Good morning, and thank you for holding. Welcome to GPA Conference Call to present the earnings results for the Q1 2021. This event is being broadcast simultaneously on the web through a web video conference and it can be accessed at www.gpari.com.br where the respective presentation is available. You can flip through the slides at your convenience. The replay of this event will be available soon after closing.
We would like to inform you that the press release on the company's results is also available on the IR site. This event is being recorded and all participants are in listen only mode during the company presentation. After this presentation, we will go on to the question and answer Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that forward looking statements made during the conference call are based on the beliefs and assumptions of GPA's management, and they are based on the company assumptions as well as on information currently available. These forward looking statements are not assurance of performance in these assumptions since 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 affect the future results of GPA and lead to results that differ materially from those expressed in the forward looking statements.
We will now give the floor to Ms. Isabella Cadenasi, IRO for the company. Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your participation in our conference call, Q1 2021.
The dynamics of our call will be a presentation of Georges Faissart, the CFO of GPA and Okimo, CFO of GPA. And then we'll have a Q and A session. In addition of our CEO and CFO, we have Carlos Mario Giraldo, CEO of Grupo ESETO and Suitesilva Siodloff. I'm going to give the floor to Guillaume Krah for the beginning of the presentation. Thank you all very much and enjoy the conference.
Thank you, Isabela, and good morning everyone. On behalf of GPA Brazil, Georges and our entire team, I would like to thank everyone for participating in the GPA Group results call. I will start our presentation by talking about our financial performance and then I will give the floor to Georges, who will comment on operational highlights in the quarter, ESG and the prospects for the year 2021. On Slide 3, the results that the GPA group presented in the Q1 reflect a profitable growth even considering a very challenging scenario impacted by the following elements: the strong comparison base of 2020 impacted by the storage movement before lockdown the negative calendar effect due to the loss of one day in February, the tightening up of restrictive measures against COVID-nineteen in all the countries in which it operates with the closing of stores, reducing the opening hours of stores and prohibition of sales of some categories considered non essential. In Brazil, we've also had the end of the emergency aid and the cancellation of Carnival.
In this context, the revenue of the groups of holders attained BRL13.7 billion and grew 4.8 percent in the comparison of the Q1 2020. The major contributors for this growth were the online sales, whose evolution was 138% at GKE Brazil and 145% at Grupo Esito, with an increase in the penetration of total sales from 3.7% to 8.2%. The total online sales reached BRL 945,000,000, almost BRL 1,000,000,000 in this quarter, and the group continues to be the leader in food e commerce in South America. Afterwards, on the side of physical stores, the second factor that contributed to our growth was the performance of the proximity formats and the super remodeled stores at GBA Brazil and of the innovative formats such as Exito Wow! And Carruya Fresh market at Grupo Ezito.
Despite the challenges related to the top line, operational efficiency combined with intelligent management of expenses generated a significant increase in our profitability. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased to 36% in the year over year to BRL 935,000,000. Lastly, the sharp reduction in restructuring costs, in line with other expenses, allowed us to significantly improve our net income, reaching BRL 113,000,000 against a loss of minus BRL 246,000,000 last year. Now let's analyze each one of our operations, starting with GPA Brazil, Slide 5. In this complex environment of the pandemic that we are still living in Brazil with lockdowns around the country, restrictions, opening hours and store closures, the highlights were the growth in e commerce sales and the solid performance of the Proximity Performance and Mainstream Supermarkets.
Total sales totaled BRL7.1 billion and recorded a drop of 2.8%. And 2.1 points were resulting from the closing of stores in 2020, 8.8 points were related to the negative calendar effect. Same store sales excluding station drugstores and calendar effect showed a growth of 1 0.1%. And if we exclude the COVID impact, they recorded an increase of more than 5%. If we consider the same store growth compared to the Q1 of 2019 when there was no pandemic, the evolution was 7.6%.
Our gross margin expanded 0.7% points in the quarter to 25.8 percent due to greater efficiency in the dynamics of commercial negotiations and reduction in logistic costs. In addition, we continue with our efforts to optimize and reduce expenses with improvement in operational productivity in stores and distribution centers in addition to optimization of expenses with marketing. We recorded a reduction of 5.6% considering previous year and a dilution of 0.5% to 18.3% of net revenue. Considering this, we've had significant gain in our profitability. Our adjusted EBITDA in the quarter grew 11%, totaling BRL538 million and margin of 8.2%, an expressive gain of 1% point in relation to the same period last year.
This performance proves the correctness of our portfolio transformation strategy and the rapid evolution of our digital initiatives combined with the strict control of costs and expenses and our continued search for operational efficiency. Lastly, we have reduced our restructuring costs in other income and expenses line from minus BRL102 1,000,000 to minus BRL44 1,000,000, which contributed to our achieving a net profit of BRL81 1,000,000 against a loss of minus BRL99 1,000,000 last year. I will now move on to the results of Grupo Esito. Page or Slide 6. Sales totaled BRL 6,600,000,000, an increase of 14.4 percent.
