Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the conference call of Marcopolo SA to announce the results of the third quarter of 2023. This conference call is also being transmitted in the Marcopolo's RI website at ri.marcopolo.com.br, simultaneously in Portuguese and English. There you can also find the presentation. Right now, all participants are connected in listen-only mode. Later on, we are going to have a questions and answers session when further instructions will be provided. Should you need assistance during this conference call, please request the help of an operator by pressing star zero. You should be reminded that this conference call is being recorded. Before continuing, statements made during this conference call about Marcopolo business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals, and also statements on its growth potential, are forecasts based on the management's expectations regarding the future of the company.
Forward-looking statements are highly dependent on conditions of the domestic market, the overall economic performance of the country, and also on international market, and therefore, they are subject to change. Today, with us, in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul, we have Mr. André Armaganijan, CEO, José Antonio Valiati, Investor Relations Officer, and Eduardo Willrich, Investor Relations and Planning Manager. First, we are going to hear Mr. Valiati to talk about the Marcopolo results for the first quarter of 2023. Then, Mr. Armaganijan is going to talk about the, outlook for the rest of the year. Now, I would like to give the conference over to Mr. Valiati.
Good morning, everyone. We would like to thank you for attending, the third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Now, we can move to slide number 4. We are going to start with the highlights.
In the third quarter, Marcopolo managed to perform well, despite a drop in production, volumes and deliveries. After restructuring conducted in recent years, the company has been gradually consolidating a new level of performance, higher than its best historical levels. Now, we can move to the next slide. In the first nine months of 2023, the Brazilian production of bus bodies has been showing similar volumes to the same period in 2022. In the first quarter, there was a significant growth in production, while in the second and third quarters, we see the accommodation of volumes generated by the effects of the engine transition from Euro V to Euro VI standards, as well as by a postponement of the bidding for the new phase of the Road to School program. Now, we can go to the next slide.
In the quarter, Marcopolo's production directed to the Brazilian market fell 31.3%. Production for exports from Brazil fell 38.3%, and our international operations, we saw a growth of 16.4%. The company's production in Q3 2023 was affected by the engine transition to the Euro VI standard, by the lower volume of units exported, as well as by the end of deliveries directed to the federal program, Road to School. In isolation, the Caminho da Escola or Road to School program explains the great difference in volumes. In the third quarter of 2022, 1,200 units were produced, while only three, 3Q 2023, only 67 units were manufactured for the program. The absence of relevant packages for urban model and exports also affected the volume of units produced in the quarter.
A gradual recovery of the intercity market in Latin America helped offset the lower volume of urban vehicles. Now, moving to the next slide. In the quarter, we achieved net revenues of BRL 1.6 billion, of which BRL 984.3 million came from the domestic market. 60.9% of the total, BRL 180 million from exports from Brazil, 11.2% of the total, and BRL 450 million from the company's international operations, 28% of the total. In the third quarter of 2023, the increase in revenue compared to 3Q 2022 reflects the increase in volumes of intercity vehicles sold, both in Brazil and abroad, especially with the growth in sales of the G8 models as well as a better sales mix in Brazil, with greater exposure to higher value added intercity buses.
The urban segment in the domestic market also demonstrated good performance, offsetting the absence of the Road to School program. Moving to the next slide. In 3Q 2023, the company's gross profit was BRL 371 million, with a gross margin of 23%. The increase in gross margin reflects the better market environment, with an evolution in the sales mix, with the increase in volume of higher value-added products, especially in the intercity segment. The gross income and gross margin also benefited from the recovery of results from the company's international operations. EBITDA was BRL 280 million with a 13% margin, 12.9, to be more specific. EBITDA was positively affected by the factors already highlighted in gross margin.
EBITDA was negatively affected by BRL 19.2 million, due to the results of the Canadian affiliate, New Flyer. If we were to eliminate the effects of New Flyer in the equity method, the EBITDA margin would reach 14.1%. In the quarter, net income was BRL 161 million, with a 10% margin against a result of BRL 46.7 billion and a margin of 3.1% in Q3 2022. A growth of 246% quarter-on-quarter. The industrial segment's net debt represented 0.4 times the EBITDA of the last twelve months. Now, I will turn over to André, who will talk about the market scenario and all.
Thank you, Valiati. Good morning, everyone.
