Morning, everyone. Thanks for standing by. Welcome to the Earnings Conference Call to Discuss The Results of The Third Quarter of GPA. For those who need simultaneous translation, we have this tool available on the platform. To do this, just click on the interpretation button via the globe icon at the bottom of the screen and choose your preferred language, Portuguese or English.
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For those listening to the video conference in English, there's an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on Mute Original Audio. We inform you that this conference call is being recorded and will be made available on the company's website, where the complete material of our earnings release is available. You can also download the presentation using the chat icon. During the company's presentation, all participants will have the microphone disabled. We'll start the Q&A session. We would like to remind you that to ask question, you must click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of the screen and write down your question to get in line. When being announced, a request to activate your microphone will appear on the screen, and then you must unmute your microphone to ask questions. We recommend that the questions should be asked all at once.
We point out that the information contained in this presentation and any statements that may be made during the video conference regarding the business prospect, projections, and operational and financial goals of the GPA constitute beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Forward-looking statements are no guarantee of performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors could affect GPA's future results and could lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. Today with us are the CEO of GPA, Jorge Faiçal , the CFO and Investor Relations Officer, Guillaume Gras, and CEO of Grupo Éxito, Carlos Mario Giraldo, and CFO of Grupo Éxito, Ruy Souza.
I'll turn the call to Guillaume Gras for him to start the presentation.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank you for attending the earnings call of the results of GPA Group. I will start the presentation by briefly talking about our financial performance, and then I will hand the floor over to Jorge Faiçal, who will comment on the operational highlights for the period, strategy, and business perspectives. On slide four, we present the numbers of the consolidated performance. The group's consolidated sales totaled BRL 12.1 billion in the third quarter of 2021, in line with the third quarter 2020 and growing by 11.1% compared to Q3 2019.
In a challenging environment, we maintained our strict control of SG&A, which decreased by 0.6 basis points in rate this quarter, and which also presents in the first nine months of the year a dilution of 10 basis points compared to the same period of last year. Our consolidated EBITDA reached BRL 794 million, down 1.2 points versus last year, impacted by the Brazilian activities which will be discussed later. In the period of the first nine months, we had an EBITDA of BRL 2.6 billion, in line with the same period of 2020 and 13% higher than that in 2019. Moving to slide five now, we present the results of GPA Brazil, which account for 54% of the group's revenues this quarter.
From a macroeconomic point of view, we faced a third quarter that was much more difficult than expected, and that put pressure on both our sales and our margin with strong inflation and a still high unemployment rate are holding back the recovery of consumption. In this context, same-store sales were in line in Q3 2021 versus Q3 2019, and grew by 3.6% in the first nine months of 2021 versus the same period of 2019. In the vision excluding hyper and drugstores, which are models that, as announced, will be discontinued, same-store sales grew by 8.4% in the quarter when compared to Q3 2019, and a growth of 10.1% versus the first nine months of 2019.
E-commerce is growing in importance in the business strategy. In Brazil, we broke the record reaching GMV of online operations of BRL 475 million in the quarter. Even higher than that of GMV in the Q4 2020, which had seasonal effects such as Christmas and Black Friday. Proximity formats were also highlights in sales, posting double-digit growth for the 13th consecutive quarter. Gross margin in the quarter was 23.7%, 2.5 bps below Q3 2020. Reflecting the repositioning of regular prices and the resumption of promotions, mainly in the Extra Hiper format in order to mitigate the effect of strong food inflation, the high unemployment rate and increased competition with cash and carry. In the comparison between the nine-month period of 2021 and 2020, the gross margin remained stable at 25.1%.
In order to mitigate the effect of the investment price, we continued our work of strict SG&A control to improve productivity rates and gain efficiency in the operation of stores and distribution centers. This quarter we had a dilution of 0.1 percentage point to 19% of net revenue, driven by the initiatives implemented over the last 12 months. In the first nine months of 2021, the level of dilution reached 0.5 percentage point compared to last year, reaching 18.4% of net revenue. As a result of these effects, we presented an Adjusted EBITDA of BRL 369 million in the third quarter 2021, down 2.3 percentage points against last year, a loss largely concentrated in the hypermarket format, driven by the investment prices.
