Good morning and thank you for holding. Welcome to Grupo Multi's fourth quarter 2024 and year 2024's earnings conference call. If you need interpretation, the simultaneous translation is available on this platform. Simply click the interpretation button at the bottom of the screen and select the language you prefer, Portuguese or English. For those listening to the conference in English, there is also the option of muting the original audio. We inform that this video conference is being recorded and will be available at the company's website at ri.multilaser.com.br, where the complete set of materials of our earnings release is also available. You can also download the presentation on the chat icon, also available in English. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphones disabled. After that, we will begin the question and answer session.
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Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors may affect the future performance of Grupo Multi and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. For the full disclaimer, please check the second-to-last slide on the presentation. Today we have myself here, Flavio Lima from IR, Ale Ostrowiecki, our current CEO and future chairman of the board, André, our future CEO, Richard Ku, our recently arrived CFO, and Eduardo Belelas, our controller. Ale, please you may begin the presentation. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending our call. Let's look at the highlights for the year. I believe that this year, compared to 2023, if we think about a video film of the company, it is a year of a lot of evolution and some normalization of numbers.
We are on a long journey with profitability, and 2024 was an important year to clean house with some results already appearing. In terms of revenue, it virtually moved sideways from 2023 to 2024, but we need to consider that we had almost BRL 500 million to seek on discontinued businesses such as smartphone, security, and so on. Also, the government pipeline was smaller this year. So BRL 300 million less for government, BRL 200 million of discontinued, and we went after BRL 500 million in revenue to replenish. We were 3% below last year. It would have been better to deliver some growth, but thinking about the continued portfolio, there was a slight increase and it was possible to replenish this revenue. Gross margin, it is a normalization that we see.
The margin had been very squeezed in 2023, and there was a great evolution of almost BRL 200 million in margin to BRL 768 million in 2024. I won't say it's a good margin yet. We still need to gain a lot of basis points on the current margin to be healthy, but it moved 80% of what we needed to resume normalcy. That's a positive point. In terms of percentage margin, we see here that we were working with 26% in 2022, and then it dropped steeply due to write-off and inventory sales in 2023. We talked about that in the calls and the purchasing needs and the need to have more inventories, the migration of the system, pushing sales forward. In the technology product, when you sell it too late, you burn a lot of the gross margin.
In 2024, we jumped to 23% in margin, but we still need to advance. From now on, there is no silver bullet. It is 0.1 to 0.1 and every measurement and breaking rocks to improve the margin little by little, both in terms of streamlining the portfolio, launching new products, improving price points, a lot of items to manage to get this margin to climb. Here we see our EBITDA that last year in 2023, or two years ago, was destroyed with minus BRL 650 million in EBITDA, an important value destruction due to all of those problems we talked about. Now in 2024, crossing the waterline with a slight positive EBITDA driven by the fourth quarter mostly, that is good. It is good that this positive came from the fourth quarter rather than the beginning of the year. It is an improvement of almost BRL 700 million.
Is it a good snapshot? No, it's not. The picture is bad, but the movie, the film, the long film is good considering this evolution. Of course, there's no giant leaps forward in the future. Now we have to go little by little, picking up every crumb so that we can achieve a better profitability. Really, we did evolve greatly in terms of EBITDA. Then we have the exchange rate variation. Everybody saw the net income that is a result of this exchange rate variation that came at the end of the year and the huge leap in the dollar appreciation in the fourth quarter. We had a huge FX effect at the end of the year. It's been a long time since we saw an almost 30% depreciation of the real.
We started the year under BRL 5 and ended the year above BRL 6 to the dollar. That really affects, especially the suppliers to be paid, the shipped suppliers that generate a huge hit on the P&L on the bottom line. That is why the positive EBITDA translates into a lower net income driven by the foreign exchange. This quarter, some of that has already resumed. The U.S. dollar went down a little bit, so there should be a positive exchange rate variation in the first quarter, which does not completely offset the year because it started below BRL 5, but some of it will be reversed in the first quarter. We will see this effect in absolute numbers later. In terms of inventory, we are now supplied. We are well supplied. We purchased a lot and paid off a lot of items.
Here you see in blue the share of inventory that is in-house available today. It went back to a high level. We have a strong agenda for sales of taking this out to generate more cash. We have a lot and a huge potential for cash generation in-house, but we're still paying a lot of our suppliers. The shipped inventory is also robust at around 15%. What's smallest is orders that are in development. We controlled orders at this time, and that generates a short-term cash burn and cash generation in the medium term. We'll talk more about cash later in the coming months with the cash consumption and then generating stronger cash in the second half of the year due to all of these products here that we're buying less of and selling now, and you'll be paid to receive this cash later.
