Good afternoon. Welcome to the third quarter's results release of Multilaser. I'm Ricardo Garcia, IR director. We have Alexandre, our CEO, Eder, our CFO here with us, and it's a pleasure to have all of you here with us today to discuss our earning results. First, a disclaimer about the presentation. We'd like to clarify that the forward-looking statements that may be made during this conference call relating to the company's business prospects, projections and operational and financial targets are based on the management's beliefs and assumptions, as well as on currently available information. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that refer to future events and hence depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and the other operating factors may affect the future performance of the company and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. We're going to give our presentation. Alexandre is going to be presenting, and you can send your questions on the chat, or you can ask for the floor live and we'll open the microphones. We will answer the questions as they are received, in the order they're received, and you can also send them during the presentation, and at the end, we will answer all your questions. Welcome very much. Alexandre, you have the floor.
Good afternoon. I think all of you can hear the audio, see the screen. Otherwise, just let me know through the chat. Let's go over the results of the third quarter.
We are very satisfied as a company with the numbers that we've been able to achieve in this third quarter. Sales have been very consistent at high levels, exceeding what the forecast profitability as well, above expectations with quarterly records in terms of revenue, EBITDA and net profits. In summary, we're talking about revenue of BRL 1.3 billion, EBITDA of BRL 241, and income of BRL 226. These are historical record numbers. We are among the most profitable companies in the country presenting these figures now. It's really satisfying to get to this time with good news for the market. Talking about the segmentation, over the nine months accumulated so far, year to date, we have maintained the percentage. Even though everything's been growing, the percentage of the baby, kids, and sports line has been maintained. Portable home appliances as well.
Mobile is getting into a little bit more, stealing some of the share of the more traditional computer area or IT area. This is to be expected since this blue area is much more traditional, consolidated. It's more consolidated than the mobile line. Mobile is growing more. There's Nokia, Toshiba, I'm sorry, Toshiba's down there, but there's Nokia, the Ultra computer line. The 34 grew to 46, and even though this one is growing in absolute terms, we can see it more clearly here. Mobile devices, that includes all the electronics that people can carry around with them. PCs, notebooks, smartphones, tablets. This is a 70% increase year-on-year. Strongly led, first, of course, by Nokia's entry. Nokia came from almost base zero, and now it's really on fire in the best sense. Widely accepted by the market. This pulled the numbers up.
Multilaser's entry line also growing. PCs that were only entry level, the Atom, Celeron, Pentium lines. We have entered strongly with the Ultra brand. At the time of the IPO, Ultra was a recent launch. It was not clear whether the market was going to accept it well for Core i3, Core i5 products of a new brand. But we are positively surprised and quite happy because consumers are accepting the Ultra brand very well. We had zero resistance and, "Oh, but it's too specific. I don't know this brand. I won't buy it." No. Everyone's saying that the Ultra had a good launch and a good release. Multilaser backing it up, and the market accepted it well. Now, by quarter, we can see this scale up. We had a record of sales even compared to the second quarter, and especially compared to the third quarter of last year.
In the office line, as I said, the growth was significant, 44%, but below the company's average. That's why it loses a little bit of its share. That's easy to understand. It's Multilaser's more traditional line, where we have the largest historic share with flash drives with almost 60% of market share. IT accessories, almost 30% of share. So it's more difficult to have an explosive growth. There has been some news in office supplies. We launched the Keep Line brand, which is still new, but it is not as representative at this point to the point of growing faster than everything else. Networks, our providers area, we're growing, but we already had a large base last year.
You can see that the quarters are somewhat stable. Last year's first and second quarter had a lower base, but there was a big leap, and we're maintaining this level. Home electronic products, we are varied. We have the health line, electronics for health, the screens, smart screens, common screens, the portable electric appliances, audio and automotive. The growth is in line with Multilaser. Multilaser grew 99.6 or .4 year-on-year. This year was right on track with Multilaser's growth. Out of these categories, I would mention as the champion leading this growth, screens. This is the big news because Multilaser launched these screens about two years ago, and the Toshiba brand was only launched this current year. So it's a new aspect of the Toshiba brand being widely accepted. It was uncertain. Toshiba's coming back to the market. It had been out.