Year to date, EBITDA dropped from 30 basis points versus last year and remains stable versus 2019, both in value and in rate. We move on to slide six, where the results of Grupo Éxito, which accounted for 46% of the consolidated sales, reaching BRL 6.4 billion in the quarter. An increase of 7% compared to the third quarter of 2020, which includes a negative foreign exchange rate impact. At constant exchange rates, total sales of Grupo Éxito sales grew by 14.6% compared to the third quarter 2020 and 16.4% when compared to the third quarter 2019. Growth was driven by the reopening of the Colombian economy and by the commercial events that accompanied this recovery.
The digital strategy continues to show positive results, reaching BRL 572 million, with penetration of 9.3% of sales. In addition to the good performance in digital and in physical stores, the result in Colombia has important contributions from complementary business such as Tuya credit card activity and the improvement in real estate businesses. In Uruguay, the growth was below inflation. Finally, in Argentina, we recorded an increase above inflation with a reduction of circulation restrictions in the country and an increase in the traffic of customers and in stores and galleries. In this context of recovery of sales, Grupo Éxito managed to improve its gross profit of 70 basis points as a result of both better negotiation with suppliers and the greater share of complementary activities.
With regard to expenses, it's worth mentioning that they grew below inflation in all countries where Grupo Éxito operates, driven by the gains in operational efficiency in the stores. Thus, in the third quarter 2021, expenses totaled BRL 1 billion, up 1.6% against last year, with an important dilution of expenses reaching 17.4% of net revenue. As a result of these effects, we presented an Adjusted EBITDA of BRL 494 million in the third quarter 2021, a growth of 13.3% compared to the third quarter 2020. The Adjusted EBITDA margin grew 0.5 percentage points versus the third quarter 2020, and reaching 8.7% of the net revenue. Finally, on slide seven, we kept our leverage level low at 2.1x our EBITDA.
We ended the quarter with a cash position of BRL 4.5 billion, corresponding to 2x our short-term debt, which ensures excellent liquidity. It's important to mention that in this position, we still haven't had an impact from the transactions of hyper stores in the amount of BRL 5.2 billion. I end my presentation here, and I would like now to hand the floor over to Jorge. Thank you.
Thank you, Guillaume. Thank you to everyone for joining us on our earnings results call. Guillaume showed us the results of Q3 of the year up to date, and I will highlight our strategic operating factors of our business for everybody. First and foremost, it is important to highlight our strategic decision to exit the hypermarket format. This is the most transforming transformation that GPA has carried out in its recent history in the country we announced. I'll call this transaction, and now I'm strengthening some points because this is important in order to understand not only the performance of Q3, but also understand our future. We carried out a transaction of 71 stores in this format to Assaí. The 32 remaining stores, we're going to close four of them, and 28 stores will be converted or to Pão or to Mercado Extra.
This is a transaction of BRL 5.2 billion, including all stores and all the assets of GPA within these stores. Now, it is important to highlight that this transaction has a potential of creating value unparalleled to anything that we have done in our history. Now, this is a unique business opportunity in order to focus all our strategic rationale on businesses that generate more value and profit. Here we have Premium, Pão de Açúcar, mainly the Pão de Açúcar brand, our proximity formats that show a positive trend in the country. Obviously, e-commerce, that is the reality to buy to do their groceries through e-commerce. Now with this, we will have a leaner structure with much more focused and on the main bases or foundations of retail.
We are going to broaden here, or we are going to focus more on our results on the retail operations day-to-day, providing the best assortment and the best service to our customers, a better quality of product to focus on logistics chain in order to avoid out of stocks. These are operational strategies not only to provide more value to our shareholders, but also to our customers. Here we are simplifying things in an efficient fashion. Now, this decision enables us to have a higher EBITDA margin because what remains without the ex-hyper format have a greater margin mix and with a bottom line profile that is more favorable. Therefore, this will favor our cash generation, not only the proceeds of this transaction generating positive impact on our leverage, but the cash generation of the future business.
