Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Panvel conference call discussing the results regarding the fourth quarter of 2021. This is being recorded and the replay may be accessed in the website of investor relations of the company. The presentation is also made available for download. We inform you that all the participants will be merely watching the presentation. Right after the presentation, we will start a Q&A session when further instructions will be provided. Before we proceed, I take this opportunity to say that the prospective declarations are based on Panvel's assessments and all the information available to the company. Those declarations may involve risk and uncertainties because they are related to future events, and therefore, they are dependent on circumstances that may or may not take place.
Investors, analysts, and journalists alike should consider that any events related to the macroeconomic environment, to the segment, and to other factors may cause the results to be materially different than those expressed on those prospective declarations. In this video conference, we have Júlio, the CEO, and Mr. Antônio, CFO and DRI. Right now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Júlio Mottin Neto, who is going to start the presentation. Please, Mr. Júlio , you have the floor.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. It is my pleasure to be here with such distinguished guests in our audience for the first time with Grupo Panvel. I think we are seeing a very important movement. This is here to facilitate all of our lives. We are going to stop seeing that news that a group that owns Panvel did this and that.
I think this is going to be definitely able to help us, and it is going to facilitate as far as the brand. So with this new brand, with this new name, we have a model that really translates our daily life, our concern with quality, and what really motivates us, which is [Non-English content] which is being careful when caring for others on a free translation. So this is our manifesto, and it was really a key part on this new process. There is a video that you actually can access via the QR code you see on screen. We always believe that retail is an activity that is comprised by people, so it is essential for us to have these people motivated and taking extreme pride on the company that they are involved in.
We hope that we are able to bring forth the highest number of talents possible, anyone who wishes to join us. So this new movement is really, really important for the training, for the qualifying, and the motivation of our team. 2021 was a very interesting year for our group. That was the first year where we were able to do a major celebration from an investment perspective. The differential here was that we were able to accelerate our expansion with 60 new stores inaugurated in 2021, but without ceasing to deliver results. We see a lot of companies accelerating their growth to the detriment of the financials. But we are always characterized as being very grounded with a very efficient cost management, and our track record shows that. I think that the major highlight for the year is the acceleration in investment in sales.
Above all else, I believe that results really stand out. We also had some very relevant facts, such as the inauguration of our distribution center in São José dos Pinhais, a city that is in the countryside of the state of Curitiba, southern Brazil. That is going to be key for us to expand in that state, which is a very promising market to our brand. We have over 80 stores present in that southern state. Without question, this is a major growth perspective. We also have a major highlight from a services perspective. We have been taking very seriously this change with the consumer as far as how consumers are looking at pharmacies as a health services hub. We have been investing quite a bit.
It already accounts for 3.4% of our total sales, which is a very substantial number, and we have some initiatives that are really interesting. Today, we have roughly 80 stores that have vaccination services, and in those stores, we are also putting some blood testing services with TLR, the portable device, and we are investing more and more on integration with external partners as well. We know that there is a very strong possibility for us to navigate and commercialize third-party devices, diagnosis, or even health plans. This is an agenda here in the company that has been making huge strides. Effectively, what we are doing is we are integrating, digitizing, and creating an open platform for pharmaceutical services, and we know that definitely pharmacies from now on are going to go through a very important transformation, and we want to be a part of it.
From a digital perspective, we also had a very interesting year. We maintained our share. 2020 was a year where digital was taken to another level, so 16% of our revenue. This is a standard that maintained in 2021, and we have a roadmap which is quite extensive as far as changes, improving the interface, integration. In July, we also had the launch of our marketplace, which came in to add a larger number of services to our consumers without losing sight of our SLAs, without losing sight of our guarantee, our warranty, and our level of service, which is definitely a standout. These are important investments, and we believe that, yes, it's about behavior. It's not a tech change. It's a behavior change. Consumers today almost all of them understand that digital is part of their lives. That also accounts for 10% of our customer base.
10% of Panvel customers buy in-store and also digital. This is an expressive number as well. In terms of data and Panvel products, we have been growing quite a bit as well. We are using more and more of our unique customer base, which is a very important differential for the company. More and more, we are trying to provide a customized price to our customers. We developed a continuous use process, which has been very well-adopted. We have great adherence with that. We are guaranteeing a price for the specific customer here in the company. Panvel products have been growing extensively as well. This is a huge differential in the market where you sell commodities. It's great to have such a strong brand like the likes of Panvel signing such a broad range of products and having such a significant process in sales.