Will consumers maintain this loyalty to the brand? The answer has been yes. It's growing. The screens line is growing quite well. Audio is a little bit more flat. Automotive is going down. It's the only one that's actually decreasing. There was a lot of suffering in this line during the pandemic. People were investing less in their car. They were buying less car, less sound systems for cars. So we had some bad months. The portable electrics with a very strong growth. Compared to last year, strong growth, and quarter-on-quarter, slightly above last quarter. In this varied line, kids and sports, we combine sports with childcare, toys, and pets. The growth is quite in line with Multilaser. We grew 99%. It's 85% here, so it's quite interesting.
The particularity is that this line had that great pull on the third quarter because of Children's Day in October. Toys has great seasonality out of these four. We doubled our sales this quarter due to the strong sell-in that we do in July, September, and in October as well because of Children's Day. October is not even here, so it's July, August, September represented here. It was very strong. We're doing quite well in toys. Lots of compliments in the market. Traditional toy stores placing Multikids as the first or second player as the toy vendors, exceeding some traditional multinational brands that are focused on this area. It was a surprise for us in terms of market share. Childcare, we launched some new brands. The Littletree brand, that's heavy. Childcare, strollers, premium. There's also Fisher-Price. We launched all the childcare line by Fisher-Price.
It's car seats, baby strollers, and we launched bottles and pacifiers. Fisher-Price is sold in baby stores, and we're opening the market to sell in pharmacies as well. The idea is to grow in this area. Sports, we launched a new line of electric bicycles, scooters, electric skates. It's an area where we're quite excited about this line for the future because mobility, micro-mobility is a trend of modern societies, and gas is very expensive at this point, so people are seeking other options of transportation. We're quite excited in becoming a very important player in electric vehicles. Finally, on pets. We bought Expet in June, July. We signed in June, but started in July, right? Yes. We started in July with Expet. We already had the Mimo Pets brand that we created from scratch this year with imported accessories.
With the Expet brand, we buy three new brands that they had for hygienic mats for pets. It's a very strong market in terms of volume. Local manufacturing, which saves a lot of money in terms of freight. You know the price of freight is. I'll speak about it later. This is really good. It's already making BRL 7, BRL 8 million per month, which adds a lot to the revenue. Now, looking at the company's overall scenario, as I mentioned, 99.6% growth. We were flat with a 25%, 30% over a period of 15 years. We had a flat year from 2018- 2019. To 2020, it was a great increase. In 2021, we're practically doubling the size of the company. It's exceeding what we were talking to the analysts about. Every quarter, always slightly above. This is about gross margin. It's also quite healthy.
Sometimes there's a shortage of products. We did have a cost increase, a dollar appreciation, but there was an issue in the supply chain, so there was less price pressure. In gross margin, we gained about 250 basis points here. Is it hiding the bar for you or can you see it? No, it's clear. For me, the bar is on the way here. Okay, that's better. Gross margin, we gained 250 basis points. I don't think it's going to remain at that level. I think it will. The trend is to get to the historic average. This favorable event of people being at home and a shortage of products and inputs. I do not see a continued improvement of margins. We will go back to a historical margin, no more, no less. This is the gross margin of the quarters that's quite robust.
The third quarter was a quarter where we were still flying higher. The fourth quarter, in terms of margin, will be more challenging. EBITDA, there was also a huge leap because in addition to the gross margin, we also have the dilution of the company's fixed costs. We came from a historical level at around 16%, 15%, but we had some investment in new lines, so it was slightly more depressed at 12%, 13%, a historical bottom. In the pandemic, it increased to 17.8%. We did say it was not sustainable. We talked about losing 100 BPS this year, and we are at around 16.5%, which is quite healthy. This is year to date. In the quarter, due to the record sales and strong revenues, there's a tick up. We believe that we will end up converging to the historical margin of around 15%, 16%.
