is to maintain our position. We estimate a price repass a little bit below inflation, which would bring the forecast growth for this year with component not only 100% in number of pieces and transactions, but a blend of number of pieces, volume of transaction, and price. But part of the growth comes from pieces sold and transactions and a little bit that we will be able to work below inflation, continue with a more appealing proposal for our customers, but still maintaining healthy margins and stability for our margins as well. About Realize, accelerating. We're very happy with Realize.
It's important in a landscape like people have been describing in 2025 that puts pressure on consumers and can put at risk default. Having a healthy portfolio like we have it in Realize allows us to make decisions that are more assertive, granting credit for those who can and can pay it at the right amount. So it's already important, but we are very careful and responsible. We don't have any urgency in speeding up Realize's portfolio, granting credit, not because we can't. When we look at Realize, we should. But we're in uncertain waters, so to speak. So we have to be more cautious. Yes, using Realize, how it's designed to be used to leverage results in retail generating positive results by itself for the system, but in a very responsible way.
We are going to adjust it as we see the scenario because it is very challenging and we don't want to compromise Realize's portfolio.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you, Joseph. Given our time, we're going to answer the last question from Rodrigo Gastim from Itaú. Those who are in line, that we couldn't answer your questions due to time restraints, please send us to our IR department and we will answer.
Thank you. Thank you very much. To conclude the day, Fabio, I would like to understand about activities. We've been talking to some companies and also proprietary results of Itaú. The retail talk was the deceleration in December, the slowdown in December. Can you help us understand qualitatively how was this slowdown if the activity in some way also slowed down in December?
More than that, the discussion is how this will behave in the beginning of 2025, looking at the monetary policy, if it's affecting the slowdown or not. Any qualitative index you can tell us about the beginning of the year, if there was any recovery compared to December, as our proprietary data shows would help.
Thank you, Gastim, for your question. Unfortunately, we don't comment on any periods smaller than quarters. I could talk about events, though. As I said in the opening comments, Black Friday was very positive. Christmas was also very positive. Looking at 2025, you will have the figures of the quarter. Looking at 2025, we don't see any slowdown or degradation. At least that's what our internal figures are showing. We see a landscape as expected, and we continue to look at a growth without any sign of slowing down.
Okay, perfect. Just a quick follow-up on your first answer about Argentina. The math people are doing to try to understand the impact of Argentina in the fourth quarter, I think damaged your sales in one percentage point. People are doing the math. You recover this point and higher inflation throughout the year and FX devaluation. So the share of Argentina in your third quarter would be closer to two percentage points. I'm not asking for the number, but you could just give us an idea if Argentina was relevant in this quarter, if it has been helping your sales.
Usually, we don't break down and communicate per region. We mentioned Argentina last year. It wasn't about sales. It was about FX accounting effect. We want to be very clear and transparent about the effect in the FX.
We have to think that sales, yes, Argentina is helping without any question. We're recovering quickly, but it's just four stores we have there. Our operations there are very small, but it's positive. It is positive. What I can say, but it's not the size you're imagining. I don't know what kind of math you're doing, but that's not it. If it were that size, naturally, we would have to disclose and mention it if it were material, but it's not. It's not the number that you're considering. It wasn't related to the impact of sales being more or less. It was for the entire P&L. That's why we disclosed it, because it was an overall impact of FX that impacted all the figures. It's good sales. It's recovering, but the share is very small. We have 686 stores.
Only four are there and online, which isn't very big there either.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Thank you. With this, we conclude our Q&A session. Fabio, I pass the floor for your closing remarks.
Thank you, Carla. Thank you, everyone. I would like to thank you for being here. And I would like to reiterate the confidence in our partners and team's performance that are engaged in enchanting our customers and consequently enchanting our customers. They enchant our shareholders and other stakeholders. We're confident in the future performance of our company. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great.