Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter 2018 earnings conference call of CCR S.A. We would like to inform you that all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After the company's remarks are completed, there will be a question and answer session. At that time, further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press star zero to reach the operator. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements about CCR's business prospects and financial and operating goals are based on the beliefs and assumptions of CCR's management and on information currently available to the company. Forward-looking statements are not a warranty of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions, and other operating factors could also affect the future results of CCR and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Now I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Daniel Kuratomi, a member of CCR's IR team. Please, Mr. Kuratomi, you may proceed.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending our earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2018. With us here today are Arthur Piotto, our CFO and IRO, Marcus Macedo, Flávia Godoy, and Marcela Dias, members of the IR team. The earnings release is available on the company's website at www.ccr.com.br/ir. Let us first take a look at some of the macroeconomic indicators we consider important for the performance of our business. We would like to begin by highlighting that the unemployment rate came to 13.3% in Q1 2018, 40 basis points down year-on-year, and 130 basis points up on Q4 2017. Real per capita income reached BRL 2,169 in Q1 2018, in line with the same period last year. IBGE's latest data on industrial production show a year-on-year increase of 1.3% in March 2018. In the last 12 months, industrial production grew by 2.9%.
According to the latest credit details released by the Central Bank, credit granting in the financial system remained stable year-on-year in March. The balance of individual credit grew by 6%, while corporate credit fell by 6%. The credit to GDP ratio fell to 46.6% versus 49.6% at the end of 2017. Credit to finance vehicles grew by 28% year-on-year in Q1 2018. It is worth emphasizing that the automotive sector is closely linked to traffic growth and has a huge influence on industrial GDP. The number of licensed vehicles increased by 16% year-on-year in Q1 2018, while vehicle production grew 15% in the same comparison, according to recent data from ANFAVEA, The Brazilian Association of Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers. Moving on to our operating numbers for the quarter, we highlight pro forma traffic, which grew by 3.1% over Q1 2017.
In the same comparison, commercial vehicle traffic moved up by 3.5%, while light vehicle traffic grew by 1.9%. In our press release, you will find more information on traffic trends for each concessionaire. We now show the key pro forma figures for Q1 2018, that is, considering all businesses which we do not control or hold shared control, consolidated according to CCR's share in each line. We also adjusted the comparison basis by excluding from calculations ViaQuatro and ViaRio, in which we increased our stake in April 2017. Same basis adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 1.2 billion, 9% higher than in Q1 2017, with an increase in the margin of 90 basis points to 62.5%. This increase was due to a recovery in the company's operating results and its discipline costs control.
Same basis net income totaled BRL 414 million in Q1 2018, 32% more than in Q1 2017, mainly due to the improved operating performance previously mentioned and the financial results, which was positively impacted by the lower Selic interest rate. The company's pro forma leverage, measured by the net debt to EBITDA ratio, came to 2.2 times in Q1 2018. Excluding the non-recurring effects of the acquisition of stakes in ViaQuatro and ViaRio in Q2 2017, totaling BRL 548 million, this indicator would have come to 2.4 times. We end our comments on the quarter's results by highlighting that the traffic showed signs of recovery, increasing 3.1%, in line with the 2.7% GDP growth expected by the Focus Bulletin. Same basis EBITDA margin, and net income increased in the period, highlighting our businesses' resilience and strength. We will now open to question and answer session.
Operator, please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please dial star one. If you want to remove your question from the queue, please press star two. Our first question comes from Steven Prentice from Citi.
Good morning, Daniel, and good morning, everybody, thanks for taking my question. I just wanted to get a sense as to how you guys are thinking about potential capital deployment opportunities. There seems to be perhaps a good window of potential auctions into next year perhaps, or maybe more focused around next year versus this year. Just wanted to get your sense as to what opportunities you're seeing, maybe for federal auctions versus state auctions or opportunities in the secondary market.
Hi, Steven. Thank you for your interest and your question. Yes, we are very optimistic about opportunities either this year or next year and onwards. As you know, we raised equity one year ago. The idea was to pursue opportunities in the secondary market or in the primary markets. Obviously, the focus was secondary market. We are still pursuing opportunities there. Regarding opportunities in the primary market, we do expect some highways this year. Those would be a couple of federal highways that we have the expectation of having an auction until the end of this year. We have a couple of more highways in the state level, in Goiás and in Minas Gerais state. We are also analyzing opportunities in the urban mobility area, namely the Line 15-Silver in São Paulo City.