This is something we can stand by. But this effect of a slightly higher level during the pandemic and so much shortage of products, we do not believe it's sustainable in the long term. We can think and project a return to the historical average that is more in line with Multilaser's operation. Net profits were spectacular. The company grew 130% year to date. It already had year on year. It had a good basis last year, but this year it's BRL 622 million to date. We're quite happy. A solid increase you can see step by step, quarter on quarter. This is a positive side. We're here. It's the same principle. Net profit was around 13.5%, 14% in historical terms. Now it went to 14.4%. Now it's 15.5%. We believe that the fair income for Multilaser will be around 13%, 13.5%.
It's more feasible to be expected than the 15.5%. So there's also an effect of product shortage here, but we want to offset that with a sustained continuous growth in top line. So maintaining this stable, sustainable income at slightly lower percentages, but with a greater revenue. We can see the quarter here, maintaining the income stable. The fourth quarter will probably be tighter. We had a more competitive retail, but the sales volume has been satisfactory, so it's in line with what we had planned. Finally, four highlights that I mentioned here. Of course, there's a lot to talk about. Multilaser launches about five new products per day. It's one after the other, opening hundreds of new customers per month. But the highlights here, we talk about Expet was in July. This month, we announced the acquisition of Obabox.
Obabox is a digital marketing company from the state of Minas Gerais with 60 employees, exclusively dedicated to digital marketing, product development, performance in social media. Specialized in taking products and making them a big hit on the internet. We felt that that was a gap for Multilaser. Multilaser was always focused on retail, and we want to become more and more, or stronger and stronger in B2C. Investors ask about B2C. Today, it's around 6%- 7% of the retail revenue. In order for us to grow on B2C, we need to grow on top of exclusive products first, and second, a lot of media, a lot of word out to disseminate the products. Obabox was a great investment. We paid BRL 15 million for a company that was making about BRL 16 million.
More important than this 60 is to add all this highly qualified team focused on performance and digital market. We want to strengthen our B2C. We will have a whole line of the Obabox brand. They have products for different consumer segments. Basically, three concepts that Obabox works with. Viva, Reviva, and Conviva. These are the concepts. Viva, live. It is for home, families. Reviva, revive, for memories, to save your memories, for traveling. Conviva is to make your life easier. Home automation products that leave free time for people to have a better life. We also have the Conecta. That is a line focused on people who usually are slightly older, but not only them, and this helps people become digitally included. It is their own software embarked on cell phones, tablets, and computers to facilitate the use of this product.
The cell phone has larger buttons, easy access, SOS function. It is the whole product built for a public that is being included digitally. That was really cool. We acquired it. The CEO of Obabox, controlling partner, is now the commercial director at Multilaser. He continues to run his operation, but now as part of Multilaser. The operational part will be ours entirely. Obabox will no longer exist in terms of distribution centers, product distribution. It is all integrated to Multilaser. Second point, we are strongly expanding our facilities. During the IPO, we mentioned that 10% of our resources would be. The funds would be 5%-10% would go for CapEx, and that is about BRL 190 million. BRL 100 million- BRL 190 million. Our plan is some odd BRL 110 million, BRL 120 million to be invested throughout the period of two years to expand our facilities.
In Extrema, we are building two new warehouses at 8,000 sq m for storage. We are paying for external warehouses that I rented today, and in addition to paying rent, which is a problem, we lose some efficiency if we have inventory in different sites. We have to send things back and forth, complicating with costs and freight and everything. We have everything integrated in our Extrema operations. They are plugged warehouses that will really expedite logistics. In addition, the big thing is that we have a third warehouse under construction, another 8,000 sq m industrial for the production of portable electronics. We want to be a leading manufacturer of portable electronics. The freight from Asia is extremely expensive. Imports are unfeasible, so we manufacture our own products, which will give us a great competitive edge. There are only two players that have their own manufacturing in Brazil.
There are some importers, but the entry barriers are huge for mass production in large scale. You have to understand electrics, plastic injection, a lot of details. This will leave out a lot of players and consolidate this market that is worth BRL 6 billion-BRL 8 billion per year of this portable electronics. We are currently making only BRL 300 million. Multilaser is quite well-placed to get to the level of the other players who make BRL 1.5 billion- BRL 2 billion only in portable electronics.