Definitely this is an important differential that we have, and without question, it helps consumers choose their preferred pharmacy. Panvel products account for a bit above 9% of our revenue, and Hygiene and Beauty in our fourth quarter, we had almost 20% of our revenue. These are substantial numbers. In 2021, we also had our ESG platform being launched. I think this is a very important movement. Our mission here is to make sure that all the ESG initiatives that we had can reach our consumers. We are committed to goals as well. By 2025, we have some very important goals down the pipe. For this year, 2022, we have roughly 100% of our stores being supplied by photovoltaic energy, so we want to make sure that this reaches our consumer for it to be a decision factor for purchase.
Besides being concerned with ecology and society at large, there is a business behind it, and we have to realize it. Effectively, we need to make sure that this is perceived by the customer. This is our intention. We had a very important development from a corporate governance perspective as well. We integrated Novo Mercado, so we also had the inclusion of another member in our Board. Today we have two independent board members. We added a very distinguished person, who is Clarice Costa. She was the VP of Renner in HR for so many years, and definitely she was one of the major driving forces behind Renner's services, and she's working with Panvel now and helping us develop people. The new brand of the group that I just referred to as well.
These are the important bullet points for 2021, and we delivered some very robust numbers. We concluded fourth quarter in 2021 with a growth to the tune of 14.3% compared to 2020. Considering that the fourth quarter of 2020, we already had a very considerable growth base, so this is growth on growth. Our EBITDA is all the same. Actually, our EBITDA grew a little more than sales, 14.6%, which is a very substantial number. Our NPS, which is a constant focus of the company, we always wanted to be the best player possible and not the biggest one possible, so quality is really, really taken seriously in our doors here. As we understand, this is a very important differential factor, and the quality that Panvel delivers on the front lines is really important.
In 2021, in our consolidated numbers, we had some very robust results as well. We grew almost 18% on retail with a growth in our margin. We had almost one percentage point growth in our margin and a growth to the tune of 25% in our EBITDA. These are very, very robust numbers if you consider. This was the first year where we accelerated our growth and our investment. At the end of the day, this is the message that I want to impart to you. We know how to grow, and we know how to grow with good results on the bottom line. I'll hand it over to Antônio, who is going to continue the presentation. We are definitely at your service later on for questions and answers.
Thank you, Júlio . Moving on with the presentation here, folks, let's deep dive on some of the points that Júlio already alluded to. The first point that I would like to share with you is this, is our consistency. When you look at this development data on the growth revenue and the average per store, it is very clear that Panvel has been a consistent company throughout the years. This is just a sample of the last 10 years. Our consistency in growth, sales, and results. This also comes accompanied by a gain in market share, which is really, really important. I also stress that Panvel continues to be the player that has never presented any loss in its history.
All of that basis gives us a lot of pride when it comes to the consistency, the solidity, the soundness of this company, and innovation is definitely a hallmark of the company. Moving on, talking a little bit about revenue. Panvel, like Júlio said, grew by 14.3% in the fourth quarter of 2021 and 17.9% in the whole year. This growth in the fourth quarter was above the market average, and it was not done just because of our expansion in stores, but also due to the growth in the average sales per store above the different players. According to the numbers you see on this graph, we still have the objective of increasing the average per store.
In the fourth quarter, we achieved an average of BRL 570,000, a 9% growth compared to the third quarter. We cannot forget also that we achieved this objective despite the acceleration and the expansion occurred in the last quarter, which pulls the average down. When you look at the growth on same stores and mature stores here, the results are also robust for the year, with a growth of 14.7% for same stores and 8.4% for mature stores. When we analyze the fourth quarter, we can see that we have 8.4% for same stores and 6.4% for mature stores. These are results that are very promising as well, and the basis for comparison in the fourth quarter is stronger than the second and the third quarters. Getting into expansion a little bit.
We reached our record history mark, and we closed the year at 517 units of Panvel. Just in the fourth quarter alone, we opened 22 new stores, a new record when it comes to our history for previous quarters, and we are very satisfied with our ramp-up for open stores in the last 12 months, which makes us really confident of the ability of the company to execute its growth plan. In 2021, our growth was well distributed all across the different southern states, and we are still trying to internalize that process. The objective here is to cater to the expansion of the middle class. We opened 17% of our stores on a popular economy format and 80% on a standard format, which is a hybrid model that caters to the different classes.
As a consequence of this growth in our average sales and our physical expansion, on slide 10, we can see that market share in Panvel continued to grow and has reached 12% in the fourth quarter, with an evolution of 0.1 in 2020 and 0.7 on the third quarter of 2020. This gain in share was possible in all of our states. Quarter- after- quarter, throughout 2021, Panvel expanded its presence, improved the performance of its units, and also gained market share all across the different regions, irrespective of the competition. I want to stress as well that we have a very desirable market share in the southern region, over 40% in medications. Speaking on digital, all the numbers made clear that Panvel is still the benchmark for the pharma market.