In logistics, we are seeing some normalization, and the supply chains are more normalized. International freight is going back to historical levels, and we're working strongly in logistics efficiency, green channels. There is a lot of quick release of merchandise and working strongly in our operations department. Remember that we restructured it. We unified all of our supply chain areas. We had basically procurement and foreign trade, and these two areas reported to André, who's here with us, and he will be our next CEO. Purchases and imports responded or reported to André, national logistics and industry with me. We created a Supply Chain VP with Ledge Johnson, and he's working in this entire integrated chain to optimize this. We are working very strongly, tightening freight and renegotiating freight, a tighter S&OP to calibrate purchases precisely when it's required.
Anticipating some purchases where we were having stock out, but also holding off shipments in China. We're holding shipments in China when we believe that we don't need that merchandise so fast. We're already having shipments under this new operation. It is very important to consider the expansion of Hisense, our partners, and the new warehouse in Manaus, which will help logistics greatly. We will consolidate three warehouses in one and the factory, the plant as well there. We will improve this operation. The fight this year to be able to get the OEA certification, that's the Authorized Economic Operator certification that expedites shipments with the government. It really helps with customs clearance processes. Now, talking a little bit about our earnings in more detail, the discontinued products that we mentioned were basically BRL 200 million in discarded revenue.
I'm not going to say it's lost because it was the company's choice, but we have here mobile devices, especially smartphones that we dropped, reduced sales in about BRL 100 million. Now we have the baseline smartphones that it's going to be the only one we're going to maintain in line. In office and IT, we have essentially security cameras that we reduced the lines greatly. This revenue was left out. The others are less relevant. A little bit of home electric products here, some appliances and tools that were taken out, and kids and sports. It's pet accessories, baby accessories, some lines. We removed from our base BRL 200 million, reducing the number of SKUs, the number of lines that we work on at the same time so that we can focus in fewer businesses that are bigger.
Multi wants to have bigger businesses and not spending so much in different areas. Combined to that, government was a pipeline of about BRL 300 million, BRL 310 million less. That is BRL 500 million in revenue that we replaced by growing other lines. Here we can see revenue by quarter. It is a positive point here, the revenue of the fourth quarter, which accelerated compared to the previous year. We grew revenue again. We resumed growth, 19% higher than the third quarter and almost 15% higher than the same period last year. This was driven to a slight resumption of government. The fourth quarter was a little bit better for government. Gross margin has not turned yet. We are struggling with the macro scenario and retail to be able to generate gross margin. It is not easy to sell.
It's not easy to generate gross margin, and they will continue not to be easy. There is no major miracle in gross margin in the short term. For the year, we showed the evolution of margin as we went back to a level close to normal, but we still need to gain some points to reach an interesting profitability for capital and for the company's risk. I talked about 310 for government. It was actually BRL 320 million of loss in government businesses. There was almost BRL 700 million in 2023. Last year, there was a drop of about making BRL 371 million in government in this pipeline. The challenge this year is that there are a lot of deals going on. We see the auctions happening, and we need to work hard to resume growth in government to deliver better numbers. EBITDA, we talked about the year that it crossed that line.
It turned blue, driven mostly by the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter last year had been almost BRL 300 million negative. We reversed greatly from minus BRL 283 million to plus BRL 34 million, almost BRL 35 million. It is a strong improvement in EBITDA, which was what we had to deliver. There was no way we could remain in the negative EBITDA levels. At least that step was taken. Net income, the big point of concern, but 80% of the impact, if we combine interest rates, amortization, and income tax and all non-operational results, 80% was due to FX, both in the quarter, BRL 160 million in impact, and in the year, BRL 252 million in terms of impact. Our EBITDA inverts, and we close the income at the year of minus BRL 300 million. If there was no FX impact, it would be only minus BRL 70 million.
It would be a lot more comfortable. This is basically the remarking of suppliers payable, the liabilities in U.S. dollars. Part of this loss was reversed, and it will be seen as positive in our P&L with this resumption of the U.S. dollar. Now, in terms of that, the bank side is about 100% in BRL. We have working capital in foreign currency that we take loans in U.S. dollar for exports and small for imports, but this is locked in BRL. This cash closing at BRL 745 million in the year. This is our amortization schedule for 2025, 2026. After 2026, all of the bank debt, we have an amount in cash that is higher than the bank debt levels, and we have suppliers to pay. What is burning cash, consuming cash at this time is paying our suppliers. This quarter, we're paying off.
So far, at least, I didn't see the numbers from March, but about BRL 150 million and suppliers that brought these numbers down so that we'll have the products already paid for so that we can make the sales and generate cash. We're going to see in the coming months, we'll still see some cash consumption in the first half of 2025, cash consumption. In the second half, the expected cash generation as fewer goods will come in and we'll start to receive that money. There's an important tax effect as well because we have tax credit, federal tax credit. We have an important balance of tax to recover. As we start selling, not only the margin goes to cash, but all of the taxes on sale because that will become cash and will offset our taxes to be credited. That's our current scenario.