As I said, we do expect all these projects this year. To give an idea, this state highway in Minas Gerais, MG-424, the auction date is expected to be in June 6th, and the auction of Line 15-Silver, the auction date is June 26th. We are analyzing those opportunities. We expect to participate. For next year onwards, after the government change, our view is that there will be probably, as this government has been doing, an increase in investments in infrastructure, as the pent-up demand for this kind of service is pretty huge. We are very optimistic about the future.
Okay. I really appreciate that. I'll let someone else ask a question, but thanks for the color.
Thank you.
I would like to remind you that to ask a question, you just have to dial star one. Our next question comes from Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco BBI.
Hi. Just a question about new opportunities. Just a follow-up from this topic. In the CCR day, the company mentioned a lot about new opportunities in South America, like Argentina, Chile, Colombia. I'd like to know if you can comment about these opportunities, and if you can comment about Argentina.
Yes. If I'm not mistaken, there was the first phase of auctions in Argentina already. We analyzed that market. We understood that this first phase is more focused on construction. Our view is that eventually this wouldn't be a good fit for us. We are still interested in opportunities in South America, as we said in the CCR day. Obviously, our focus is on profitability. Whichever is the opportunity outside Brazil, it has to fit our criteria for returns. I guess that, as you've heard before, with all these opportunities in Brazil, I think obviously that the focus will be on Brazil, but we cannot afford to not look into things that are happening outside our country, which is our obviously region of operation. We already have airports in Latin America.
To move to hiring Latin America wouldn't be that much different, but it has to make sense for us. I think that as of now, we are looking at opportunities outside, but I guess that the focus in the very short term will be more in Brazil.
Okay. Arthur, just a second question. If you can give any update on the discussions with the state government of Rio de Janeiro in order to early return the concession of Barcas.
This process, we had a public hearing about this, so it's happening, but obviously also it takes time.
Okay, thank you.
Our next question is coming from Steven Prentice from Citi.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the follow-up. One or two other things that struck me that I wanted to ask. I was curious what you guys are generally seeing in terms of potential competition in terms of the primary market. When we think back a couple of years ago, you had several bidders for some of these toll road auctions, and it's now just a handful of bidders. Do you anticipate that we should see a limited competition for the auctions over the next couple of quarters, or do you think we could maybe see more foreign involvement, for example?
Well, I think as you correctly put, in the past, we had many players, eventually some of them overbidding for projects. I think that this was also a function of the subsidized rates for financing. There was, at the time, cheap financing for everyone. I think now the situation is different. There is no artificial interest rates. Any player has to go to market. I think that it's possible to see more foreigners participating in these markets. I don't think foreigners will be irrational. I think that eventually they can benefit from their lower cost of capital or cost of equity. We cannot forget that they are going for a new market that for them would add some risks. It's a different geography for them. I think local players that are financially strong will be able to be very competitive in those opportunities.
The straightforward answer is, we do expect competition for future projects. It's possible to see foreigners coming more than in the past. Considering the amount of investments that the country requires for infrastructure, I think there will be market for everybody.
Okay. Very helpful. Appreciate that. Just one last from me, if I may. Thank you again for your earlier question. You guys mentioned toll roads, urban mobility projects, and vis-a-vis with Victor's question as well. I didn't hear you guys express that much interest in airport auctions, there seems to be, in Brazil, maybe some opportunities on the horizon in that space, just kind of wanted to maybe gauge your early potential interest on the airport side.
Thank you, Steven. That's true. We didn't mention that. The right message is we are interested in the airport segment. We do want to increase our participation in this segment. In Brazil, at least, we expect to have some airports being auctioned in the future, we don't have any information about that. That's why we didn't mention anything. We are interested in that. I think that it's more likely eventually to see CCR going for opportunities outside in the sense, especially in the airports that we already have a stake, okay, as we did in the past. I think the interest is there, the problem is we don't have anything to share with you right now. Okay?
Well, fair enough. Once again, really appreciate the color. Let me leave it there. Thank you.
Thank you, Steven. Bye.
We now end the Q&A session. I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Daniel Kuratomi for his closing remarks. Please, Mr. Kuratomi, you may proceed.
On behalf of CCR, I would like to thank you for your time and interest. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions. Our contact information is available in our press releases and on our investor relations website. Thank you.
That does conclude CCR audio conference for today. Thank you for your participation. Have a good day.