In the fourth quarter, the penetration of sales was at 15.3%, which is a very strong position when you consider that in this period we had a very high growth in our customer flow in physical stores, especially in December, due to the COVID pandemic. In the whole year, we performed almost with the same sales, 15.9%, which is a huge accomplishment compared to the situation of 2020. All of this growth in sales is directly related to the quality of our deliveries. We are still having the quickest deliveries in retail, delivering in one hour in every city that we are present in. We do this with a very desirable level of service, 97%. We have a structure that counts on 108 delivery stores and nine distribution centers. Plus, customers can pick it up in our stores as well.
A major highlight of this quarter is very much in line with our efforts to digitize the company, which is the increase on the apps download. Our bases grew by over 25% in the third quarter and over 120% compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year. This growth was not by accident. It is directly related to the evolution of our coupons, our incentives to download the app, as well as promotional dates such as Black Friday and Christmas. Another highlight is that Panvel in 2021 maintained a leadership position as far as percentage of users that are active, which indicates that our app is really engaging and users use it after the first download. One other important point that I should stress is that all of this growth in digital, in our case, it doesn't hurt the margin.
Considering the existing stores, we were able to improve the quality of our deliveries and have a cap that is lower. In other words, we were able to make progress in our digital sales, and we maintain that very profitable. I think that observation is really relevant because effectively the growth in digital to us, it does not make us give up our margins, right? Our digital results are solid. In our stores, we don't do any customer migration, which is a practice that we see happening with different retailers, which is you offer a different price at the counter for customers to click and pick up. These are solid numbers. These are actual customers, people that believe in the level of service and in Panvel's deliverables and not on a price exchange.
I think this data is really, really important, and we have a very solid strategy, and this is not a migration of customers from the stores to downloaded apps to get a different price at the counter. Moving on. Now let's do a deep dive on the Panvel Clinic, which is slide number 12. 2021 was a very important year because it positioned Panvel at the leadership position to provide services for the community in the southern region. We are very proud to have applied over 85,000 COVID vaccines and having conducted over 170,000 tests in the population. With a focus on health, we are still expanding our service stations. Today, we have 305 equipped stations that are providing hundreds of services. And out of those stores, 74 are able to vaccinate.
We expanded our leadership in the southern region, achieving a 41% market share, over three times our share in the region, which just like I showed you before, was 12%. This position in services makes it clear that we have a competitive advantage when it comes to healthcare. As a consequence, this year, and by the way, Júlio said this before, we achieved a 3.4% share in our revenue, which is a record-breaking level in the pharma market. And in our mission, we can provide healthcare and wellbeing to the customers. On slide 13, and concluding sales, we are here at Panvel products, which is an essential pillar for our brand and margin. Panvel is the only pharmacy where consumers can literally take the brand to their homes.
On the fourth quarter, the participation of Panvel products overcame 8%, and in the total sales of the network, it overcame 20% on hygiene and beauty items, staying a benchmark in pharma. And we are very happy because in 2021, once again, we achieved a record-breaking participation on private label products for the whole year at a level of 7.8%. With 900 SKUs and a lot of launches, Panvel products are an important support for the gross margin of the company, which exceeds our average margin in about six percentage points. One third of these items are manufactured by our industry, so this verticalized strategy ensures quality and also ensures a higher margin for our private products. On slide number 14, you can look at it with more time later on.
These are some of the products that have been launched in 2021, and these are some of the novelties that are coming down the pipe as well. Finally, when we look to slide 15 here, all of this virtuous cycle of our physical and digital strategy comes to a convergence point when we work with customers. These are the information that you see here on screen. We are summarizing the main KPIs of service that the company monitors on a daily basis. Panvel is unique when it comes to assessing its accelerated growth with the best experiences with the customers. We have a satisfaction indicator panel that is monitored constantly, and we are very happy with the results. Our NPS closed the year at 80 points, which accounts for a 6% growth compared to 2020. That happened all across our channels.
Besides, we also maintain the very best assessment, and we are also maintaining as the best-assessed app in Google and App Store. This is in the DNA of our company from the get-go, and this is what I want to stress. We are investing on digitization for our customers, and we are offering more and more customized offers for them. Now, going back to the numbers, let's get into the gross margin a little bit. Slide 16. The gross margin of retail was one of the major highlights of the period, having grown 0.7% compared to the previous quarter. In the year, Panvel has reached a 30% margin, a growth of 0.9% compared to the close to year 2020. This good result was the fruit of many factors.