I'll start talking about the intercity market, which maintains good performance with sales growth despite the energy transition from Euro V to Euro VI, so it's consolidated in higher value added, and practically excluding all G8 models. The chartering sector is also experiencing good times, with the pace of deliveries regaining traction after setting a volume in the post-pandemic. The outlook is positive for the intercity segment, both for Q4 2023 and Q1 2024. The urban segment has been confirming its growth trajectory when we take out from the comparison with 3Q 2022, with the bodies directed to the Road to School program. The lower urban renewal over the national plans has caused a fleet to age, generating need for investment, at a time of resumption of passenger demand for public transportation.
Marcopolo started production of the second batch of 20 units of its Attivi, fully electric, engine, in Q3 2023. While we are developing the bases, both regulatory and also in financing for markets in Brazil. In the segment of microbuses and Volare, the launch of the Volare Attack, marking and paying celebration of the brand's 25th anniversary, promoted sales. Provisional Measure 1175 also contributed to sales in the Volare segment, and the stock of ready-to-make products, could take advantage of the conditions of fleet renewal. On October 9, 2023, there was a bid of the federal program, Road to School, and the company, was able to deliver directly or indirectly, up to, 7,720 additional vehicles. This means 5,600, microbuses and 2,120 Volare, buses.
The deliveries should start in the beginning of 2024, depending on the ratification of the result of the bidding process, and also on the cities, adhering or complying with the contracts of the federal government. Next slide on exports. We see distinct movements in different segments. In intercity transportation, there's a good recovery in volume, with sales growth of the G8 model, driven especially by the resumption of regional tourism. While in urban transportation, volumes give way with the absence, for the time being, of large packages directed to South America and Africa. The company believes in the recovery of exported volumes, considering the progress of negotiations of relevant volumes for 2024, and the contribution of the foreign exchange, which remains attractive. As international operations, the trend of profitability recovery is being confirmed.
It began in Q2 2023, increasing its contributions in the consolidated results of Marcopolo brand. If we see the third quarter of this year as a whole, the net revenue grow consistently with the recovery of prices after the period of high inflation. Actions have been adopted in recent years also continue to bear fruit, and in Q3 2023 delivered a positive result of BRL 11 million positive, versus a loss of BRL 46 million in Q3 2022. The recovering of the operating results of Metalsur in Argentina, and the sequence of good results of Polomex in Mexico, are the main international highlights of our company. We can move to the next slide. Now, talking a little bit about the performance, we are still confident.
In June, we had the best months in terms of confirmation of new purchases in last gap . The availability of frames is also back to normal, increasing our productivity, which allowed good manufacturing or factory planning, logistics, deliveries, and purchases. Now in October, we also had the bid for the Road to School program, with the addition of volumes and the delivery that's going to start in the first quarter of 2024. So considering these factors, we are positive about the growth of production volumes looking ahead. This allows for a more adequate use of our installed capacity and efficient use of our headcount that received training during the year when production slowed down. In 2023, Marcopolo had inefficiencies associated with low volume of production and excess headcount in Brazilian operations.
So this is the time for us to ramp up and seek greater efficiency. From the restructuring of the industrial complex in recent years, we are managing to concentrate investment in modernization and automation. The development of new processes and products makes it possible to further improve quality, comfort, and safety. We go on investing in our factories, process automation, which will also produce operational gains for the company. Since 2020, we've always had something that prevented us to have a more normal market. The pandemic raised that component and in change, lack of frames. For 2024, we are seeing an environment conducive to renewals and in all market segments. Lower interest rates should also contribute to the recovery of volumes, and we'll have new initiatives starting to bear fruit in the sales.
Marcopolo will be able to consolidate its, the profitability levels, as it's been shown in 2023, seeking even greater operational level in 2024. Now we can move to the Q&A session. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to start the questions and answer session. This forum is dedicated to analysts and investors only. Analysts attending this conference call, executive offices will be available to answer your possible questions after the end of the conference call at the telephone 54-2101-4660. If you want to ask a question, please press star one. To take your question from the list, please press star two. Our first question comes from André Ferreira, from Bradesco BBI. Hello, everyone. Congratulations on your strong results. I have two questions to ask.