That is our avenue for growth. The first product for this, we did not wait for the warehouse to be ready, but we are starting with the fan line. We launched the fan, Multilaser fan, this month, developed by us. A really cool project using less plastic than the market average, so it is more competitive, stronger, more powerful, and it prevents that international freight cost.
The fan is the top category of home electric products, portable. The fan is the largest subcategory in this universe. We were not a part of it, but now we will be in 2022. It's a new source of revenue for Multilaser. We're really excited to produce fans massively and sell in Brazil, especially the state of Minas Gerais. It's a hot state with 10% of the GDP, and we have a tax benefit there in that state. We have all it takes to become the best player, the top player in Minas Gerais in terms of fans. We talk about acquisition of Obabox, the expansion in Extrema. I didn't mention Manaus, but we're also expanding there. We'll have a new television set factory in Manaus and a factory for speakers. It's worth it to manufacture it in Brazil because of the volume, also in Manaus.
At the time of the IPO, we also mentioned that we have Multilaser's app that is called Multiplic. We had 80,000 sellers registered using Multiplic in the past, and it's a mobile app. If you're a seller at a store, a salesperson at a store, or on the street, and for example, I'm at Kalunga or Americanas or any other store. As I sell the Multilaser product, I'll take my phone, and I'll read the QR codes of the products. Multilaser has the QR code, so I sell, read the QR codes, and that generates money in my bank account. Multilaser makes micropayments to encourage these salespeople out on the street to sell our products. From 80,000, we went to 110,000 salespeople registered.
It's a full army of salespeople on the field, and it's an industry that has access to tens of thousands of people being encouraged to sell our product. It's very important competitive edge for Multilaser, the fact that we can integrate our systems to what's happening at the end, read this turnover at the end, and encourage and incentive these salespeople to sell our product. These are the four main points at this time. We have a lot of other topics, but for now I'll turn to the Q&A session.
We have one question by Felipe now. Just one second, Ale. We have Felipe's question, but if you want to ask a question for the Q&A, click on the Q&A button. You can go in and ask live, or you can write down on the chat, and we'll read it. The first question is from Felipe, Itaú BBA. Alexandre, you can go ahead.
Just put the questions there for me, and I'll go through all of them.
Felipe is asking for details about the impact of the increase in the freight price in the quarter of sea transport and so on.
Well, there's the bad news and the good news. The good news is that it stopped increasing. For a few months, the freight price has been stable between BRL 12,000-BRL 13,000. The bad news is that this is 10 x the historical levels. A series of product lines are completely unfeasible. The cost has increased a lot, and we've been transferring the freight cost to the prices. It's a general structural problem. It's not a Multilaser specific problem.
A series of products that we're bringing disassembled or smaller parts, of course, that affects our entire chain, all of our products, but it's uneven, for example. A computer line or tablets, mobile phones, it's almost zero impact because we buy components. They're very small. It doesn't even come by sea. It's an air freight for most of the components, and the cost of product is so much by kilo that the freight is almost for free. But when we talk about a sound tower or of an electric rice cooker, then the freight can correspond to 20%, 30%, sometimes 60% of the price of the product. So that's why it makes sense to manufacture locally. That's why we see a window of opportunity.
Andrea Salles here is asking, "How much of this growth came from a volume increase and how much came from a price increase?"
Well, Andrea, the effects was a lot harder to take last year. Let's understand, to simplify our business, it's almost entirely dollarized. At least 92% of our costs is dollarized. So if the dollar goes from BRL4 - 5.5 BRL, this is a 37% increase. 37 x 94. We're talking about a 34% increase due to exchange variations. So the exchange rate variations was that Multilaser grew about 60% last year. If we divide 60 by 74 by 78, what we could say is that Multilaser grew last year 20% in volume and 34% in price. This year, the exchange rate effect was much smaller. It was almost irrelevant. So this year, pretty much everything was volume increase.