With a good hike on the first semester and a very detailed work on our products, the evolution of our process and our project focused on generics and the increase of sales share. Well, there are many elements that contributed, and they are sustaining one of the most healthy margins of the market. Looking forward, there are still some good prospects for the gross margin. We are going to continue to focus on our project for generics, as well as the development of other hygiene and beauty processes. We also have a positive perspective for the medication price adjustment, which is expected to happen now on April. Now, changing gears a little bit, getting into expenses. When you look at the data here, slide 17, it is clear that we have a focused effort when it comes to efficiency.
On the fourth quarter, the expenses with sales grew compared to the previous year, but they were reduced compared to the other quarters of 2021. If you compare the expansion of the stores that we did this year and the inflation pressure that impacted the last quarter in particular, we have no question that the numbers are very consistent. This focus on productivity, it has really made a difference. When it comes to our administrative expenses, this is even more clear. We are able to reduce by 0.1% our expenses in the fourth quarter while maintaining our team efforts. We are still having the best percentages of expenses all across the sector. The truth is, it could be easy to generate some short-term results by holding up investments, but we have a very clear vision. Even so, we are able to expand our margins.
This expenses control and this high productivity are in the company's DNA as well as the care for the consumer at the forefront. When you look at the productivity KPIs, such as employees per store, we are still a benchmark in the pharma market. We work in productivity, and this is the best way to fight the impact of inflation on our cost. Now, getting into EBITDA, after we commented on sales, margin, and expenses, now this is the results. Our adjusted EBITDA closed the quarter at BRL 49 million, the equivalent of 5.1% of our gross revenue and a growth of 14.6% compared to the previous year. In the year, we achieved an EBITDA of BRL 160 million, which is 4.6% of our revenue and a very strong growth of almost 26% in 2020.
In both cases, both in the year and in the quarter, we are very satisfied and very confident that in a year of strong investment, when with the impact that we have on the short-term expenses, we have delivered a true margin expansion, both from a quarter and a year perspective. When we analyze the EBITDA on retail, which is the next slide, the consistency of our execution is even more clear. Even with a small pressure on the fourth quarter related to our expansion in stores, the yearly margin is still very close to the historical average. Accelerating stores expansion and maintaining consistency are success indicators for the existing stores and a great ramp-up for new stores as well. Finally, everything brings us to the net profit, where we achieved a very healthy net profit of BRL 28 million, the equivalent of 2.9% of our revenue.
In the year, we achieved an adjusted net profit of BRL 92 million, a growth of 30%. With that, we are still positioning ourselves as one of the most profitable operations on the pharma retail, and that shows the excellence of Panvel in the market. I take this opportunity on behalf of myself and Júlio to emphasize our thanks to the team, and thank you for your support to deliver those great results. Our focus is always on the customer. Now taking a look at the cash cycle, the news is very promising as well. We developed quite a bit on our normalization process in our inventory after the peak we had in the first quarter because of the distribution centers and the buy of medication. We are also consistently improving our payment deadline, which increased seven days compared to the previous quarter.
We closed 2021 with the best cash flow cycle since 2020. We know that there is still room for improvement on the inventory days as well as the suppliers' deadlines for 2022. One other point that is important is our capital structure, which is quite solid. We generate over BRL 32 million in cash flow now in the fourth quarter, and we have a positive net position. In December, we closed at BRL 73 million. This structure makes us very confident to continue to grow and continue to invest in the next few years, and it makes a lot of difference when it comes to the interest rates that are at an all-time high. Finally concluding this financial indicator analysis, our idea now is to share a little bit of the strategic pillars and our vision for 2022.
When it comes to our pillars, they are known, and we have been talking to the market a lot about them, and today, we are going to focus on some of them. We are going to talk a little bit about our expansion. We are going to talk about what awaits us on digital, our healthcare ecosystem, our CRM, and also our PSE. Let's get into the expansion of the physical stores for a second. This is not news, and I just want to emphasize this is something that we always like to point out on our calls. The physical stores, they are still the gravitational center of our business. This is still the main pillar, whether it's because of the convenience, whether it's because of the deliveries or due to experimentation or even the cost of acquisition for customers, which is quite low.
Having access to that geographical expansion is key for the pillars to work. Our expansion plan is very well defined to 2025, with a focus on the southern region. In 2022, we are going to open 65 new stores. These points are already prospected, and in the numbers of this slide, we can be very confident in saying that we are delivering great results all across our regions, especially when it comes to the development in Paraná and Santa Catarina. These are regions that have a lot of stores that are maturing still, and we are clearly closing the gap year in and year out with the performance in Rio Grande do Sul, which is our most mature basis.