After the transition, we will have a brand new company that will be completely transformed. We have to highlight that this transaction was carried out with a high level of governance, with the vote of our independent board members. On this slide, with the exit of the hypermarket business here, we're creating three platforms that are not different from what we've seen in the past quarters. Here it's clear, and here you can see what platforms are we using to expand our business in Brazil, our growth pillars. The first one would be digital. I've been talking about digital during this quarter. We broke the record in our history. We had BRL 475 million in sales. This is more than the last quarter of last year when we had Black Friday and Christmas.
During the third quarter, we were able to do this. So 475 million is very important. This represents an amount of orders higher than what we had in 2019. So practically in one quarter, we had more orders than in the year 2019. If you analyze this 475 million and you carry out a yearly projection, this is a business of around BRL 2 billion. In 2019, we sold between BRL 300 million-BRL 400 million, and now we have a business of BRL 2 billion in our digital area. We are very proud of this result of this construction. We have a good scenario, and this is important for stakeholders and shareholders to know. Now, our digital is early stage, so this means we're making our first steps.
The market has a potential to grow, and I'm going to talk more about this. The Pão de Açúcar brand is also one of our growth pillars for the future. All our store retrofits with the proceeds of the transaction, we are going to accelerate this. We announced that our G7 model, that is the latest model that favors the purchase of perishable goods that provides better services, is growing above the average of other stores. At the end of next year, we will refurbish all the stores of Pão de Açúcar, turning them into a G7 model. Therefore, this is where we are going to invest part of the proceeds that we received. We are also going to accelerate the expansion of the traditional form at the supermarket format of Pão de Açúcar. We had announced 50 new stores up till 2023.
Now we commit to open 100 stores of Pão de Açúcar until 2024. This is an accelerated expansion. We are prospecting properties throughout the countries, and we are going to accelerate even more these expansions. Currently, out of the 100 stores, we have 14 new stores that have been approved and around 14 conversions of hypermarkets. So we have around 28 new Pão de Açúcar stores, and we are practically in the beginning of the project or we're under construction. Two construction sites underway, one in Limeira this year and the other one in São Paulo in the beginning of next year. Now we will start with a pipeline. This would be like an industrial expansion. This is how we see Pão de Açúcar today within GPA. Now, the same store sales in Pão de Açúcar, they are still below inflation level throughout the two years.
We grew 8.4% vis-à-vis the same quarter of 2019. There is a reversion in the Pão de Açúcar market share trend. Pão de Açúcar is growing above the Brazilian self-services and above all the premium players. Here our perspective is very positive for the banner. Now, the proximity pillar, we also are accelerating our expansion program. We will have 100 new stores until 2023. These are proximity stores. We have opened three stores this year, and we have over 20 stores that are approved that will go through retrofit and will be expanded. Now, the proximity format has had 13 consecutive quarters of double-digit. This is very important. With this you can see that we have a strong format to roll out and this is a profitable format.
Out of the national chains, we are one of the few that have a replicable format and positive model. We are proud to announce that we have a new member that is called Pão de Açúcar Fresh. That is for the vegetable and fruit market and perishable product. This would be butchery, a fishmonger, bakery in order to service a neighborhood, an expanded neighborhood. This format has is between Minuto Pão de Açúcar and a traditional supermarket, a format that has between 400 and 700 sq m. It has great potential throughout Brazil to be copied. We've already opened the first store in São Caetano do Sul, and we have a store in the city of São Paulo.
We are convinced that this format is going to work because number one, there is a strong demand in the country for convenience neighborhood formats to compete with these green grocery stores. We have a great deal of expertise, and this format can result in hundreds of future stores because of the success of the first units that are being opened. These three pillars, I believe that are the three pillars that I would like you to bear in mind because these are the growth pillars. This would be what we call the new GPA informally. It is a leaner, a more fluid GPA and a faster GPA in order to achieve growth. Now let's go to the next slide. Still on this matter and about our portfolio.