Now, breaking down our revenue by channel, we brought an additional year here to give you a better long-term view of the profile of the company sales. The first thing is that our e-commerce, our own e-commerce, has been evolving gradually in a sound way from 7% to 8% to 11% last year, 11% of our own e-commerce direct-to-consumer sales. That is an important strategic asset for the company because it is a capacity that is difficult to replicate. We spend a lot of money to consume an e-commerce ecosystem. We need systems, logistics, all of the internal processes. The cash effect is more significant than with EBITDA because you are billing products at a full price and consuming federal taxes at a faster rate. E-commerce contributes to cash generation for the company.
Note that the company, in equity terms, has significant equity, BRL 1.5 billion in inventory, BRL 1.2 billion of net receivables, real estate also cleared on the company's name. In terms of equity, the company is very strong, but we want to improve this cash, consuming those federal taxes and the balance that we have. Specialized channels grew greatly. Corporate was important last year as well. There were some important negotiations. Providers also growing. We see all of the areas growing overall. Government, with this drop that we saw from 2022, that we built more than BRL 1 billion, and it went from 15% to BRL 700 million. In 2024, it was really rough and went down to BRL 300 million. I believe we are fully able to resume that. There is no reason for us not to grow in government strongly again.
We're at a very low level, but it's mostly due to the pipeline. The market share that I see that we can gain with the new bids, what I feel is that it remains stable over time. We are not making or gaining more or less deals than normal levels. It's the pipeline of government purchases that are seasonal. Small retailers, we had a reduction here over this period. Part of that came to e-commerce, but not all of it. Part, we see that there were some deals that we left and mobile phones that we stopped working on and so on. Looking at revenue by quarter, it doesn't really change from the previous slide. We see the fourth quarter of 2023, the previous quarter, and the current quarter. Note that in the current quarter, what we had was a small recovery in government.
It went back from 9%- 14%. Major retailers started purchasing more again in the fourth quarter. It went up to 13%. Those were the main highlights in the fourth quarter.
By segment now, we see growth of kids and sports. This is very much driven by drones. The drone DJI is a very promising business. It has become the top five for the company. It increased from 10% to 13% to 15%. The other line items are stable: toys, baby, pad, farm, etc. Drones hold this up. Home electric products, very much driven by TV sets. Here we have speakers, TV sets, home appliances. The big leap is due to TV sets. Office and IT supplies is flat. Here we have ISPs, accessories, etc. It is a big drop in mobile devices for those reasons mentioned. Number one, reduction in government.
Number two, smartphones that posted a reduction. Basically, all families growing and mobile devices, which was the biggest line for Multi two years ago, it is the smallest line now. I believe it has a lot of potential to come back because of the partnerships. Oppo is a very promising partnership, and they are building quite well this quarter. They are part of mobile devices and also resumption of government. Breaking down the same number by quarter, we can see a similar profile of mobile devices coming back a little bit because of the government purchases. The rest is kind of stable. Office and IT supplies in Q4 a bit weaker because the ISPs did not help much. Lastly, showing you a little bit every family, the highlights for 2024. Like I mentioned, this year, we should accelerate manufacturing with Oppo.
Every month, we have been selling important smartphones by Oppo. We manufacture and we bill customers directly. Commercial management is with Oppo. We changed the retail PC line and it is well accepted. For tablets, we resumed profitability with a good market share. In mobile devices, we can see a drop year on year on the right. Margin crossing and becoming more positive. It had been the biggest defender of gross margin in 2023, -46.6%. In the quarter, it grew again. Margin is still a big challenge. I would like to remind you that gross margin, when we compare the line of mobile devices, for example, with kids, not just looking at gross margin against the gross margin, because there is a fiscal point here.
When we look at the mobile devices margin, there is approximately, this is a complex calculation, by the way, but close to 10% of tax credits are there below the gross margin. So we would have to add that to have a fair comparison between mobile devices and a line of imported products like kids and sports. Still, that's a challenge. We need to increase the margin. In terms of office and IT supplies and this router, we had a technology migration. The margin is very much hit last year because of the Wi-Fi 5 line. We had a lot of inventory. We sold those to avoid losses. Now with Wi-Fi 6, we have a healthier margin. IT accessories, we changed the portfolio. Gamer line, we changed the portfolio. Here's the same.
The margin increased from 9% to 21% in Q3 of 2024 and up to 22.3% in Q4. In the full year, the margin is down to 16% because of the sales of Wi-Fi 5. You have the discontinued line. We have security cameras that give us a loss, a big loss, and it was discontinued. Net of Wi-Fi 5, the discontinued lines, and net of the discontinued lines, the margin would be 22.5%. This line has a fiscal effect, but it's a mixed effect. A part of this line is imported. The other part is manufactured. I haven't got the numbers at the top of my head, but about 70% is manufactured. So these 70% entails fiscal credits. The remaining 30% don't.