That include an impact that is quite positive. In Colombia peso, the total exit of sales fell by 2.6% year over year. Same store sales ex calendar fell from 2.7%. If we exclude the COVID impact, they increased by 4.5%. If we consider to and you compare to the Q1 2019 when the pandemic did not exist, the evolution of 9% same store sales growth.
The gross profit of Grupo Esi totaled BRL1.5 billion, almost 24% growth in reals. The growth margin expanded significantly by 1.8% points, mainly due to the positive impact of revenue from VIVAMAL's Real Estate division as a result of the delivery of 2 projects, VIVA Embigado and VIVA Tunja. And when we look at the margin of the retail operation, it has increased by 0.2% points. Just like GPA, the Grupo Exeto also adjusted its expense structure. In local currency, expenses of Exeter were reduced by 3.7 percent, a result of spending control initiatives focused on increasing productivity and optimizing marketing expenses.
Driven by these initiatives, adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL484,000,000 compared to BRL289,000,000 in the Q1 of 2020, a strong growth of 67% and a significant margin expansion of 2.5% points to 8.2%. Amongst the countries in which Ezito operates, it is worth mentioning that Uruguay presented a solid double digit EBITDA margin as a result of efficiency in the operation. In Argentina, despite the weaker profitability, it was possible to keep the cash position stable. Finally, as in Brazil, restructuring costs were reduced from BRL 111,000,000 to just BRL 16,000,000, which contributed to achieving a net profit of BRL 110,000,000 against a loss of BRL 63,000,000 last year. On the next page, Slide 7, we have the consolidated results of GPA Group.
Gross sales totaled BRL 13,700,000,000, 52% from Brazil and 48% from the Equito Group, with a growth of 4.8% year over year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA totaled BRL 935,000,000 with an expressive or significant growth of 36% with the margin increasing from 1.7 points to 7 point 5%, thus proving the operational efficiency and control of SG and A. Other income and expenses decreased sharply from BRL 214,000,000 in the Q1 of 2020 to BRL 60,000,000 in the Q1 of 2021. And these reduction of operational costs and this great improvement of EBITDA is reflected in the net income of controlling shareholders, which showed an improvement of almost BRL360 1,000,000 moving from a loss of BRL 246 1,000,000 in the Q1 last year to a profit of BRL113 1,000,000 in the Q1 of 2021. To close on Slide 8, you can see a summary of our indebtedness and consolidated cash position.
The net debt, including the balance of unpaid received, reached BRL 4,700,000,000 in the 2PA consolidated at the end of the quarter, a reduction of BRL6.1 billion, of which BRL5.8 billion related to deconsolidation of the operations of the Assai of the spin off and BRL 250,000,000 of operating generation from continuing operations. Accordingly, the company continues to have a low level of leverage, and we were able to reduce our net debt over adjusted EBITDA ratio in the past 12 months from 2.5x in the Q1 2020 to 1.7x in the Q1 2021. We also ended the quarter with a solid cash position of almost BRL 4,000,000,000, which guarantees us a comfortable position in terms of liquidity. With this, I end the financial part of the presentation, and I give the floor to our CEO, Georges Faistao. Thank you very much, Guillaume.
Good morning, everyone. I hope you can see me. It's really a great pleasure to be here and to share Q1 results. I'd like to start talking by GPA Brazil. It's Page 10, and I'd like to also talk about our major growth platform, e commerce.
As for e commerce, this year, we keep focusing on growth. Our GMV achieved BRL 311,000,000 in this Q1, approximately BRL1.3 billion over the last months. So this is a very robust strong growth month after month. And we are focused, very focused on omni channel in which customers' expenses that using this omni channel that is a buy in brick and mortar and digital channels that their ticket is more than 3 times above compared to those that buy only in brick and mortar stores. And we see this growth month after growth.
And we see a 60% growth in the digital platform compared to last year. And as for omnichannel, we see a 40% increase also for this Q1. So besides growing, we want continuous growth month after month, and we want to grow with profitability. Our profitability was already positive, and it increased 1.9 percentage points compared to the Q1 of 2020, which means that we are highly motivated to keep on working on this path. For this quarter, I'd like to highlight this 137% growth on a very solid basis and compared to the same period in 2020.
So we see that we keep a continuous and constant growth for GPA Brazil in this quarter. Some highlights for this quarter. We changed our relationship and our partnerships, particularly regarding last mileers in Brazil. We have our own last mileer, James, and its volume keeps increasing compared to previous quarters. And more specifically, for this quarter, what we saw was a fourfold growth compared to same period last year.
In February, we started also selling by Rappi. In March, we started selling using Corner Shop within our platform. Right now, we have 138 stores operating on Rappi and 310 operating on Corner Shop. And now in May, we will also start operations with Ifood. This week, we already started our first activities with Ifood.
And also, we also work with Mercadelivri and also for B2W. So we will sell on Americanas and also Supermercado now in the Q2. And that will allow us to decrease a small loss in market share. But this is a strategic decision, and we are confident that we will be able to offset this small loss. We are still leaders when it comes to food e commerce.