Even more important than that, when we analyze the market share data on those states, which you can see here on this slide as well, you see that these numbers are very close, 5% in Paraná and in Santa Catarina, and the opportunity is obvious. We have a lot of room for growth in our results and with a low risk of cannibalization. That also goes for the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul, which is still providing great opportunities. Panvel, in reality, is the only network that has crossed every single border and is ready to achieve all states. That has started years ago. For now, we are focusing on the southern region. This work has started many years ago, and being careful on our expansion, we made sure that our brand is well-known and respected in the region, not only in our original states.
I also stress that our strategy is addressing the expanded middle class quite well. Economy stores account for 25% of the expansion in 2021, and if you consider that the standard format is hybrid, we are focusing on different audiences here. When you look at 2022, our expectation, as we have showed on this slide, is to maintain that ratio close to 20% of economy stores and 80% standard stores in our expansion. Now moving on, let's get into yet another pillar, which is our health ecosystem. Right here, I would like to share with you this vision. A lot of people comment on the ecosystem. A lot of people talk about healthcare hub. To us, the ecosystem is just a natural development in our business.
If our mission is to provide health and wellbeing, and if we have the customer at the center of our decisions, it is only natural to deliver more and more products and services in the physical and digital channels. This is not a promise or just a vision for the future. Panvel is already a healthcare ecosystem with real initiatives, and that already generates results, traffic in stores, and we facilitate our customers' lives and meet their needs. This slide number 24, it helps summarize what we consider to be the main pillars on this great umbrella, which is healthcare ecosystem. Let's talk about each of them. When it comes to the services pillar, we are talking about Panvel Clinic. Júlio said it very well.
The pharmacy is already a reference in services, especially for tests and vaccines, and we are being very serious about those services in pharmacies. We are still focused on creating more options to our customers in a menu that goes way beyond just COVID tests and vaccines. If we add up all the services that are provided by Panvel in the fourth quarter of 2021, we achieve a market share of over one-third in the southern region, and there is still a lot of work to be done. For example, we already provide a broad range of remote testing, genetic testing, as well as home care services. Panvel was also a pioneer on digital scheduling of vaccines. In 2022, we are going to expand our clinical rooms even more to at least 360 stores, and we will have over 80 vaccination rooms by the end of the year.
In 2022, we are going to focus more on vaccines, which accelerated even more in March. We have no question that the market for pharmacies increased quite a bit, especially for prevention, and we are very well-structured for that. All the services and many others to come play a key role in creating more flow and more recurrence in our physical and digital stores. It is important to say as well, that we are very attentive to the regulation changes that are still in their embryo, and that are going to bring some great novelties in the future. Another very important pillar in our ecosystem was completely renewed in 2021, and it transformed into what we call Panvel Health Corporate or Corporate Health, or PSE in the internal acronym. This is a very robust area that comprehends health plans, pay patient management, and the public market.
This B2B2C relationship is a strength at Panvel, and it is important to note that almost one-third of the sales have to do with those partnerships. We are investing heavily in digitalizing those relationships through websites and exclusive apps, and we look for more and more partners all the time. Panvel Corporate Health is the only one to provide a broad range of services that are integrated, that goes from selling products directly to patients, keeping track on the patient relationship, and also selling products directly to health operators through our wholesale operation. This is unique in the market, and this structure already creates some concrete results. The sale of special medications grew a lot in 2021, and Panvel has almost one-fourth of this market.
We closed some very important partnerships in 2021 as well, especially in regions with low or no physical presence, as it is the case of the state of Paraná and Rio de Janeiro, bringing tens of thousands of new lives to our care. There are many other agreements underway that are going to improve our process in the future. Another important pillar of our ecosystem is about monitoring the journey of chronic patients and continuous use medication patients. In this pillar, we leverage our system. In the last two years, we invested heavily on data science and data analytics to understand and increase the loyalty of our customers, always respecting the best practices for data protection. The results are more and more clear, as you can see on the screen.
We already have a basis with 12 million taxpayers properly identified in a unified basis, which is another differential. The number of clients, by the way, has grown over 25% in one year's span. We are working very focused, and we are increasing in a very significant way all of our customer base, which achieved over 10% in 2021. Just want to point out something here, just an observation. If you notice, you see the strength and the flexibility that the Panvel brand has because we sign our own products, we have our own products, we have our own Clinic initiatives, we have our own special medication initiatives. We have our own efforts for continuous use medication. It's just a highlight here.