Okay, maybe some components have become more expensive, so I could not say 100%, but an educated guess here is that 80%-90% of this year's growth is because of volume growth. Not only volume, right, Alexandre? There's the entry of new lines. That's part of our strategy, increasing our addressable market. So it's not only volume in same store sales, for example, but we're also increasing the number of lines and so on.
Yes, I'm saying volume, not price. New lines are definitely included. So in Multilaser's portfolio, what's the pipeline of M&As for 2022? Is there any more attractive segment? During the IPO time, we defined 15% of use of proceeds for M&A. So that would be around BRL 300 million as the ceiling to make two or three smaller acquisitions or one large one. We have nothing against that. Historically, Multilaser has been buying a very specific profile of company. They're usually small with revenue of up to BRL 80 million with an owner that is very good at managing the company, that is very good, specialized in a vertical that is specific and that Multilaser doesn't have.
We buy that company, incorporate to the operation. Typically, the owner becomes Multilaser's commercial director and continues to do what they've always done. We buy with the guy, the team, the operation, the brand, and put it all in our operation, closing the legal entity and the expensive operations. We've done it five times. Five owners came, five of them were happy. So we have a good experience. The first exception to this rule, 2017 was Giga Security. Last year was Wellness for gym equipment. This year was Expet, all in the same profile.
With Obabox, we changed the profile because it is not a product company with a new vertical. It is a marketing company. We strongly believe in our traditional profile. Obabox was an exception for a good reason, but it is not what we are looking at. We already have an advisory for M&A, JK, the advisors that are great.
We have 15 businesses mapped in different levels of discussion. I cannot tell you. There is nothing on the verge of coming out or getting close to conclusion, but we have some with quite advanced conversations to maybe get to the point of acquisition, and all of these 15 are all in the traditional Multilaser profile. Most of them are small with specific verticals that go up to BRL 100 million, with some exceptions from BRL 200 million- BRL 400 million, that we are still talking. Maybe it will happen, maybe not. Our idea is not making any promises.
I would rather not do business if I do not think it is a good business. I think if it is going to happen, we are going to make a good announcement. If we really think it is good and the price is right. The share price is not helping. You are not really helping us buy another company because if you compare multiple hours and what we have to pay is not as attractive. It would be interesting to pay maybe half of the multiple, and that would give us more courage to go after it.
If this improves, we will also have more room to be more aggressive. The idea now is to buy a company in a new vertical to expand our portfolio in areas where we are not present yet. Michelle, something else. You talked about M&A, but we have a different front that is quite interesting.
It is a semi-M&A. There are global brands, as you know, Multilaser has 25 own brands and nine global brands that we manufacture and distribute. Many global brands are in conversation with us. We are about to sign a contract now in December, if it all goes well, for a new global brand that we will distribute exclusively. They are already in Brazil. They already make BRL 40 million. They probably turned the operation to us. That is by word only now, but if everything goes well, we have another global brand that makes BRL 100 million in Brazil that would like to turn their operations to us. That idea that Multilaser has a product of entry lines, this global brand has a more premium product, so there is no conflict, and we can bring it in-house. Continuing here. "Victor, congratulations on the results. Thank you for the call." Thank you, Victor.
Andrea Salles from BB. "What is your contracted backlog for government bids, and how many bids do you have mapped?" Okay, Andrea, that is a great point. Government demands is coming quite strongly. We are very happy and positively support with this demand. Surprised with the government demand. We historically did BRL 40 million, BRL 50 million per year. We did not have products focused on government. We were not focused on that. 2021, these sales exploded from BRL 40 million- BRL 60 million to BRL 1 billion. It is an extreme difference from BRL 50 million- BRL 1 billion.
We were not sure. Is it a short fire? Can we project this to the future? Will it be recurrent or not? Being conservative, we projected BRL 400 million for next year during the IPO because we did not have a delivery pipeline yet for government business. Today, it is a different scenario.
The government has already published the list of businesses that are about to come out. There is a pipeline worth BRL 6 billion in bids business, BRL 6 billion for all states, municipalities. It is federal funds. If funds from the FNDE go to the state and cities, they will buy tablets, PCs, Chromebooks. Many have already come from these bids. We have won some important ones. We have a one pipeline of around BRL 600 million, already won.