Our market share is approximately 70%. And we are also we give we find actually loyalty programs very, very important. And what we see is that our customers are increasingly loyal to our ecosystem. So approximately 70% of our sales are identifiable. And when one of our customer participates not only in e commerce, but also is a member of our loyalty programs, when they see the discounts and the premiums.
So our loyal customer, what we see is that they spend 10x more than a regular customer. And that's why we find loyalty programs that important, and that's why we leverage them. I'd like also to comment on our marketplace. So I am on Slide 11 now. For this quarter, this was the Q1 with full operation.
We focused on maturing our processes. We don't want to grow in a disorganized fashion and marketplace. We are really focusing on holding high quality operations and good quality service. We want to provide excellent services to our customers. And that's why right now, we do have many tools with many partnerships with technology companies in order to provide this excellence in services.
Our results for this Q1 are highly satisfactory. And what we see is that month after month, we see more than 100% growth. And this is almost week after week, focusing on the 8 major categories as you can see here. So wine, craft beers, liquor, personal care, cleaning, baby care, pet care and home care. These are the 8 categories in which we focus and the ones we want to expand on.
We have partnerships with large companies, companies that are very well organized to sell in marketplace. As you can see here, thebar.com, which is a Diageo company, they are a very good partner that we have as well as here, Huntington Grand Cru for selling wines, Kobase for pet shop or pet care and these are the partnerships that we have already established. Now if we talk about brick and mortar stores, And it's important to underscore how important this is, the Pao de Acucar brand. So Pounda Acucar accounts for 30% of our total revenue, and we are highly confident on this brand and on this constant and continuous growth of this brand. Although we do see a change in the consumer profile now going more into e commerce.
But when we consider also migration of cities of consumers actually moving to different cities on the coast or in the inner part of the state, and we also see a decrease in the income of Brazilians. Pao de Acucar is a brand that focuses on quality. And we have here a broad variety of fresh products, of grocery. And perhaps this is the global benchmark when it comes to online participation. So at Pao de Acucar, we had a peak reaching 15% or even 17% throughput in this Q1.
And we also have stores that deliver at our consumers' home. And that also accounted for 30% of some stores' revenue. And that's why we are keeping this plan. We want to roll out the successful implementations, and we will roll out these new concepts for new for another 50 stores or more. So 50 new stores in the next 3 years.
Approximately 5 store we expect to open 5 new stores this year. Our expansion plan is also based on real estate partnerships with many companies. We are examining many factors, but we do have an expansion factory for opening new stores, and we are now starting to gain momentum. Slide number 13. Here we are addressing proximity format, and we are very proud of the success of this format.
Double digit growth for 11 consecutive quarters despite challenging times, especially if we consider that we do have these stores close to offices that were closed for some time. But we are also ready to see an expedited growth for this format. So we expect to open another 100 stores or more in the next 3 years and approximately 20 in 2021, particularly using the Menuto Pao de Acucar format, which is a huge success. And we are also working in a very organized and profitable fashion in order to pursue this initiative. I'd like to underscore our B2B model.
Compared to last year. And we are also working with Exito and the username, Aliados, in that country. Now Page 14. Other formats that are also as important. So mainstream supermarkets.
In this format, we copied the proposition value of some other markets in that region. And for this quarter, we ended the conversion, and we did that in 3 years. So we see same store growth of 7.5%. Compre Bem, we have a 2 digit growth and a very important synergy combining these two businesses in which Compre Bem is now exporting to Mercado Extra all of their successful implementations. For example, the meat department or that butcher that you had in your neighborhood, the bakery, more stable prices.
And that's why Compre Bem is so successful. On the other hand, Mercado also exports productivity practices, service practices and grocery practices to Compre Bem. Our groceries in Mercado Extra present high quality, and that's why we see synergy between these two formats. And we expect to talk about expansion in the near future. Now let's move to Slide 15, hypermarkets.
We are expanding our new value proposition. Hypermarket was the chain that suffered the most this quarter. So last year, we saw a very strong expansion of hypermarkets in the second half of March of last year. And this year, on the contrary, we had 32 stores that faced highly restrictive measures or stores that were partially closed during weekdays as well as reduced working hours, not to mention some restrictions to sell, for example, home appliances. Some of our stores cannot sell home appliances yet and many stores cannot sell alcoholic beverages.
And these were unseen conditions. But the company is working hard, and we have a strategy for this format. Once again, this is a strategy based on price, food prices. If we consider the cash and carry segment in this country, we have this preposition of more inexpensive product and that's extremely appealing to our customers. So we have this Mais Barata, Mais Barata more cheaper and cheaper, and we want consumers to find the best prices.
They can compare prices that were advertised by our competitors and especially to inexpensive prices for home appliances and also at very low interest rates or no interest rates. So Fontea Sucre provides variety, quality and experience. We are aware that price perception in the minds of consumers does not change overnight, But we remain firm in this. You can see when we talk about perishables, you can see the differences in prices. And we will keep on working on this conversion of hypermarkets.