The first one is, once again, praising you to go into the second batch of Attivi, and there are many cities migrating to an electric urban route. So where do you see more opportunities for Attivi in Brazil than in other markets, too? And, if you could give us details of where it is at a more advanced stage in terms of approval, both in Brazil and abroad. And the second question is: with a large volume of deliveries to the market as a whole for the new Road to School program, can this be translated into gain in market share for, Marcopolo? Thank you for your question, Andre. About electric vehicles, the movement has been very positive more recently with many cities that want to buy this product.
Obviously, the main discussion is still funding, and we have started to see interesting clients taking part in this process, and also the charging infrastructure. We are in many Brazilian cities, the entire south and southeast of the country, and many cities in the north and even in the north. Of course, São Paulo is the first city that is very much related to this, 2,600 buses by the end of 2024. And when we have a major presence, such as, for example, Curitiba, with 70 buses being renewed in 2024, and some projects and some tests in cities in the north. You mustn't forget that we are not talking about a full activity, but we are already active with the third-party electrical frames to São José dos Campos and other cities.
Of course, the main volume comes from São Paulo, which is the biggest Brazilian market, with 13,000 buses circulating. But we see other markets, such as Porto Alegre, Curitiba, even Vitória and Espírito Santo, very strongly on the renewal of the fleet, part of it in electrical buses. In terms of approval, this product has been approved in many Brazilian cities. We are also working on the approval for the city of São Paulo. We have made major efforts. We have tested almost everything. There's just one last test missing, but these are almost fully tested and available to be sold in all markets. As to the Road to School program, obviously, we've been working and thinking on the growth in production.
We were aware of that, that there would be a significant increase in production, especially in 2024, and that's why, in the recent past, we capped the headcount in the company, and we trained all our employees, expecting a higher production capacity in 2024. Obviously, this will make it possible for us to deliver the expected volume of more as the 7,000 units, so part of it can be in 2024 and also in 2025. And leaving room for us to continue gaining share and working on the segment in the intercity urban segment, sorry, outside the schools. So we want to meet demand that is almost twice the current demand for Marcopolo manufacturing. And so we want to take part of the program, almost half of the program.
We, we won almost half of the program with one of our partners, but also have availability to continue manufacturing, for example, in the urban segment, which is still very much warmed up. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Lucas Laghi from XP Investments. Good morning, Andre, Valiati, Eduardo. Congratulations on your very strong results. There are two things that I would like to mention to you. Thinking, especially in terms of price and profitability, when we look at the evolution of revenues and we compare to Q, the second quarter, we see an evolution of 10% in terms of price increases and 7% in terms of total volumes. And so, could you explain a little bit better this volume of 10%? I know that there are many different factors. I think that intercity is growing.
And in urban, we have higher value-added products, and it's difficult to look by number of units manufactured, but we have 10% sequential increase. Can you explain that in terms of mix of intercity buses? Was there any price increase within this subcategory? So I would like you to give more color on the price dynamics, and also a question on profitability, also as a consequence of price increases. Can we think of intercity buses with a profitability higher than other segments, or are the other segments more equalized and more similar to intercity buses? Especially when you think of double-deck buses. Can we think of a higher dilution of fixed costs and even wider margins towards the end of the year? Or is there any other effect that we should consider to assume this evolution in profitability?
So, these are my two questions. Thank you so much, and congratulations once again. Good morning, Lucas. Thank you for the question. As to the price dynamics, again, in the quarterly comparison, and showing as a sequence, that this is the result of the maturity that we did in the past. So if you look at our portfolio, it doesn't change from one month to the other, and not even in two months. So all orders are replaced by new orders. For example, the maturity was not yet fully accomplished, and there are new orders that are placed. And also, we have a better production mix for urban, intercity, Road to School. But in each segment, we have higher value added.
More comfortable buses to have more comfortable lines that were left aside for almost two years after the pandemic. Those investments helped to have the average prices that we are seeing. As there is inflation, we transfer the inflation too, as possible. But the main thing is related to manufacturing. In manufacturing mix, what we have seen over the last two quarters is urban keeping in high relevance in terms of revenue, but intercity regaining leadership. So this thing change that we had up to 2019, intercity were the highest share in our revenues, we're seeing this group coming back, and we're now almost back to normal. We still have some room for intercity buses to grow, and it should be like 45%-50% going to our old levels.