With the exit from the hypermarket business, on the right-hand side, you can see that we are the leader in retail in Brazil in food. We have to highlight this. We continue with a big size, although we have exited 71 hypermarkets. We have around 697 stores here amongst the different formats that you can see here. In the future, until 2024, we will total 808 stores. Therefore, you can see Pão de Açúcar from 181 to 281, Proximidade from 90 to 190 stores, and also Mercado Extra from 146 to 160 stores approximately. These are approximate figures, but we will recover the size of our company in three years with these transactions in a more profitable way and in a self-sustainable way.
In Pão de Açúcar, that is our main brand for the future, be it supermarket or fresh or Minuto, we will strengthen the brand as a whole, protecting the asset that is one of the most valuable assets of the Brazilian market. We are going to strengthen its concept, the purpose of loyalty, the purpose of happiness. We will rescue our loyalty program sustainability, SG&A, one of the main levers. I talked about recovering the foundations of retail, guaranteed differential assortment, new ways of payment, digital solutions, greater integration between brick-and-mortar stores and digital self-checkout. We are confident regarding this future company. Now talking about digital on slide twelve. On the right-hand side, you can see our mandala. That would be the fronts of our ecosystem. It is important to highlight the center of this chart.
That is our mantra, and this demonstrate our mission since we declared ourselves as a digital company of open collaboration, and we are going to be wherever the customer is. It doesn't matter if they're in their own platform, third-party platforms, market platforms. We want to be right beside the customer wherever they are. In this chart, you can see that the fixed assets are the beginning of our journey. One of the greatest strengths that we have here are the amount of stores that are 800 stores, in the future 700 right now, that are like distribution centers so that we can service fresh and we can provide fresh products and with speed to our customer wherever they are. On the bottom part, you can also see something that we call total addressable market.
This is the available market in Brazil, which is around BRL 7 billion. This market, in five years, we estimate that it will represent BRL 45 billion. This is a growth of seven times, and we want to be part of the game, and we want to be strong in this game. What did we deliver throughout these quarters? I've already talked about results, but some deliverables, especially in the 1P platform in our own sites, Pão de Açúcar include the Extra.
We've launched social login. We launched fresh baskets where the customer can buy a basket with fresh products. We can deliver on Sundays. Click and collect in one hour, that now after the restrictions, this is an important tool to deliver products to our customer. Pix payment that represents practically 10% of payments in our sites. The beginning of electric deliveries through electric cars in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Also contributing with the ESG, we're starting to sell through WhatsApp. We are already working strongly during this quarter with a pilot project, but during the next quarter, we will launch WhatsApp via Bot and also personal delivery. This will be hybrid. There are a number of initiatives to deliver to disabled people and elderly. Therefore, we are strengthening the use of our own platforms.
Now, our decision here of carrying out business with partners since the beginning of the year, this was more than an assertive decision. We have accelerated our sales to partners that represent more than 40% of our total sales in the digital platform. We would like to thank our partners, to all of them that have been supporting us. We have been able to carry out a number of tools to work with the Pão de Açúcar and Extra customers. Some initiatives that are interesting, we are launching our retail as a service platform. We started with a partner, HomeRefill, where we work with sourcing and logistics for home refill. We have also extended our partnership with Mercado Livre, beginning with the Extra brand. With Mercado Livre, we expand the sales of perishables, and we have a list of nearly 3,000 items to be sold.
In the 3P platform, it's also important to mention that this quarter, in addition to our growth of sellers and SKUs, we have also launched our service of fulfillment, which is very important for the marketplace to operate. By means of our company, GPA Log, that is going to deliver at a quicker pace to the consumer, freight ever more competitive, and also offering the possibility of traceability of our orders with our sellers. This we do always preserving our service level to the consumer. As our first priority, it's also important to point out that this is the quarter that Stix, our coalition program, completes one year of existence. It has already reached the break-even point. It starts to be profitable already.
More important than that is that the Stix resumptions grow every month based on the improvement of this new program. I would like to use this opportunity to thank all partners of RaiaDrogasil, where we have been managing to have a very good coalition program for the growth of Stix. Our digital initiative, as I always say, is one of the main platforms for the future growth of the new GPA. In the next chart, I'm going to discuss some highlights of Éxito. Éxito presented great results for the quarter. This result came by means of different initiatives, and particularly, the digital segment, reaching 9.3% of penetration, the same penetration as in Colombia of GPA. With different initiatives, levels of maturity, reaching a maturity level of the digital business.