Now a very brief transition to Colombia to exit the group as a whole. Countries presented the different performances. In Colombia, we find a very healthy performance, good results, particularly real estate segment, which is a core business in Colombia, and I want to underscore that. So it accounts for 6% of our revenue in Brazil. But in Colombia, that is even more important.
In Argentina, although it's a small operation, we faced many restrictions. And not only because of the pandemic, but also because of the macroeconomic conditions of that country. So our cash was neutral. We did not use cash. So in Uruguay, a country that was highly affected by the drop in tourism, In the summer, Uruguay welcomes many tourists in different parts of the country, and that had a strong impact on our sales in Uruguay.
But in spite of that, EBITDA in Uruguay is Uruguay EBITDA is still a double digit, above 10 points. Now let me focus on Colombia. And just as in Brazil, digital platform is one of the major platforms for exito. Stores that faced very stringent restrictions considering the 2nd wave, just as in Brazil. And I'd say that in Colombia, the government implemented more severe restrictions, and that's why the digital platform became more important.
So in Brazil, digital accounted for 6% of total business. In Colombia, that number was 13%. And that is really considered a global benchmark when we talk about food e commerce. Growth increased more than double, 118% growth considering different initiatives. As for non food, we also had the participation important participation of home appliances.
And as you can see, that also accounts for almost 14% of sales in Colombia. So a very important growth in marketplace with more than 100,000 more than 1,000 vendors rather. Very mature partnerships with Rappi in Colombia, and that keeps on leveraging our sales potential in that country. And now let's move to Slide 18. Exeto also implemented new models called the Exitowall.
And Exitowall focuses on services. It's a more digital store. And this is a very innovative model, highly successful. We already have 11 stores following this new model. They account for 23% of Exito sales and it's with a growth that is 9 points above the average.
And this format is working very, very well. Obviously, it does not have impact on the total growth. So 2.3% if you consider same store sales, but considering we had lockdown. Now next
slide. Chart 19, talking about Carullo, our premium format of Supermarket and Express Stores. In the format we had a relatively small growth. It suffered due to various lockdown impact and calendar, but it moves on the same trail of innovative formats. Carulios Innovation is fresh market that reaches 32% in the sales.
They grow 7 point 5 points above average. And we're going to build new open new 7 new stores in this format that strengthen fresh products, experience variety. Tasting in stores, consumption in stores, at this lockdown moment. This is not so possible, but for a near future, it should go back to normality. On Slide 20, speaking of low cost formats, grouping various low cost initiative Superinter low cost stepping back accounts for 14% of Colombia's sales Superinta launches a vecino format that has a differentiated experience for customers that seek price with service, 7 stores this year.
Surte Mayorista, which is our wholesale chain in Colombia, has 34 stores, 2 more 2 more expected to be opened this year. It's important to say that this is a format that has already profitability since last year. And the end customers, individuals account for almost 70% of those sales, similar situation that we see in the Brazilian cash and carry. The Alreado, Surtrimax and Superinter, which are the divisions of small stores and B2B, they launch online sales also to help boost sales in this segment even with lower cost and stronger presence of other players in other regions of Colombia. On Slide 21 to close Colombia's part, other businesses important, real estate in Colombia, once again, I stress is number 1 in malls.
In Colombia, with over 758,000 square meters, Gile, it comparatively has 32%, 1 third in other words of market share of real estate in Colombia. That is part of our group, quite important contribution in this quarter, results of Q1. And even with certain difficulties over this period of closing stores and restrictions, it maintained an occupancy rate of about 92%, which is an occupancy rate that is quite high for the standards when you compare to various shopping mall chains, other services that are still very important that are evolving quickly in Colombia. Pontos Colombia, so the loyalty currency over 100 partnerships signed in that country. We already have an outreach of 1 third of the population in Colombia that have access to this currency.
Financial services and launches of the digital wallet last year, there are also highlights of the Esito Group. Moving to the final remarks of my presentation on Slide 21. As we say in English, last but not least, ESG is a priority for GPA in all countries where we have operations. We have just a second. The GPA group has a commitment to be a mobilizing agent.
We say that it's not enough doing your part, but taking on the responsibility in a social, environmental and governance agenda. Some major examples here that have marked this quarter. Our initiatives regarding fighting climate change in Brazil. We've had strong growth in the migrated stores to the energy free market that reached 75% of the energy consumption of GPA Brazil and a strong inclination to reduce greenhouse gas effect. It's changing all the chain of refrigerating gases in the forthcoming years.
In the past year, we've had 23% reduction in total solid waste regarding Q1 2020. We also have a tier 2 sustainable livestock working group along with major partners of ours, JBS and Marfrig, obviously ensuring to our consumers and our society the purchase of beef in regions that are not illegally deforested. Our social focus is also a cornerstone for the quarter in addition to the social initiatives internally. And we have increasingly more women and black people in leadership roles over we already have more than a third managerial positions. And practically half of our employees declare themselves as black and mulattis.