In the near future, I think we're going to get there. It doesn't mean that we are losing space for urban buses. We are seeing it's gaining share, and we are also seeing higher value-added models being included in the sales mix. As to the margin distribution between segments, now they're more similar now, so there is not such a hard difference. The main difference is between higher value-added and lower value-added types of vehicles, more sophisticated and simpler vehicles. So this is the main difference in margins. Now, if we look into 2024, we are adding the mindset of operational leverage. Yes, we do have room for improvement both in Q4 and in 2024 as compared to 2023.
As to the dilution of fixed cost, obviously, with the growth in production and increase in billing, we are certainly going to have a cost dilution that will contribute to a better income. So as I said, the market was going to recover, intercity buses was, were going to recover, tourism, air tickets. So while developing, as we launched G8, we saw a very simple way of looking into that. If you look at Marcopolo line, we saw the double-decker line. We had two, three vehicles per day in 2022, and now we are manufacturing seven double-deckers a day. So this, it has a major impact in the company's bottom line, and they have higher value added.
So the company is betting to having products with more and more value added, and this provides good results. Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Our next question comes from Fernanda Recchia, from BTG. Hello, good morning. I have two questions to ask. The first one is I would like you to tell me a little bit more about the Road to School program this year, and what is the profitability of the volume that you won in the auction? According to our calculations, it's like 52%, which is a little bit below the numbers we had in the past. So could the profitability in the auction kind of offset the slower margin, and should we expect profitability higher than historical margins?
And number two, also, regarding Road to School, so but how can we see the recurrence of volumes for Road to School auctions will be 10 or 11 thousand, or could the recurrence be a strong volume, as we saw in the last one? Thank you, Fernanda. At the profitability, it is similar to what we saw in the last six months. Volume, obviously, is much bigger. So this is a positive operational leverage effect, which has an impact in our bottom line, but also in line with what we had planned. As to market share, Road to School program is very good and makes it possible for us to explore alternatives in other segments, such as urban and micro buses, as Andre has just said.
As to volume recurrence, during the bidding process, the expectation was to kind of change the fleet and to replace the fleet as the cars aged, especially if we compare to the beginning of the program. So this will consolidate in a volume that will be higher than what we saw in recent years, somewhere 4,000-7,000 units, and this might not be—we might not have again the 15,000 units of this year, but something around like nine, 10 or 11,000 units. And so we saw some recovery in the size of the fleet. That's right, Fernanda. Complementing, and Eduardo said well. So it was launched in 2007.
The annual needs for fleet renewal already generates interesting volume, and of course, this program will be expanded to the country, and the government is supporting this program. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Gabriel Rezende, from Itaú. Hello, André, Mariatti. I have two questions too. Number one is a follow-up on the discussion we had about price less profitability. I would just like to align something with you that you made very clear, that we are seeing a more favorable mix in each the product in road, urban, versus what we used to have during the pandemic years, but are more challenging for the industry. What is related to the scenario and what is more structural?
So do you think the market is going to converge to a level of units that is more normal, and then you may give up the additional profitability? Of course, we expect more dilution of fixed costs in the future with higher operational leverage. But just to understand a bit, how much of it is structural and how much of it is conjunctural? And the other thing, Marcopolo today is not a company in debt. You are advancing in a surprising way, so you still have positive prospects. You have streamlined some operations in the last two years. The company has a marginal capacity to be occupied by higher volume. So what's your strategy for the allocation of marginal capital from now on? Can you do it with the cash you are generating in terms of new investments, new geographies, new products?
I would appreciate if you could answer this question. Good morning, Gabriel. Thank you for your questions. As to the first topic associated to profitability and mix, we do not yet have the ideal mix. We're still in a trajectory of trying to find the ideal mix, and we want to have more intercity buses. We are going back to the mix that we used to have in 2019, in terms of intercity, urban, micro, and Volare. We're doing also something related to exports. So the trajectory is not so linear as the recovery or growth of not urban markets and even urban public transportation in Brazil. This recovery is more volatile, more erratic.
So if we look at the composition in terms of allocation of sales, the mix can still get a lot better when we see that... So there is an evolution of the mix with that regard. There's another factor which might be closer to what we are having today in terms of international operations, that they also contributed to the operation, not just in terms of product features or each product, but bringing margins close to what we have in Brazil, also in those operations. So a relevant point, that happened to contribute were the international operations converging positive results. And there is a major opportunity, bringing it back, to close or even superior levels in terms of profitability to Brazil. Where does the new step come from? Well, mix is still poor, so this can get better even further.