So our target of delivering BRL 400, we are already at BRL 600 contracted and quite optimistic to have an upside in the government business. More than what is going to happen next year, that is going to be very good, and Multilaser will fight for the BRL 6 billion. We will take a share of that, but do not know how much, 15%, 20%, maybe 25%. We do not know. It will depend on competitiveness.
This is the range that I mentioned, and it is quite reasonable. More importantly, we are starting to believe more and more that this is a recurring business. The public power will want this purchase of devices. Education is done through devices. They have to replace equipment all the time. We have 40 million students in Brazil, if I am not mistaken, and they will need replacements. The government becomes a strategic pillar, and we are very well-positioned as a national brand manufacturer with two very well-equipped modern factories, leaders in Brazil to surf this wave. Victor asked here about the exit of some multinational companies, what space existed, and what is the strategy to take this space. A year and a half ago, we had Sony leaving. A year and a half, two years ago, Sony left the market, left the TV market in Brazil.
Fortunately, they turned over their audio market to Multilaser, so we are getting Sony products that we will distribute exclusively, headphones, speakers. Panasonic announced that it is leaving Brazil. November is the last month manufacturing TV sets. They will leave Brazil for TVs only, okay? Not Panasonic in general. So they will leave 2% of share on the table. We are wanting to occupy these spaces, and we are. Panasonic is a Japanese brand. Toshiba is a Japanese brand. Panasonic has a more regional strategy. Multilaser, Toshiba have a regional strategy. So it is the same music we are playing. Getting to the players that were strong with Panasonic, and we are saying, "Look, we have Toshiba here to take this space that is open." So it has been very good for us.
LG, of course, that at the beginning of this year, left the smartphone market worldwide, and it was an earthquake for us, positively, because it opened a lot of room for Nokia. Both due to consumer desire because they have a relationship with Nokia, especially people older than 30, but also from retailers. The last thing retailers want is to be on the hands of two or three manufacturers or the two biggest ones in smartphones. So once LG goes out, it shakes things up. I was already on the hands of two guys. Now I am even more so. Then we come with Nokia, with Multilaser backing it up. We are partners asking for an opportunity.
We could really enter with Nokia to take over LG space, even products at the same price line. When a multinational company leaves, it is really good, and there are others there in the pipeline that we are talking to. Some that want to come to Brazil from scratch, and others want to leave Brazil and leave the operations with us. Marcelo talked here about repurchase of shares. If we consider it, well, we studied this, but due to compliance reasons, it is not permitted.
There is pros and cons, of course, and timing, but we could not do that because it would reduce the float and the controllers could not expand their share. We would like to, but I have asked and we cannot. There is something else B3 is reviewing now. There is a public hearing about the reduction of the minimum float of 25%, bringing it down to 20%.
Our float today is of 21%. This public hearing, if this question goes through, B3's question to all the Novo Mercado participants, maybe there will be room for some type of repurchase. Well, I think we have answered all the questions. Is there anyone who would like to ask a question? To speak up or on the chat? Excellent. In general, we are quite excited. The macro scenario in Brazil, of course, is challenging. You know that quite well. Inflation, public deficit, that Apocalipse 3 cornered issues of inflation, persistently high unemployment rates. But Multilaser historically has performed well in adverse scenarios. As cost leader, first price products, diversified, aggressive, fast when moving. It is actually more good than it is bad for us. We are confident. This level of growth, we will never promise again, 60%, 80% of doubling the revenue of the year.
But if you think about low double digits every year as a solid, consistent profit, that is what we are proposing to do. It is not easy, but we have our feet on the ground and working for it. Excellent. There are no further questions. I would like to thank you all for your presence. Everyone who has been following us, the shareholders who support us, our investors, analysts who are always working very hard keeping up with the company. Thank you for your trust and dedication, and our IR department is with its doors open to any type of question, either by phone or email. The IR site is also live on the internet now, early this quarter, with a lot of information that you can check and a direct channel for communication with the company. Thank you all for your participation.