And we have an external social agenda that is very strong, especially at this time with that is quite a sensitive time for the country with direct donations and direct donations made by our customers. In April, we have collected over 1,000 tons of food. This means dozens and dozens of trucks of food in almost 200 NGOs that we have supported to food in the sensitive time of hunger in the country. At ESETO, we highlight recyclable waste. And the award, ESETO had the best performance on food industry in Latin America.
It's a global S and P award. Last chart of my part, number 24, so that we can move on to Q and A. We'd just like to reinstate our main messages. We continue with accelerated escalating our digital platform, increasingly taking part in our business, organic expansion and the rollout and maturation of the new concepts and actually expanding Ponjazucar and Minuto Ponjazucar format. So Vercardo Extra Compriben, Ponjazucar G7 and Fresh Market Carula, Colombia and Uruguay, the repositioning of our hypermarket models with this territory of price and in Colombia with Exito Wow!
In the territory of experience of a much more pleasant store. And obviously, on the financial part, we are increasingly more focused on a continuous reduction of expenses and continuous reduction of our indebtedness level so that we can reduce our leverage level, enabling more sustainable and higher growth for GPA. With this, I will close my part. And now I'm going to open to the Q and A. Thank you very much for your attention and time.
Now we're going to open up for the Q and A session. Our first question comes from Mr. Joseph Jordan from JPMorgan. Hello, good morning, everyone. Faiza, Guillaume.
Thank you for taking my question. I'd like to explore a little bit with you growth. We see the company for some quarters actually consolidating not only on the Pontiac Suquer, so also hypermarkets. I'd like to understand a bit what you see in terms of competition, especially in the hypermarket format that would explain this performance so below competitors considering that the overlap of stores is quite big. We're talking about quite similar marketplace.
The second point, so thinking about the Baum banner or brand, so people leaving the cities with the reopening in Sao Paulo that you see this coming back. And the second point is within the digital strategy, how do you see your marginal share if the aggregating factor is sharing some or the aggregator is adding or sharing some data with you? And lastly, take a bit of what you see in terms of outlook for the forthcoming quarters because the basis starts becoming more difficult? Okay. The last 15 days in March were difficult.
And I'd like to know how you see the prospects for the next quarters and the viewpoint of the company and strategy for the company in terms of growth for the future. Thank you, Joseph, for the questions. Pleasure to speak to you again. Well, competition in this quarter has been a competition that suffered just like everyone suffered on some impacts, some restrictions. Businesses compared to our competitors are different, different proportions, different sales mix that led each one to have slightly different impacts.
Some growth that we were able to observe in the market are focused on online. They're focused on especially in the appliances electric appliances online and focused on the events of the last mile. What we managed to observe is that some of our competitors direct competitors said over 70% of their growth came from those two assumptions. We made a decision for this direct competition with Last Mile. We made a decision at the end of Q4 changing our strategic planning, very much focused on collaboration and partnerships, a fact that we actually tried to seek.
We were a bit behind, let's say, and now we're recovering or catching up. And you're going to see in the near future robust growth of our digital basis that we're going to fight for consumers that have started using those sales or purchase platforms and fighting against local, regional competitors. And this is a mitigation measure. As you know, we are not yet focusing on the household appliances categories for online sales. We have lost a bit of market share in driving online on these household appliances.
We have it doesn't mean that we're not going to sell household appliances at some point. These are the factors that, well, considering your first question, that are very much faced with direct competition, they're our main highlights. Well, our positioning, as I mentioned to you, price territory and hypermarket is firm, is positioning which we are betting very much on this new positioning. And we have absolute confidence that this price perception in the mind of consumers will change. And that's what we see in our first stores.
In some cities where price perception has already changed. Our market share gain in those cities in micro regions specifically has already been happening in food in another proportion. Your question regarding Pao. Pao de Acucar has also lost because of last mile. It had an impact in the city migrations in the 2nd wave in this quarter that was not expected.
As I said, Ponta Azucar does not want to take up the price land or territory, wants to maintain the territory of authority in terms of assortment, quality of perishables, of its bakery, of its fruits and legumes and vegetables. And that we believe no matter how much we go through 1 or 2 quarters with certain difficulties, Pao de Acucar is very strong with its value proposal and its future expansion. When you talk about share or market share, yes, we did have a loss in our market share in the Q1. As you could observe, we have had within the food market, we had a loss of share. When we see expanded retail, we have total resilience considering the moment the country is going through in broad retail.
Retail and services, when there is a drastic impact, food retail maintains quite sound growth rates, even losing some bancasshare at this time due to all those environments that have been already explained. We are confident that our strategy is good and our recovery strategy for the future quarters, the outlook. Joseph, for the short term, Q2 should be maintained with certain levels of difficulties. But reminding you that Q2 last year, where food, retail was mostly benefited with the abrupt shutting down of restaurants, we should have Q2 a bit more difficult when compared to Q2 last year, but our rates are of recovery week after week. April or May starts better than April.
April was a difficult month considering the peak of restrictions that was late March, early April. April suffered from those impacts, be it in Brazil and Colombia. And we're still very confident in the recovery situation for the country in the 2nd semester for this year. Perfect. Thank you very much, Faizal.