When we look at the gross margin, we have to add some, but not as much as mobile devices, which is practically 100% entailing fiscal or tax credits. Now, speaking about home and electric products, the main ones are TV sets, home appliances, and audio. We started this strong Hisense partnership to manufacture their products. They have two brands, multi-brands, entry level under our control, 100%, the Toshiba brand. We buy the parts from Hisense. We manufacture and we sell with the Toshiba brand and the Hisense brand. That is a partnership for manufacturing and sales for Hisense. It is a smaller margin, but it is edged, and we do not have the commercial risk of having inventories sitting there and not selling. We are already manufacturing at large scale this year. This line should have a ramp-up.
Also, with the Pulse partnership, we renewed with Wesley Safadão for the speakers line. We have a gross margin which is relatively healthy at 27%. There is no fiscal effect here. If there is some, it is immaterial, one monitor or other. This gross margin is the final one. No tax credits after the gross margin. We presented growth last year of BRL 900 million to BRL 1.1 billion. This was healthy growth. There was a 1% gain, 100 basis points in gross margin. That is an important step. We should continue to improve this. This margin is not sufficient, 26.7%. We have to work hard to improve. In the quarter, we had important end-of-year sales, much higher than last year and much higher quarter on quarter. This was a positive. Lastly, kids and sports. We mentioned DJI. A lot of launches.
We launched a new drone called Neo, totally innovative category. It's a blue ocean we're starting to navigate. It's a high-performance drone. It's very lightweight, very small. We launched new scooters and self-propellers by Watts. Also the Precor Live Motion partnership, new fitness equipment for the gyms. This is a line with a very interesting gross margin. Here, there is no fiscal effect, and we don't need that because we're talking about 36% margin. We want to continue to invest in these products with a healthy margin, which also generates a positive fiscal effect. We have to remember the products in this line are 100% imported, showing that Multi has an important commercial vocation of launching products quickly, serving customers quickly, supplying the market. This is an important point that we get asked all the time. They ask, "Are you a tax player?
Do you rely on tax incentives?" Not true. We've had imported lines for over 20 years. They are the healthiest of the company. Multi gets a product, imports the product, distributes the product, generates margin. We use the high taxes to consume tax credits. This has an even better cash effect than an EBITDA effect with those line items. That is important to stress. Last year, actually a quarter, this is not very clear in the chart, but year on year, thFere's a slight reduction. In the full year, we have a super important growth of almost BRL 15 million, almost 10% increase in this category of kids and sports. Here, we are talking about drones as being the main category. Then we have baby with many strollers, toys. That is a stable business for us. Lastly, operating progress.
I think that our operation is much better oiled now. The new management is very much focused on improving the operation. We reduced the number of families, the number of segments, choosing the games better, reviewing the portfolio. This is an ongoing work, releasing working capital with more assertive procurement so that we can have just what we really need, the partnerships, projects, and working to improve the margin and profitability. To illustrate, people ask us frequently about partnerships. What is the current constellation of business? If we look at the bottom, in terms of type of partnerships, the one that adds the least value, that are very simple, to the ones that add more value and complexity to the chain. It does not mean we are earning more or less money, but it is the amount of activities that we have in the creation of value.
The black lines are exclusive distributions in Brazil. Multi only works with exclusive distribution and not with multi-distributors. We have Targus, Razer for game, Fisher-Price for baby products, and Precor for fitness equipment. Multi imports and Multi is the face of the brand in Brazil. In gray, we have our partnerships in which we do not have a commercial. The partner chooses to whom they are going to sell, how many products, at what price. Multi simply imports the parts, manufactures the products according to all international standards and Brazilian regulations, PPB, etc. We handle the logistics. We are not responsible for the product trading, avoiding the risk of the disaster we had in 2023 of having to liquidate this inventory with negative margin. We have Oppo, Hisense, the TV sets, and now we started with Royal Enfield for motorcycles.
This is one of the biggest Indian brands in the world, and that should increase a lot the sales of our motorcycle plants. Fisher-Price, development and licensing our own products with that brand in our distribution. Multi develops the products. Lastly, when it adds the most value is manufacturing and distribution. Let's talk about ZTE and Toshiba. ZTE in networks, Toshiba in TV sets. We import the parts, the whole portfolio. We manufacture, we sell, we do after-sales. We are responsible for the whole brand in Brazil. That's the top of added value to partners. Multi is the brand in Brazil. More than that, it's just when the brand is ours. That's not included in the slide because they're not partnerships, but we have our private label, multi-brand, Pulse, Multikids, etc. Then it's our own product, 360 degrees in our hands. We handle everything.
As I mentioned, I'd like to introduce Richard. We're very happy to have our new CFO, somebody who's very seasoned in this segment. He will be available during the Q&A. He has just arrived. Richard is in his second week at the company. Multi, it's all like a dog's life. Everything times eight or times seven. We had an advisory of that. Richard comes from good companies with a very solid career. André, you all knew him. If you didn't know him, he was in the prior call. He's been with us for more than 20 years, running all Multi business. I'm truly confident that he's going to do excellent work looking forward in this long journey that we have in front of us to recover the company. You know me. You've known me for a long time. I'm now the Chairman of the Board.