This is very good really, because it simplifies the offering, it simplifies the communication, and it streamlines knowledge whether the customer is a corporation or an individual. Our offering is clear. We have a shortcut to create differentials here, and I just wanted to point out just how good the Panvel brand really is. It's extremely flexible indeed. We are able to fit all of those initiatives, and we are able to get one of those very important initiatives, which is the program that over here we call PUC, which is the continuous use program, which is the first one at Panvel. We created one of those here in-house, and we have many SKUs in this first phase. We are negotiating with labs, and we are ensuring to our customers that if they are associated to this monitoring program, they are going to have progressive discounts.
The objective here is to keep customers loyal to the store, and the results are very clear. We are able to have a conversion rate of 80%. In other words, 80% of the sales of these items go through the program. When you look at the data of sales in the fourth quarter, because this program was started in 2021, all the SKUs that are part of our program here at Bem Panvel, they increased their share on the southern market, and that is above the natural growth that already happened to Panvel. This is a very clear result that we are on the right track and that our loyalty strategy is really yielding the expected results. One other essential pillar is Digital. Panvel continues to develop quite strongly on the digitalization strategy.
On slide 28, I just want to emphasize that we are still firm in our roadmap. As we always say, we have a lot of deliveries made and many things to come. Our challenge is to stay ahead of the market at pharma. In 2021, we had many deliveries. We developed in our website, we updated the app, we relaunched the website, we relaunched our new app, and we worked quite heavily on UX categorization. We also are putting a marketplace of services in place, enabling scheduling. In other words, we developed quite a bit. For 2021, there is a lot to come.
We have started the year putting some very important functionalities on the air, focused on improving the purchase experience, one of which is the order speech, through which we are going to eliminate once and for all the risk of rupture in the basket of products in our digital channels. With that possibility, when the item is not available in the store inventory, automatically, we are going to refer in the very app, in the very website, a different deadline for delivering this item, which is going to come from a different store or from a different distribution center. We do not allow customers to leave without finding their product. That small change increased our conversion rate already because we are able to measure the carts that are abandoned when the order is not complete.
That makes very clear how we can leverage more and more sales on digital. Speaking about the product cart or basket, another novelty is the complete integration of the basket of purchase of our customer, whether it is physical or digital. Panvel once again stood out, and it is the only player on pharma that is truly omni-channel, even in the basket of products. When you choose a product within our app, for example, this product will automatically show up on the PDV in our pharmacy. Think about the possibilities that this integration gives us. We can see carts that were abandoned by customers on the website, and we can convert that into sales on the stores. We can be proactive all across our service channels. We can allow customers to set up their purchase basket on the mobile and close that on the checkout.
Imagination is our limit. We are also going to have some important novelties with tracking developments, automatic routering, and integrated delivery assessment, and others. This year, we are going to give another modality of delivery, which is quicker with lower deadlines, lower than an hour. All of that will use the know-how, which is already a cognitive differential at Panvel, which is based on our stores. We are also working very strongly in our project of the marketplace. As you can see on slide 29, our schedule is definitely on the mark, and we are working on the second semester already. This marketplace, by the way, it is focused on well-being, health, and nutrition. In this first wave, we are going to focus on the depth, on the quality of the categories that exist in the drugstores.
In this project, we are focusing on delivering value to the customers and the quality of delivery. There is no point on having a marketplace if you cannot have a great level of service or a quick delivery. With that concern, we focus on this project with a lot of care and special attention to detail. Now, folks, we are changing topics now. We are getting into ESG. You already know, or I hope you do know our platform called Todos Bem, and that is continuing full throttle. On slide 30, you have two QR codes that take you straight to our platform and also to our manifesto. I stress that this company is completely engaged on the four main pillars of the platform, our people, our customers, our partners, and our home.
This platform and all the initiatives that are a part of it, they were already a part of Panvel's routine in the past. Todos Bem, the platform, was able to gather and organize all of these initiatives, and it challenges us for 2025 to achieve a number of other goals that are set. Here is my invitation for you to visit the platform via the QR codes and learn even more about our commitments. Now, 2021 was a year of a lot of important deliveries, such as the renewable energies market. Now for 2022, as we can see here on this slide, we have a lot of goals that are established here. Very important. We are very focused on delivering everything that we are committed to on ESG. Concluding this part of the presentation, folks, and getting into our prospects a little bit.
Right here, we have a short summary of our vision for 2022, which we can discuss further on the Q&A. As you can see, we are optimistic, even though we know that we have a very complex scenario in our country, but we are optimistic with the growth of our revenue, the expansion of our stores, a gross profit that is very healthy, and we are paying a lot of attention to the inflation impact on our expenses, and we look for productivity to offset those. Okay, so folks, in this way, we conclude this part of the presentation. Once again, thank you all for being here, and Júlio and myself are at your service for the Q&A.
