Good morning. This is Sonterra's conference call where we will discuss the company's Second Quarter 2019 Results. At this time, all participants are connected in a listen only mode. Afterwards, the question and answer session will be opened. Further instructions for you to participate will be given.
Note that this conference will be recorded. This presentation simultaneously broadcast via the Internet on the webcast, ri.santaro.com.br, where you can also download a copy of the company's presentation. Before proceeding, I would like to clarify that any statements given during this call relating to the company's business outlook must be treated as estimates that depend upon the country's economic conditions, retail sectors regulations and performance, other variables. Therefore, these projections are subject to change. Here with us today are Messerys Pedro Zemmell, Sanjay Salazar, CFO and IRO and Danielle Regensteiner, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer will discuss Centara's performance in the Q2 of 2019.
Afterwards, they will answer your questions. Now, I would like to turn the floor over to Hiro Senhale. Please, Mr. Senhale.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in our Q2 results conference call. I will start our presentation on Slide 2 with an overview of Syntali. We are Latin America's largest sporting goods retailer. We ended the 2nd quarter with 194 physical stores located in shopping malls throughout the country. We also rely on a solid digital platform that now accounts for 19% of our total net revenue, with omni channel already representing roughly 55% of digital sales.
Our strategy focuses on 4 pillars: improve our digital platform, reinforce our omnichannel model, open new G5 stores and upgrade existing stores to fit the G5 model. Here at Syntagio, we have a customer centric approach. For this reason, we monitor our NPS on a daily basis, which is considered for KPIs and bonuses. Our NPS was 83% in the Q2 of 2019, up by 8 percentage points from the Q2 of 2018. We're proud to report that this marks a record high within these 2 channels.
We continue to upgrade our service level by offering new options such as collecting, assemble bicycles at stores for customers who choose Click and Collect and increasing the number of stores that offer extended inventories. We have also reduced by over 50% the quantity of stock outs in online orders that use store inventories. We hope to further improve this ratio with the full implementation of our FID in the 3rd quarter. Moving to Slide 3, you can see the key highlights of our Q2 2019 results. Year over year, our net revenue rose 5.1 percent to R546 $1,000,000 and our EBITDA jumped 178 percent to R141 $1,000,000 from Q2 2018.
We also reversed a net loss of BRL2.4 million reported in the Q2 of 'eighteen to a net income of BRL119 million in the Q2 of 'nineteen. Our overall same store sales, including both those brick and mortar stores and the GMV of our digital platform, grew 3%, which included a drop of 0.3% in physical stores and an increase of 17 percent of GMV on the digital platform. There are 2 specific effects that are worth mentioning this quarter. First, lawsuits related to the exclusion of ICMS from the PISCOFINS tax base concluded in our fable. So I'll go and explain this later in the presentation, but excluding this effect, our EBITDA would be R65 $1,000,000 a 28% increase compared to 2018, and our net income would be BRL41 1,000,000.
Another specific impact lies in our comparison base. The FIFA Men's World Cup of 2018 positively affected our Q2 'eighteen results. In order to analyze the result without the World Cup effect, we can compare it with the same period in 2017. When compared to the Q2 of 'seventeen, the Q2 of 'nineteen same store sales grew by 25%, with 17% in physical stores and 76 in GMV, the digital platform. Omnichannel sales jumped 87% to R72 $1,000,000.
As a percentage of digital sales, the omni channel advanced 21.3 percentage points from 33.6% to 54.9% year over year. In the quarter, 2 new stores were opened and 3 were remodeled, adding 6,000 square meters of stores to the G5 model. In the last 12 months, we opened 6 new stores and remodel 5, with a total addition of nearly 13,000 square meters of G5 stores. Now I turn the floor to Salazar, who will discuss the quarter's financial highlights.
Thank you, Pedro. Hello, everybody. Now moving to Slide 4, we will discuss in detail or not our net revenue in the Q2 of 2019. As Pedro just mentioned, consolidated net revenue grew over 5% in the quarter, even considering a basis of comparison influenced by the World Cup effects. In the 6 month period comparison, there was a 9.5% growth in both brick and mortar stores and on the digital platform.