I intend to remain very active. I'll be with the company every day. The whole governance is structured. We'll have our board meetings just as we've had for 20 years. We created four committees: Finance Committee, Fiscal Committee, People Committee, and the Undertaking Committee. I have a seat in all four committees. I will be here whenever the management wants me to be here. When they ask me to speak with a customer, the client, to speak with somebody, I'm available with the company to collaborate with them. Now, as chairman of the board, I hope to be able to collaborate a lot. We see a macro scenario in Brazil that you know well: a hike in interest rates, consumption retracting, a lot of complaints from retailers. Brazil is not going through the easiest moment. We had a gigantic effect for exchanges.
It has changed a bit, but it's still high. Retail is under a lot of pressure. We are also concerned about credit. Sales are being held back due to the risk of delinquency. Retail is being conservative. No problems have materialized, but everyone is kind of concerned overall. I don't envision wonderful things in the future. I think it's blood, sweat, and tears, and the management will have to deal with that. However, the company, as an operation, is a much better oiled company. Customers are paying compliments. They say, "Well, you're shipping and delivering fast. The warranty is good. The quality is good." The structure is in place for us to work hard with a long-term focus to reap the fruits. Of course, maintaining the multi-values. We have been talking about this at the earnings calls and internally. This is a mantra.
People in the company hear over and over about the values of Multi. We concentrated on three values. We do not have 7, 10, or 20 values and a lot of things posted on the walls. Sometimes I talk to an employee and I ask them, "What are the Multi values?" and most of the people get it right. They know doing the right thing in the right way creates value to customers and sincerity with respect. As you can see on the screen, here we have a summary of Multi's mantra and culture. Our goal is to maintain our culture, our DNA, and now under new management, we will take the company to a whole new level. With this, we are ending the part of the presentation. We are going to have the Q&A. Please write your questions in the Q&A, in the comments.
If you want to ask a live question, please let us know and we will enable your mic. The other executives are joining me. We have Belelas from Accounting, Flavio, IRO, André, and Richard, CFO. All right. Let's start with Larissa Summers' question. She wants to ask a live question, please. Larissa with XP. Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Good morning. Congratulations on the results. On our end, we have two questions. First, regarding profitability. Ale, in his speech, was very vocal about the intent to improve margin even further. We also understand that there is an effect of more partnerships that will have margins which are naturally smaller. I would like to understand if you could give us color regarding what will be the levers to improve the margin in the future. We understand that there was a great improvement in the lines themselves.
How much more can come from that improvement in the category? That is number one. Second question. Ale just mentioned a more difficult year, a macroeconomic environment that is more challenging. Could you comment on what is happening at the beginning of the year and make a brief comment by category? If you can do it, that would be very helpful. Thank you very much. Congrats on the results.
Hi, Larissa. Good morning. Good morning to all. Indeed, the agenda to improve the margin is a constant effort for us. I think that you interpreted this well. The partnerships have a lower margin. For some of them, we provide a service of manufacturing with a fixed margin. This is good. There is not a lot of oscillation, and we would not have any FX losses. It is a smaller margin.
When we look at the margin overall for the company in the top line, comparatively with the track record, it might be lower because of the partnerships. However, the trend is that these partnerships will bring us a positive result. The agenda to increase the margin exists. We are trying to pass through prices. You saw last year. We had a very high pressure from the dollar price. It was difficult to pass through the whole increase of 27% to our prices. This involves a price increase line, and it's a very aggressive line, which is cutting expenses. The work to cut down expenses is something that is in our hands. We have more control over, and that's a strong agenda at the company as well. Now, was there anything else in your question? I don't know, Larissa, whether I answered everything because no, this was super clear.
My second question is about the macroeconomic environment, which we've seen at the beginning of 2025. I think Ali mentioned the macro scenario is proving to be challenging. The good part is that the dollar price depreciated a bit. This is a tailwind for us compared to the end of last year. In terms of the interest rates, the hiking interest rates makes the country more retracted. We are working with a level of inventory with a higher frequency of purchases, but fewer inventories in-house. We see a challenge in the macroeconomic environment. Would you like to comment on anything, Ali? No? I was just looking at the order of questions. This was very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Larissa. Now, moving to Gustavo Farias' question. Gustavo, UBS. Gustavo, if you want, we can open your microphone, or I'll read your question.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you for this opportunity. I have two questions here on my side. The first, if possible, I'd like you to comment a little bit about the strategy of channels from now on. There's a lot of echo on his audio. It's not possible to hear him. I'm back. Sorry. I apologize for this. If you can comment about the channels strategy specifically, we saw an increase in the share of major retailers in the mix. Is this a one-off, or is it another trend? My second question is more related to the scenario that you're projecting, especially in exchange, especially with urgency, and I did consider that below logistics, if we see if they're already part of the past, how you see that. Thank you, Gustavo, for the questions.