Thank you very much. We are now going to start the Q&A session for the investors and analysts. Should you desire to ask a question, please click on raise hand. If your question is answered, you may exit the queue, clicking once again on the raise hand button. Our first question is from Danniela Eiger. Danniela, your microphone is open.
Thank you. Good morning, Júlio. Good morning, Napp. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats on the great results. I have two questions. I actually want to dive into the profitability a little bit. You were talking about a healthy margin maintenance, but you said that there are many leverages that could give an upside to this number, whether it is via penetration of your own brand, which, by the way, I have a question on that as well, and also generics and the readjustment that should help to alleviate the inflation pressure and again, improve productivity, your distribution center, and also the maturity of your stores. In any case, I just want to understand how you can look at this margin. Is there any positive risk for that margin? My second question is about the potential of your own brand.
Do you have your own brand which is very strong or relevant when you look at the product? You do not relate it to a pharmacy product. It looks much more like a cosmetic. I would like to know what is the potential that you see from that perspective. These are my two questions. Thank you.
Great questions, and there are a few answers to those. My friend Arthur from O Boticário says that we have our own Boticário at Panvel. Our products are so great that they play this role. That is true. Starting with the first question, and thank you once again. Question about the margins. I want to answer it in two parts. First, let us get into the gross margin, and then I will get into the EBITDA margin. From a gross margin perspective, we have an expectation, which is we want to maintain the margin that we have obtained in 2021. It is a great gross margin. We closed the year at 30%, because throughout 2022, we are going to balance many elements.
However, we still have some very positive elements for the gross margin, such as the generics, such as the Panvel products, and such as the growth in mind, such as convenience, foods, and cetera. As a matter of fact, there are some lines of products that had lower sales due to the pandemic of COVID-19 that are now starting to recover as the pandemic subsides. Besides that, and along with the pre-hike period, all of those are positive elements. On the other hand, we also know that we are going to have a year with very vigorous growth on medication. When I speak about medication, we are talking about our brand medication. Our chronic project, as we showed you, is already giving some very relevant results, and we are going to invest a lot on chronic medication.
Also the growth at Panvel Corporate Health, that also has some very important partnerships with special medications. This is a very important upside for sales, but it also has a pressure for the growth margin. Since we are putting all these elements together, this is why our scenario is we are going to maintain our gross margin, but at a very high level that we saw in 2021. How do we see the EBITDA margin? We can talk about that. Right now, we are very attentive to all the inflation impacts, but as we were able to show in 2021, and I think it is very clear in the fourth quarter, the company has always been very focused on productivity and operating gains and the growth in sales that we are looking for, they help us to leverage the operation and to unlock additional benefits.
We believe that throughout the year, we are going to have the opportunity of expanding our EBITDA margin once again, and this is the objective. I repeat, we are very attentive to the inflation. Inflation is high in the first quarter, and we consider that in our model. But of course, we're going to have a very strong readjustment in the second quarter that is going to mitigate that effect. Our basis scenario is still of high inflation, but a decrease in one in the second semester. With those elements and considering the maturing of investments that we did in 2021, for example, our distribution center in São José dos Pinhais, we believe we are in a position to continue to grow our sales and our margins.
Excellent. Just about the penetration of your own brand. What is the potential that you see?
Well, effectively, we believe that we have a range of products that we are still testing out, and there are some regulation issues as well that might cause some change. For example, our own brand on medication, this is not yet allowed. The Panvel brand is very, very strong. When we see an opportunity like that, it's even hard to tell you what the share would be, but I'm sure it would be something very substantial. Now, the brand is growing. We used to be around 16 on hygiene and beauty. We are seeing now a number of 20 as the new normal, and the expectation for this year, it would be 10% or 11% in market share for the total sales. This is a growing initiative.
We strongly believe in it, and just like I said before, our brand, considering all the deliverables, all the concern with quality that we have, that is reflected in the products. The products, they give back to the main brand, this awareness, this modernity. Today, as a matter of fact, we have some Panvel products for cosmetics. We are dabbling with innovation, makeup, so you have a rejuvenation of the brand. We're not just elderly pharmacy. We are also the pharmacy for the young 15-year-old girl that wants to start using makeup and get into the beauty world. This is very, very healthy to the brand on the long term.
With certainty. Super thank you for the answer. Congratulations again. Thank you so much for your answer, and congrats again.
Thank you.
The next question is by Maria Clara Infantozzi. Your mic is open.
Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. From an Itaú perspective, we just want to follow up the next question in terms of profitability and efficiency gains, especially when it comes to the inauguration of the new distribution center. So what can you tell us with regards to the gains that you already saw in terms of efficiency and logistics in this semester, and what can we expect as far as gains for this year? If I may, I would like to tie this to what you see in terms of cash flow improvement. I would love to hear some about that.
Okay, Maria Clara. Yeah, the logistics gain is for this year because last year was a transitional year, right? It's going to take a while. Here's what we see. As of the fourth quarter, all of the investment that was done in logistics became stabilized. In the previous quarters in 2021, the cost of logistics compared to sales was higher. In the fourth quarter, sales grew and the cost stabilized. We saw a first moment of stabilization. As of 2021, the logistics gains become more clear, and as a matter of fact, this is why we did this whole process. We have an estimation, which is logistics, it can benefit us to the tune of 0.2 basis points within our plan for 2022.
In other words, these are very expressive gains that we are looking at, and they are very natural when it comes to the expansion. We have a reduction on the freight cost, which is really important, and also a productivity gain on our distribution center that is quite relevant. All of those gains, all of those unified gains, they should help our margin to the tune of 0.2 basis points for 2022. This is our expectation. Other points that we are very attentive to is that it's important, when you look at our store bases and when it comes to the mature stores, we also have an expectation of margin gains in those stores. We have an expectation of sales that is above the inflation.
And the cost, even though it is close to the inflation, we are going to be able to gain a little margin in those stores. This is also going to contribute to our EBITDA. When it comes to the stores, the logistics, and when it comes to other specific points, we can really believe in this model. We believe that we have the ability, as we showed you, as a matter of fact, to mitigate a very important part of the inflation effect, which is a reality in our country.
That is very clear. With regards to the cash flow conversion, how do you see the opportunities of improvement for the year?
We are looking at the cash flow situation, and we see an opportunity throughout the year. Right now, the inventory levels are going to spike in the first quarter because we are doing pre-hike investment.
But we know that the level of stocks by the end of 2022 may be below 100 days. So there should be some gain in days from an inventory perspective. One other opportunity in the cash flow is with regards to the deadline for suppliers. Since last year, we have been working with the commercial team, and we are focusing on deadline and lead time, and we are already reaping some benefits from it, as it was seen in the fourth quarter. So we believe that we have another potential for gain here that is going to improve our cash flow cycle for 2022.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
Our next question is from Gabriela Ferrante. Your mic is open, Gabriela.
Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you so much for taking my question. I have one question which is with regards to services. You had over 700,000 COVID tests done this year. So I think that really encouraged your service, right? With the reduction of COVID cases and with people being more comfortable with making tests, do you feel that this is going to drop this year? What is your take on the impact?
Thank you for the question, Gabriela. Based on our model, COVID tests, we believe that, yes, they are going to play less of a role even though it started really strongly on January and February. We also have some other elements such as the self-test, which can help in this regard. But our year is focused on growing other service lines. I talked about vaccination. We are already leaders in this market, and we are going to grow even more on vaccination.
We started very well in March, and we are also focusing on different services and tests. So those are not going to replace the COVID tests 100%. There is going to be a ramp-up, but this is included in our model. The COVID test is really, really important to unlock this area in the pharmacy to make it known. For example, we were struggling to have people gauge their pressure in the store. Now it is more automatic. Glucose is already automatic as well. Vaccines, they gain more awareness. So COVID-19 really unlocked this potential that we are going to navigate from now on. As even the manufacturers of COVID tests, they are also coming up with new things, just like I said before. You have the TLR equipment, which is a blood analysis equipment, which is almost a full-blown blood exam that is done in the pharmacy.
All right. Thank you.
You are welcome. Thank you.
We hereby conclude the questions and answers. The Investor Relations department is at your service for further questions. Now I will hand it over to Júlio Neto for the final remarks.
Well, again, I want to say thank you for your questions. They are very relevant. Our audience is very high level, and I reinstate that we are focusing on 2022 in this presentation. The inflation, even though despite the inflation, we still are very optimistic. We are focusing on our innovation. Our operation is ever more solid and ever more present in people's lives. Our investment in data and customer knowledge is becoming more robust as well, and our ability to relate to the different players in healthcare is also becoming more and more present. This is part of our daily lives.
We are seeing a very important transformation in this segment, which is healthcare, which is pharmacy, and we are very much ready to be the protagonists of these new pharmacies that are going to come up. So thank you so much, everyone, and see you on the next meeting. Thank you, folks. Have a good rest of your day. Great weekend to all of you.
We hereby conclude the video call. Thank you so much for your participation.