Our next question comes from Mr. Guilherme Assis from Banco Safra. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Faizao, Iza, Guillaume and Mario.
I'd like to delve into this question of the change of strategy at Extra. I understand that this is recent. You have some evidence in the stores that have been have had implementation of Torso Faizal mentioned where that's where the price perception can be seen and there's a recovery. But I'd like to understand, I know it's a complicated time we have effect both of the pandemic and categories, for example, appliances, electric appliances. And there's something else that I'd like to know that I want to sort of understand that has an impact on the gross margin.
Positive result of the quarter is that you managed to maintain profitability in gross margin and EBITDA margin in the various formats and categories there. I'd like to understand, looking ahead as the rollout strategy happens for Extra is happening, Should we expect some impact in the gross margin in the format that is relevant for the company that is translating into an impact in the gross margin of GPA Brazil as a whole? This is a question, okay? And the second question that I have, I'd like to know if you can update on the demobilization of sales of assets speaking specifically whether you have an update of the North, Cenova, abroad, gas stations and pharmacies in Brazil and also talking about potential sales of stake in Uruguay. Those are the questions I have.
Thank you, Guelherme. It's a great pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for your questions. Growth margin in hypermarket, it's not being affected. Well, let me rephrase it.
Hypermarket EBITDA is not being affected by its positioning. We see a decrease in gross margin, one point approximately, but that's offset by decreasing expenses with the dilution of expenses using this format. As we mentioned at the end of last year, and we are using the same strategy. As I mentioned, the evidence in the cities in which we have this positioning for a longer period of time since the half of last year, we saw changes in volume, changes in consumer behavior. And consumers understand what is our wholesale price.
The reduced price is a fact. And we are really, really inexpensive and hyper in hypermercado right now, hypermarket. And we are very optimistic, but we are always very cautious. We understand that hyper Mercado will react based on this price perception, but the EBITDA does not have any impact. It's not a concern.
As for selling assets, I'd like to turn it over to Guillaume. Thank you. With regard to selling assets, right now, there is nothing new that allows us to share or to disclose. As for Cenova, we are still examining that. We are studying how we can really get the best value for this asset and we expect to perhaps to close this in the Q2 and then make an announcement afterwards.
I'd like also to say that GPA is involved in this analysis. We have 3 board members that participate of Cnova Board of Directors, Elazar. And we also Elazar is an independent member. And that will allow us to really obtain the best value possible for this asset. So just a follow-up about Cnova.
If I'm not mistaken, there are some studies that are still being conducted, but I'm still not sure about what I read about the potential operation. So I don't understand really what's going to be done with regard to the subsidiary or if you are going to take offers on Cnova. And based on what I understand from the commitment agreement, GPA prefers to sell up to 90% of shares or up to 90% of it is strict considering if there is an offer for Cenova. But in the announcement, it seems that you could also have a discount, but I don't know if GPA would still keep this preference on Cdiscount. I don't know.
Well, that is once again, that will depend on the scenarios that will emerge, and there are different possible scenarios. And we need, obviously, to understand the impact of H1. And we need to consider the different impacts and the different opportunities for monetization. But that will depend on the very clear outcome of these studies. Okay.
Thank you, Guillaume. Thank you very much, everyone. Our next question comes from Elena Villaris from Itau. Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question.
I'd like to talk about the digital ecosystem that you are developing. So can you please talk a little bit, can you share some color on what to expect for the next 5 years? And also, how what about the impact over the years? You have been discussing the last mile strategy, what impact does that have on your margins? Thank you.
[SPEAKER CANDIDO BOTELHO BRACHER:] Thank you, Elena, for your question. In 5 years, we want to be one of the most relevant players in digital. This is our goal. But we know that for achieving that, we will have to focus on where we already stand out, foods. So our platforms focuses on nature categories, as I mentioned, beverages, personal care, cleaning, pet care, and we are strengthening our platform.
And when I say platform, I'm talking about selling what we call 1P, And I'm also talking about 3P, in which we will have the major country sellers selling on our platforms. And we will also be sellers of other platforms in the market, just as I mentioned, MercadoLibre or B2W or the Last Mileers. These are very important platforms in the market, and we will really benefit from our major expertise, I. E, food distribution, and we will be the major sellers in this platforms. So we will strengthen our sites and we will also strengthen the sites of our partners.
So this border between competition and the collaboration is will become a gray area and that's how we are going to work. Obviously, that involves e commerce planning as well as loyalty. We are strengthening, as I mentioned. Our knowledge on data consumer on consumer data rather, we have now just launched in this quarter, and we are still running the pilot of our fulfillment center, our distribution center of services to sellers. So all for digital.
And this is our goal for the next 5 years to be one of the major players. But let's go step by step. We need to build categories and add new categories, considering what categories are more relevant to our consumers, not only in food. And we don't see any negative impact on margins. On the contrary, we believe that these partnerships will provide us benefit in increasing our EBITDA and our margins.
We know we are aware of competition. We know that competitors are also moving forward in this segment, but we want to take agency in these transformations. I hope it's clear. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Very clear. Our next question comes from Joao Suarez from Citibank. Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question.