In terms of the channel strategy, we understand that there was a growth and a good base of investment in the online channel. That is an operation that grows over time. There is a possibility for that to deliver a better margin overall, but there is also the cash margin side. That is what we see when it is without direct-to-consumer. Our consumption of tax credits in this channel is very positive. The cash generated on those sales is very good. This is a strategy that we are going to pursue aggressive growth in. We understand that the partnerships as well will have more corporate sales at fixed margins and with expressive growth this year as well. Your question about major retailers that grew, that is greatly due to the mix. Our TV set line with Toshiba and Multi was well accepted in the major retailers when they have bigger volumes.
At the same time, we know that those margins are tighter. These major retailers, we understand as a strategy, we tend to maybe not grow and try to focus more on regional retailers and the great partners that we have, not to grow too much in the nationwide retailers and keep the focus on the digital and regional retailers that are the options. As for the U.S. dollars, it's very difficult to forecast. We're seeing that the U.S. dollar will probably stay at around this level, $5.7-$6, but basically, a lot of our inventory. We had a maxi appreciation as we had last year. We tend to be able to pass through the amounts if the increases are above whatever is acceptable, if it's not 30% again.
If it's like we see now, 10% in the year or from 5%-10%, it's pass-throughs that we're capable of making, and there will be no negative effect in this FX variation. No major negative effect if there's this variation in the U.S. dollar. Thank you. Gustavo, on your question, you also mentioned about our partners. Do you want to ask anything on that line, or? I think that the previous question already covered that. I think it's very clear. Thank you. Gustavo, I remember you asked about the logistics as well. In logistics, it's very much normalized. There is a forecast of a drought for Manaus in the second half of the year starting in August, but in our view, it will be a lot better. It's a better situation than we saw last year.
Even if it was the same, in terms of infrastructure, Manaus and the region is a lot better equipped now. Still, we are advancing some of the inventory. We have the freight now dropped, so it is very attractive. There was a significant drop in international freight, so we are trying to also make the most of this decrease now to ensure larger inventory now, but that is to make the most of this advantage because the drought, as much as we have a structure for that, freight becomes more expensive with the logistics chain. Local operation for transportation storage will be more expensive during that period. We will also try to work ahead of that to have that cost advantage. Great. I think I was complete. Moving now to Maria Clara at Itaú. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. I had two follow-ups in topics that have been discussed.
The first about the growth trends for 2025. If you can talk a little bit about the growth expectations in terms of price and volume, it would be interesting, especially considering there is appreciation of the real recently. Do you foresee the possibility to pass this through to the end consumers? That would be interesting to understand how this equation should behave. The second question is that I'd like to understand a little bit more about the expense efficiency agenda for the year, if you can detail it more, talk about the main initiatives and the potential of improvements looking forward. That would be helpful. Thank you. Great. Maria, thank you for your questions. In terms of the ticket and the volume and revenue, we're not projecting high expectations of growth for this year. I think the focus is on profitability. We're seeking this profitability.
We're not all that concerned with the growth on the top line for this year. What we have may have growth with the partnerships. Again, the partnerships bring us a fixed margin. If there is an opportunity to grow due to maybe a partner with a specific demand that we understand, we understand it could happen, it may happen, and there may be an opportunity, we will grow. For the current lines with our own risk, we intend to be more conservative this year considering the macro scenario. We understand that the volume should remain in line with no major changes or the focus really on profitability.
As for what you talked about in the beginning of the year variation, we should not have an impact in the price because we were not able to increase it 100% at the end of last year, which would have been necessary for the U.S. dollar appreciation pass-through. Now there will be price reductions. In our view, it's quite the opposite. Our margin is still a big challenge, and we will try to pass through without, you know, prioritizing the top line, of course. What we're trying to do is seeking this margin over time with a pass-through of prices without losing revenue. As for the expenses timeline, I would say that along with margin, this is a constant challenge. Expense reduction is something that we understand to be a priority right now.
That's both in terms of re-evaluation of our structure that we're going to begin now in April to understand whether if the company tends to grow, we're going to assess the structure of the company and overall expenses. Right now, we're already looking at this, and we'll bring the results soon, both in terms of logistics to serve and the internal operations. We'll share more details with you later, but I can say it's a number one priority. Great. Thank you for your answers.
Very well. It seems that no one wants to ask live questions, so let's start with the buy-side analyst who sent questions in writing. I will read those, and we will answer them one by one. Let's start with Marcelo Afonso. He writes, "Good morning.