In this quarter, we launched our Turbo Fresh delivery service with a partnership with Rappi. It's done in Carulla stores. It's a disruptive model that has been very successful in Colombia, and this has been driven by a very successful partnership for some years. Omnichannel reached 12.2% of. In the first nine months of this year, more than 6 million orders via last mile have been delivered, and the marketplace already accounts for 27% of the digital sales, especially in Colombia. It's always important to mention that one of the highlights of Grupo Éxito is always the modernization of the portfolio.
The modernization of the portfolio includes modernization in all banners of the group, beginning with Éxito. That accounts for nearly 30% of the sales in this format in Colombia and has been growing more than the average, and it's a very successful format. We have been expanding this format evermore in Colombia and Carulla and FreshMarket are related to just having in the country. Thirty percent of share in the business and growth above average and the low cost model which also grew or accounts for 17% of the sales in Colombia with highlight to Super Inter Vecino that accounts for 34% of the sales using this banner.
The business improvement in Colombia in Grupo Éxito recorded 17% of growth, which was driven by an improvement not only of the macroeconomic scenario of the three countries, the reopening of the market, which is stronger than what we saw in Brazil, recovery of the market and the level of confidence of the consumer in those countries. Of course, result of the attitude. I would like to congratulate our colleagues in Colombia for the extraordinary work they've done, especially in this quarter. I would also like to point out that the businesses in Colombia and Argentina accounts for a very important part, which is the real estate segment that have also some exponential growth. To end this first part, I would like to discuss the ESG agenda, which is our, the platform of total priority for us.
It includes different work fronts considering the main pillars, fighting climate change, promoting diversity and inclusion and social impact. I'm not going to read the chart, but you can see some of the initiatives. I would like to point out the development program for Black people with partnership with Zumbi dos Palmares University, and I would like to thank them for the support and the partnership. 261 graduate women have participated in a leadership program and we have 264 new places for the new group. More than 52% of our staff declare themselves Black.
For the case of social investments, this was an atypical year and we are very proud to say that 3,600 tons of food have been donated to partner institutions and in Colombia more than 57,000 children have been favored by the program of complementary nutrition for children. With that, I end. Okay, one more slide please. These are the main messages for this quarter. The first one is the priority of ESG and absolute leadership in food e-commerce and the market can be exploited and we are going to strengthen this leadership wherever we are. The exit of hypermarket format in Brazil accelerates the digital platform.
It accelerates the profitable format as I said from Pão de Açúcar and proximity especially and focus on the execution and on operational excellence with the basis in the retail key aspects and the strengthening of our cash reducing our exposure and leverage considering the increase in interest rates expected for the months to come. Our innovation and omnichannel initiatives continue and these are the key messages for the quarter. I would like to thank you for the attention and we are now going to open the Q&A session.
Now we are going to start the Q&A session. We'd like to remind you that to ask a question you have to click the Q&A and write your question to be announced.
A request to activate your microphone will pop up on your screen and then you have to unmute your microphone and ask your question. We'd like the question to be asked all at once. Our first question comes from João Pedro Soares, Sell-Side Analyst of Citi. João Pedro Soares, we are going to open your microphone so that you can ask your question please. You may proceed.
Good morning everyone. Can you hear me?
Yes. Go ahead please.
Thank you for the opportunity to ask the question and the idea on our side is to understand.
What's the promotional dynamics for the year? You had some difficulties in terms of macroeconomics. What do you have in mind for the fourth quarter 2021? Looking ahead for 2021, how are the main banners going to be positioned in the group, especially when we refer to Pão de Açúcar. Thank you.
Thank you, João , for the question. In the fourth quarter, we understand that this is going to be a quarter with a transition of the supermarkets. We're going to deliver the empty stores with no goods, no merchandise, the 71 stores to Assaí in the middle of January. We are very cautious in terms of purchases with the inventory levels, and we are very cautious in terms of the promotions for the end of the year. We are going to adopt a model of de-stocking, creating a sensation of opportunity. We are going to have Black Friday and Christmas to sell out our inventories, our stocks. This is also our project-related costs.