So the distribution of the internal market. We can have more exports as the recovery, international operations can contribute great. They are getting better, and they may contribute even further. There's a fourth factor, volume. We should consider the volumes in 2023 is a production volume that is still very low. We haven't yet gotten to 2019 volumes, so we expected the market to go back to normal in 2020. And in 2023, we're not even close to that, and we are hoping that in 2024, we can mature volumes, as volumes go back to normal. Thank you so much for the question. About capital allocation. In fact, Marcopolo, as you said, conducted international restructuring, only from a profitable operation, trying to maximize as much as possible.
Good results of our current operations, the work that we've been doing, most of the investments were made in the past, in electrical line. Now we have internal work. Yes, we do have other opportunities to improve our operational management. So here we are talking about modernization, but especially automation of some internal processes in the company. This is going to make us more competitive and will help us in get better in terms of products. As we are doing this work, we want to make the company more competitive. And for sure, we need to look into the future of the market, labor, and availability of human resources for the best production. So we are paying close attention to the automation and digitalization of the plant, and of course, our electrical project and everything related to it.
There is a transformation process that James always mentions to you in terms of having a project that only makes bodies. Now, we start talking about technology, too, and this requires some investment. But the main lesson learned is that Marcopolo international corporation has understood that we need to take good care of our plants and make the most of them. Global expansion, well, we always look into markets. But right now, this is not our main focus in terms of opening any new plants. We learned many lessons in the past. I think that with all of this, once the company starts generating cash and it will surely do so. This is relevant, has been presented before.
The idea is to have a quarterly payout of dividends, and this is also included in our pipeline in a significant way in terms of capital. So this is dividend payout, allocation with the current existing manufacturing complex and new technologies. Great. This is very clear. Thank you so much. The next question comes from Anselmo Sandi from Capital Asset. Hello, good morning. Morning, how are you? My question has already been answered by my colleagues, so congratulations on your performance. You may move on. Thank you so much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Gabriel Tinem from Santander. Hello, good morning, everyone. Congratulations on your results. I have a question related to the road to school, just to make sure I understood. And the idea is to do that along 2024, a good part of it go to 2025.
Also a follow-up, the current capacity, is it sufficient, or do you need anything more? Thank you. Good morning, Gabriel. Thank you for your question. We have been sized to work on those volumes, so the company is sized and to deliver. We have delivered even greater volumes. On how much or when? As the bidding was postponed and was only held in October, I think that part of the volume will go on until the beginning of 2025. So it's usually good for one year, and so after the approval, the approval of the result, as André said, has not yet taken place. So, it's due any time, and then the time or the deadline starts counting. So the company could deliver volumes once the cities join and are interested in buying. Very clear.
Thank you so much. And number two, this is more related to the international operations. We saw a gradual recovery along your last reports, and, how has the evolution been, and what is still missing to happen? What do you still need to do? Thank you, Gabriel. Well, for sure, most of the results of our international operations are related to the management that the company is doing for each one of the teams. Of course, there is a recovery all over the world and in Brazilian market, and we transfer costs, and we did that also overseas. But we mustn't fail to mention what we've been doing with the team, the team in Brazil and the team here. I'm talking about support and operation of international operations and also the management of local teams. We changed the structures, the people, processes.
We have a better administrative control of the operations, obviously, the launch of new products, too. So complementing, if you want to understand where the increase comes from, and so in addition to the better management of operations, our new products, and so G8 is very successful in Brazil, success in terms of exports. And, the introduction of our new products is going very well. We are also working on localizing it to manufacture it locally. So new products, better management, price transfer due to cost increases, operational efficiency. This is something we worked very intensely on during the pandemic. Adaptation of headcount, unfortunately, we needed to streamline back then to make the company leaner, and this is what we do. There's still many actions going on internally.
Of course, each market works differently, but operationally, I can say that this is the reason and this combination, the reason for the success, and this is the reason why we believe that they will all continue to contribute more and more to Marcopolo's performance and results, too. Thank you for your answer. We now end the questions and answers session. Now I'll move live to give the floor to Mr. Valiati for his closing remarks. Once again, we thank everyone for your participation. The investor relations department is available to answer any other questions you may want to ask. We wish you all a good day. Thank you very much.