After questions, considering the difficulty that the company has been facing to achieve a satisfactory ROIC and the high interest rate, wouldn't it make sense to reduce capital located in the business, producing cash, which would have a higher remuneration and lower risk? The second question is addressed to Ali. Is it possible to explain better what led you to make a decision to leave the position of CEO? Okay. Let me answer this. This is a reflection that is very strong for us regarding ROIC. This is reflected in the fact that we are more conservative regarding our procurement. Once we have an inventory purchased, the question is how to better sell the inventory considering its reality. The biggest decision is what we will replenish, what we will bring in, what we will launch. We are more conservative.
We have higher bars now to decide whether product will be purchased or not, launched or not, and higher, tighter bars to cover the inventory. Recently, we reduced the number of coverages, so we will have less working capital allocated. We have to work at all fronts. We have to reduce working capital to release cash. That's very important now with the financial costs we currently have. The second point about leaving as CEO, I had a call where I mentioned this to people. This is a personal matter. I've been in the same position for 23 years doing very similar things, a very similar job. I felt it was the moment to change the focus, to have more strategic activities, looking more outside, looking at the company in a broader fashion. Now we have a super good management.
I have a successor who was very well prepared. He's going to do excellent work. Every company has to have a succession plan. This kind of succession plan started in 2021. André was taking over more and more departments of the company since 2021. He had sales, procurement, marketing, all of the company's business reporting to him. It was a natural succession. This was seen by all executives and officers of the company as a natural move. I am happy with this move. I'm very optimistic about it. Like I said, I will continue to work for the company, but with a new hat. Next question by Gabriel Itori. He says, "Good morning. Selling expenses dropped in a percentage of net revenue in Q4 compared to Q3. However, it's still above two listed peers.
What is the percentage of net revenue we can expect in 2025? I have to answer that. We are not going to give a guidance regarding percentage because the revenue is uncertain. I tend to look forward to my colleagues to answer the question. Like I said, regarding expenses, we have selling expenses. We have funds which are granted to retailers to help them sell the products at the stores. We have logistics, shipping expenses for deliveries, and our own logistics structure in Manaus and Extrema. This agenda is the priority agenda for us. Now we are looking at each one of these line items in detail. You can definitely expect a significant reduction in expenses because, like I said before, that is where we can act more firmly, and we can make the necessary adjustments to regain margin. This is definitely a priority agenda for us.
I have a question from José Marcelo Bandeira Filho.
Hey, Ruth. Good morning. Is there any protection mechanism expected to prevent financial losses with FX variations as you experience this quarter? That's basically I'd like to ask about hedge and the protection mechanism. What we do is that we understand that part of our inventory is in U.S. dollars. If there's foreign exchange variation, we tend to, within reason, pass this through to the market, this increase. All the products that we work, our products, all competitors are exposed to the same effects in FX variation. We do hedge our operations. They're locked, coupled operations. Government operations where we have sales in Brazilian reais that's locked, or corporate operations, or even with our partnerships, we're going to grow this year.
We have a cost in U.S. dollar and a sale price in Brazilian reais over time. In these cases, we prefer not to run the FX risk, so we lock and hedge the prices so that it protects us. In our recurring line that we understand inventory could be passed through, we can pass through price when there's an increasement. In the pipeline, there's a hedging, there's a cost. We prefer not to have any smaller exposure if we can pass it through. The strategy is to lock it. We have those coupled sales with the prices in Brazilian reais. The other is that if we understand that it can get away from the price with whether or not have that cost and pass it through if possible.
Thank you, André . Now we have a question from Sani Miranda.
Considering the substantial recovery of gross income and the reversion of EBITDA in 2024, does Multilaser believe that the performance is sustainable in the medium term, even with the persistent FX volatility? In addition, what would be the time horizon that you estimate for the company to resume fully profitable operations without relying on any external factors and FX fluctuations? Okay. I think it's a path that must be followed. Depending on margin, there's no silver bullet. From one month to the next, there's not going to be a transformation. We understand that's a continued improvement movement. We've been through, we've gotten through the worst of it, and we're trying to make those improvements, as I said, without breaking the top line. The priority is to maintain inventory turnover. That's essential. As Ali mentioned, it's a strong work being done in working capital.
If you look at it, the search for margin, if we see that it is harming working capital, we will try to go back and maintain healthy working capital. That may sacrifice some margin in the short term, but in the long term, definitely this agenda is what we understand will bring us continued improvements until we resume the historical levels above 30%. Great. Thank you.
Here is a question from Matilde Araújo. This says, "Good morning, Ali. But if André wants to answer, he can. How are the Wi-Fi inventories? What is the difference in margin between these products and Wi-Fi 6?" Good morning. Thank you for the question. If there is anything Ali wants to add, you can do it at any time. Yeah, this is a pain. If you followed us last year, there was a change in technology for network, Wi-Fi 5, changing to Wi-Fi 6.