Part of the proceeds are going to be used, a small part of it, for those marking down those stocks and also to the constructions of Assaí. The Black Friday is going to be very traditional, so as to say, in the first years of Black Friday in the United States that was focused on selling the stocks. We are going to sell out our inventories. That's our intention. As to other formats, there is a growing demand from consumers for more promotions. They're focused on price. Price is key considering the macroeconomic situation. We are probably facing one of the most distinct situations that we have gone through when the income is very low and the inflation is very high. Price is key now.
Price is a key factor, and promotion is a very important component related to price. Pão de Açúcar, Mercado Extra are going to have very strong promotions both for Black Friday and for Christmas. We expect some growth for Christmas, considering that Christmas 2020 was very weak. We expect to have an effect of a situation where people will gather together with their family and we expect that there may be a repressed demand for gifts and food. For 2020, we are in the midst of our strategic planning, and we have been very cautious. The scenario is very volatile, so it's very difficult to make any sort of projections, João . Honestly, I would not like to take risks and to provide any future scenarios that could be very precise.
The point is that we're very attentive to what's happening to the market. We are looking at everything that can happen. We are also watching whether there's going to be any government support by the government. Somehow it's a scenario that demands us to be very cautious.
Okay. Clear. Okay. Thank you, Faiçal.
Our next question from João Paulo Andrade from Bradesco BBI. João Paulo, you may proceed and pose your question.
Can you hear me?
Yes. Perfect.
Now, piggybacking on planning, because I know that you don't have total visibility regarding your planning for 2022, but how can we see the EBITDA margin after hypermarket? You know that Pão de Açúcar is double-digit. Can we expect something close to double-digit when we have hypermarkets with their adjustments? Another question about Fresh now. Is the profitability margin very close to what you have in Pão?
Well, I'll start by the second question. Fresh, yes. We are pursuing double-digit profit. All the business model is made for this to happen. So as soon as two and three months of operation go by, we will know what our replication appetite will be for this format. Now, regarding the EBITDA margin. Mechanically, it will increase with the exit of hypermarket.
We expect an increase of EBITDA margin after the transition stage that should take place until Q1. Something perhaps will remain for Q2 next year, but our target is to end the transition at the end of Q1 of 2022, and here we will observe in growth of bps. I'm not gonna give you any guidances right now, but this is organic growth. Now please bear in mind that Pão de Açúcar is double digit. It will have between 50%-60% of sales in the new GPA as of Q2 next year. Therefore, the EBITDA margin growth will be a natural consequence of this entire transactions that we're having with the hypermarkets.
We would like to remind you that to pose questions, please click on the Q&A icon and please write your question and wait in line.
Our Q&A session has come to an end, and now I would like to hand it over to the company for the final remarks.
Well, I would like to thank all of you for joining us. I would like to thank all the participants, all our partners as well, our suppliers, the industries that have constantly supported us in the evolution of this company. We've had a Q4, in addition to it being a challenge because it's the end of the year. This is a challenging quarter because of the transition that we're undergoing from one company to another. We're going towards a new GPA with a positive business prospect for our shareholders, stakeholders by and large, and the entire group with the growth levers that are opening. Now, the macroeconomic challenges continue being important. We must challenge them and we must overcome them.
In reality, there is a new opportunity scenario. We have the opportunity to grow in digital, also to change our value proposition, an opportunity to change our business model. This is something that we're doing. I've used this word throughout the year after different budgets, after different action plans. Here we have a power of constant adaptation to the Brazilian reality. We are strongly convinced, and we are betting on this country. GPA best bets on Brazil, convinced on the pathways that we are taking without forgetting about the operational efficiency and the focus on our customer. I would like to thank the team of GPA for all their effort. There is still a lot to deliver. Good morning to everyone, and thank you very much. Our video conference call has come to an end.
The IR department is at your disposal to answer any further questions. Thank you very much to all the participants, and have a good day.