My question is also a follow-up on digital. I'd like to ask you to elaborate on profitability, also accelerated growth we see using this channel. But can you talk a little bit about marketing and consumers' perception in trying to also accelerate the migration of those consumers that are still offline to online? And also, what's your take on the profitability of this channel considering also the use of this other platform such as Mercadilivre? All right.
So let me start talking by the partnerships and the margins, and then I'll address marketing. Partnerships, We have different types of partnerships with Mercado Livre, for example. We send them our goods, GPA goods, and we have them at Mercado Libre's distribution center. And they are responsible for logistics services for taking those 2 consumers home. Now with Super Mercado Now, Supermercado Now, they work with inventory from our stores.
It's a ship from store concept. So we are talking about 2 different types of partnerships. And they are based on different fees, different negotiation fees and different costs. Obviously, whenever we disclose an agreement, it's important to bear in mind that we have been working on that agreement for months in order to ensure the profitability of our business. We already mentioned that last year, and I'd like just to reiterate that.
Our digital growth will not be disorganized and will not produce loss. We want a profitable digital growth. So even if we establish these partnerships, it's important to bear in mind that these partners also provide us some benefits. So I can ensure you that the digital growth will not have negative impact on our margins. And we are very proud of that because we know that some of our competitors, they announced digital growth, but at a very low profit or negative profit.
As for cost of customer acquisition, month after month, we are also strengthening our digital marketing department, once again strengthening partnerships. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank 2 important partners, Google and Facebook. Besides Lebournay and Ravas, our publishing companies or the companies we work with. So we provide hyper customization. We do have a great deal of information of our consumers, and we can target our consumer.
We can even go to an individual IRS identification number, and that is really a strategy guided by hyper customization. And we are also improving and growing on following consumers wherever they are. Also performance using Google search, for example, or using a tool such as SDK that allows us to identify where our app users are. So I don't want to go in-depth into the technicalities, but we are certainly using the best technologies to strengthen our marketplace and our platform as a whole. If you have any question, a more specific question, we are available, Joao, so that we can provide you more information if you need.
Thank you. I hope my answer was clear, Joao. Our next question comes from Felipe from Goldman Sachs. Hello, everyone. Can you please add some color on inflation and your strategies to fight it?
Felipe, thank you very much for your question. When we talk about inflation pressure and compared to last year, what we see is that it's stable for many categories that we have. For this Q1, we did not see any relevant price decrease for consumers. For some categories, particularly those that are manufactured using raw materials that are imported, we saw price increase, and that's because of foreign exchange rates. But right now, what we see is that dollar is stable, so to speak, and companies are now adjusting to work at a 5.5 exchange rate.
So for this Q1, we did not see any decrease, and we also have some new cost tables. And unfortunately, we did have to pass that over to consumers. Now for Q2, we expect to see a decrease in some products, particularly grocery. And for vegetables, for example, we saw a drop. But right now, we cannot even say that, that's a trend.
So that may be related to seasonality, weather conditions and many other factors. And that's why we don't see decrease, price decrease nor inflation pressure. We find that or we expect a very neutral environment when we think about major products that we sell or resell. Thank you very much.
Our next question comes from Mr. Robert Flot from Bank of America. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. So What about the Aliadros program in Brazil?
What's the profile of this business? And how do you expect it to evolve, please? Thank you, Robert, for the question. Well, Aliadus well, 3 years ago, we launched Aliadus in Brazil in 2016 2017, if I'm not mistaken. The 1st 2 years, it was like there were experience period maturing the business, especially in terms of logistics.
When we in 2019, mid-twenty 19, managed to adjust the logistics chain with service rendering, delivering 24 hours to our customers that were B2B, the business started growing at very satisfactory rates. The growth in the past year was 40%. We are talking about significant numbers here. I'm not going to disclose specific numbers in sales of this format. They are already nonmarginal numbers.
They're quite significant. We use the logistics chain that makes the same distribution of our proximity our own proximity stores. We're using the same logistics to distribute to those small retailers. This is still a limited distribution in the area of Greater Sao Paulo. We are now migrating to the inter side of Sao Paulo in the segments.
And also this year, we are selling some perishables categories, fresh and refrigerated and non refrigerated products. These are new chains, over 1200 clients that we serve, and we have a profitability of 1 digit that is high. And we can through the use of our costs and our logistics array, we managed to have positive profitability and that is quite satisfactory. Aliados today contributes positively for the EBITDA increase of GPA. And I'd say CapEx is practically 0.
It has no CapEx. It does not involve CapEx. Many times, CapEx is just negligible of some kind of infrastructure, some minor thing. But it's practically a business that is going to grow more in the next years and it will be an interesting contributor to our revenue in GPI. And where is this business being consolidated please?
This business is being consolidated in the proximity business. Our next question will be in English from Mr. Andrew from Morgan Stanley.
My question is on e commerce in Exido, specifically the Rafi partnership and last mile. I'm wondering what you're seeing from consumer behavior, is it basket size, frequency when they use the service? And how you think that could translate to your last mile use in Brazil? Thank you very much.