I can say that there was a significant reduction of these inventories, of this negative impact in the transition from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6. This year, we should not have any pain in this technology transition. Today, the market is practically consolidated for Wi-Fi 6, where we have a strong bet this year with new products in the line of Wi-Fi 6 or competitive products. A migration is starting in the end of the second quarter to the end of the year to Wi-Fi 7. We are going to be very careful in this transition to avoid what we had last year, where we had a high inventory of Wi-Fi 5 and had to sell them at lower prices. Now we are following this transition up close, and we do not expect any great rupture.
We have an opportunity to capture more value with Wi-Fi 7 towards the end of the year. Thank you, André . Now, a question from Leonardo with Tezzi. He wrote, "Now that you have a 'cleaner' inventory, what has been the greatest difficulty in recovering a more robust margin? The micro scenario, competition, exchange rate pass-through?" What I can tell you is that the inventory is definitely cleaner. We had many lines that were discontinued, but we have been perceiving an increase or a slower turnaround of some of the inventory given the macroeconomic scenario in the beginning of the year. That is a point of attention. Today, we have a healthy inventory, but with a greater coverage, a greater in-house coverage, as you could see on the slide. We saw our in-house inventory covered. We are very well supplied at the start of the year.
Our challenge is to try to pursue margin without losing revenue. We will not have a great impact on working capital and on the bottom line. That is the kind of balance that we are pursuing. If we understand that price pass-throughs or that the inventory has a slower turnover, the option will be to have inventory turnover. That might sacrifice margin in the short term so that we can maintain the business run, the wheel turning in this slightly more challenging scenario in retail in the first quarter.
Thank you, André . There is another question here from Matilde Araújo. That is that the share of projects in the home electric products had a leap of 20%. Is this a natural growth, or was there another factor contributing to that? It is basically about Hisense, I believe. Exactly.
This is a line that we had been operating within the brand, especially the television set line. It's the main one in the Multi brand. That's our entry-level segment. We have the Toshiba brand with 100% our operation. This growth of the corporate side comes basically from an operation that we've been manufacturing TV sets for Hisense. Hisense, I don't know if everyone knows, but it's the second largest TV set manufacturer in the world. It's a company that's been growing greatly, and they're present in many countries representing. It's always ranking first or second in a lot of countries in terms of market share in Brazil. Basically, it started last year, and they chose Multi to be their manufacturing partner. All of the manufacturing and logistics part. That started last year, and it's a partner that has a great initiative with the Brazilian market.
This growth and project comes greatly due to this partnership made with Hisense and the work to work the Hisense brand in Brazil. Excellent. I also would like to say that if anyone wants to ask more questions, please feel free to submit more questions on the Q&A icon, and we'll answer. For now, we have another question that I think I'll be the one to answer, that Alexandre Barcelos from his name is Alexandre Barcelos, Buenos Aires. He said, "Good morning. I'd like to know what Multi plans to avoid losing value of their shares on B3?" Basically, we continue having good communications with the market and delivering results, right, Alexandre? I think there's no other levers here in addition to doing a good job. Flavia just noting both Ali here and myself. We are shareholders of the company.
We have full interest on seeing the shares resuming their value and recovering. You can be certain that this is also our focus here to recover the value of the share. Please note that André is one of the largest shareholders of the company here. The alignment here is for one. Precisely. That's an excellent addition. There's another question here that I think it's important for us to answer about indebtedness. Eliseo asked whether we intend to take more credit to continue to grow even with the scenario of high interest rates. I think it's interesting for us to also address that. Eliseo, thank you for your question. I think that's one of the areas we're looking at. The company, as you know, our debt at around BRL 650 million. There's some maturities now in 2025, now in the first quarter.
Indebtedness and the need for our working capital, we are assessing that in this equation. Interest rates definitely put some pressure on us because it costs. We are looking at this interest rate with this trend to grow more and select rate as well. We are looking at the options to review all of that. Welcome, Richard, and thank you very much. I think the last question that we have here, I'll answer. If anyone wants to add, please feel free. Patrick Palazzi, that's an investor, asking, "What are the reasons for the drop in earnings of the fourth quarter compared to the third quarter of 2024?" Basically, we had a drop in profit and income. Basically, if you look at the indicators, we grew in everything. We grew in terms of revenue, EBITDA, all of the indicators.
The only thing we had was that strong negative contribution of FX variation in our results. If you look, the net of the results of derivatives that protected us against the FX hits that we took in the bottom line and the financial expenses, there's the FX hit that dropped or brought our results down. We had that maxi depreciation of the U.S. dollar in the last quarter. It is the result of our payable and receivables in U.S. dollars that affected the result directly. That is the reason behind the reduction in income. In operational terms, the company is a lot better quarter on quarter, just to make that very clear. If anyone wants to add anything, please feel free. Also, please, if you have any more questions, you can send it on the Q&A, and we'll continue.
Otherwise, this will be the last question that we'll answer.
There are no questions. Ali, you can make a final statement. Thank you very much. This is my last earnings call as CEO. But we'll continue to see each other. I'll remain available to help the company. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Multi's earnings call has come to an end.