Carlos, would you like to talk about Rappi and then okay.
Of groceries. For the future, what we think is that we are going to launch and we already announced a service of a 10 minutes delivery in the main parts of Bogota, Medellin, Cali and Barranquilla and the most affluent places, working from our stores, but also in our alliance with Rafi from dark stores that we are going to establish for that. The consumer trend is to continue expanding this service. And especially in these times of restrictions of opening of stores and social protest, the home delivery service in food has become absolutely key for our customers.
And adding to Carlos Mario's answer for Brazil, we see in Brazil through these last mile and also on the other platforms like Super Mercado Now or Mercado Livre, we see a change a drastic change here of consumption platforms where online consumers can buy. We believe that in Brazil, the only retailer that will be able to keep the food platform is us. We would have pontrasucar.com, ese.com and Las Smilers and other platforms. So we see a wave of large supermarkets allying to those last mileers in the country and last mileers increasingly strengthening their technology, the usability of their apps to the benefit of the convenience of consumers. So what we see in terms of behavior change on the part of consumers is something that we actually are going to beyond selling on our website.
We're going to compete also on those other websites. So competition within those platforms happens through time to market. So the initiatives that Ricardo was saying, the initiatives we see of 10, 15 minute delivery in the country, ability of delivering fresh products, a complete food basket, ability of having promotions and fair prices for this platform and not charge from the consumer the cost of convenience. So we are very attentive to all those competitive attributes that we will face. The supermarket industry in Brazil will face this new global trend of competition through 3rd party platforms.
And we're specializing to be the main player in 3rd party platforms, not only on our platforms.
Very helpful. Thanks very much.
Sorry, Carlos, would you like to add anything? Our next question comes from Mr. Juan Paulo Andrade from Bradesco BBI. First of all, good morning and congratulations on your results. I'd like to ask a question regarding quality of service of consumers on digital platforms.
You've talked about your own platforms or the partners compared to the market. So what's a KPI and considering NPS, whether that's relevant, if you could comment on the initiatives you're envisaging for that? Within our own platforms, we SLA and NPS of consumers were things that we're very much focused. In the past months, we've reached levels of improvement of customer satisfaction that were quite significant. 2 or actually 3 KPIs that we look quite constantly every week is what we call perfect order, which is a KPI that we deliver to consumers.
What's the percentage of delivery we have for consumers regarding what they have ordered? The second KPI is delivery time. Basically, in logistic terms, is as if we called on time in full. So on time is the time of delivery and in full is the complete order. And the third one is NPS.
And the 2 first NPIs we have attained in this quarter levels above 95% of attainment, perfect order and delivery time. We had indices in the past around 80%, below 80%, and we have evolved to above 95%. In some cities, towns, we are over 99%. In other words, close to perfection in some cities within our own platform. On 3rd party platforms, we're still at levels that are not desirable, low levels around 80%, 85% of satisfaction rate.
NPS is not yet at the level we would like to have. And we are totally aware of what needs to be done for us to seek this higher level, especially in the inventory integration with those platforms. This inventory integration is happening today every hour or every 3 hours. We expect to have online integration of inventory and this greatly improves customer satisfaction and also the relationship that we have in the delivery. Many times, the dissatisfaction of customers is when the delivery is different from that the picker actually getting or picking products and actually shipping to consumers or delivering to consumers is actually a process that presents certain flaws.
So customer satisfaction is key for our growth in the digital world. I hope I have managed to give you some satisfactory examples to you, Richard, for your question. Yes. Thank you. The Q and A session is ended.
We would like to give the floor for the final remarks of the company. Thank you very much for the opportunity for your time dedicated to us. We would just like to reinstate that the Q1, despite having had some sales hindered by non expected results, we were prepared for the Q1 since last year with much more strength on the basics of our business, on the defense of our cash at this time of volatility that the Brazilian, Colombian and Latin American economy is going through. As a whole, we reflect to you profitable growth, growth to our shareholders, profitable to our controlling stakeholders and shareholders. Our profitability levels have been a reversion from negative to positive with various productivity efforts, costs and expenses that have been made over the past 3 years and are now consolidating.
The consolidation of our initiatives of our strategic planning, formatting new stores is also reflecting favorably to our business. Digital world, as we've talked a lot about it, it's a road with no return for GPA for the group as a whole. It is a path with continuous and growing trajectory. We always highlight that we are a Latin American company. We are not only Brazilian company.
We have the ESITO Group that is worth BRL 9,000,000,000 in the Colombian Stock Exchange and has a sound group with sound results. The cash reach, continuous cash generation for the group and this helps a lot for our company to evolve as a whole. We are very confident in our development as a company in the future, very confident. We'd like to thank for the partnerships with strategic partners, our suppliers and especially my thanks to our internal team, all our associates of GPA for another successful quarter in terms of results. Thank you all very much.
See you next time. Thank you. The GPA earnings conference call is closed. The IR department of the group is available to answer further questions and doubts. We thank you for your participation and wish you a very good day.