Brick and mortar store sales, which increased by 3% in the quarter, were boosted by the addition of 6 new stores to the base and the remodeling of 5 stores between 2nd Q 'eighteen and 2nd Q 'nineteen. It is worth noting here that the apparel segment performance driven by better assortment, coordination and assertiveness, coupled with the addition of new G5 stores, were sufficient to mitigate the World Cup effect, boosting revenue growth. Our digital platform sales also grew, accounting for 19% of net revenues, a 1.7 percentage point increase versus 2nd Q 'eighteen. The 1st 6 months of 2019 stood at 18% or a 2 percentage point increase versus first half 'eighteen. Omni channel sales kept growing, reaching 54.9 percent of digital sales, up 21.3 percentage points from last year's Q2, as Pedro already highlighted.
Now let's move to Slide 5 to discuss our gross profit and gross margin. Our gross profit advanced 5.6 percent to BRL277 1,000,000 in 2nd Q 'nineteen against BRL262 1,000,000 recorded in the same period last year. In the 1st 6 months of 2019 against first half twenty eighteen, gross profit grew by 11% to R551 1,000,000. Our gross margin came in line with increase of 0.3 percentage points in 2nd Q 'nineteen and 0.7 percentage points in first half 'nineteen, reaching 50.8% 50.5% in each of the respective periods. A higher share of apparel products drove gross profit and gross margin increases in the quarter.
In the 1st 6 months, the markdown reduction policies or the granting of fewer rebates, promotions and discounts drove up this line. Let's move to Slide 6, where we will discuss operating expense variations. As you can see on the graphs, we are reporting a drop in operating expenses, mainly impacted by the effect of the favorable outcome of the lawsuits regarding the ICMS exclusion from the calculation basis of PISCOFINS at SBF Comercio S. A. Based on our best estimate, we have recorded BRL76.3 million in taxes and BRL42.6 million in interest, totaling a positive effect of BRL119.2 million before taxes.
Besides that effect, the expenses were positively impacted in BRL6 million, mainly due to a revision reversal in taxes related to the PRT, a Brazilian tax regularization program. Now let's move to Slide 7 to discuss our EBITDA. EBITDA jumped 178 percent to BRL141 1,000,000 in 2nd Q 'nineteen from the BRL51 1,000,000 recorded in 2ndq 'eighteen, with margin also advancing from 9.8% to 25.9%, a 16.1 percentage points increase. As previously mentioned, one off effects relating to Piscofin's tax credit strongly affected these figures. But even excluding the Piscofin effect, EBITDA margin grew 2.1 percentage points to 11.9 percent with a R65 $1,000,000 EBITDA.
The first half 'nineteen performance, excluding the PISCOFINS effect, resulted in an EBITDA margin of 10.4%, 1.6 percentage points higher than in first half 'eighteen, driven by the expenses and improved gross margin reported. Now let's move on to Slide 8, discuss our financial results. Financial results in Q2 2019 recorded net financial income of BRL17.6 million against a net financial expense of BRL22.2 million in Q2 'eighteen. In first half 'nineteen, we recorded a net financial expense of BRL3.9 million against an expense of BRL46.3 million in first half 'eighteen. The financial results included BRL42.6 million contributed by the PISCOFINS effect and was adversely affected by R40 $1,000,000 in costs from the prepayment of bank debt with a cash effect of R8 $1,000,000.
Let's move to Slide 9 to discuss our net income. We reversed a net loss of BRL2 1,000,000 reported in 2nd Q 'eighteen to a net income of BRL108.9 million in 2nd Q 'nineteen. In taxes, we had a positive impact of BRL18 1,000,000 due to the recognition of deferred taxes assets, which were off balance sheet and negative impacts related to the already mentioned PISCOFIN effect. Excluding all the effects from the PISCOFINS credit, we would have reported a net income of BRL41 1,000,000 in 2nd Q 'nineteen and BRL43.3 million in the 1st 6 months of 2019. As you can see on the bottom of the slide, we show a brief reconciliation of our net income from reported EBITDA, detailing the key factors driving our performance.
On Slide 10, we will discuss our cash flow. Our operating cash flow came positive at BRL59.6 million, in line with our pro form a EBITDA of R65 $1,000,000 adjusted by IFRS and PiscoFINS. In first half of twenty nineteen, operating cash flow came negative at BRL49 million. The 1st 6 months were adversely affected due to payments for products acquired at year end that are made in the 1st weeks of the year. Considering second half Q2 of 'nineteen and first half of 'nineteen comparisons, our cash flow for financing was influenced by the impact of proceeds from the IPO, also reflecting the plan and allocation for bank debt amortization.
As a result of higher cash availability, we also recorded a reduction in the balance of factoring of receiving. Now let's move to Slide 11 to discuss our indebtedness. It is worth noting here the rationale we adopted to report our adjusted net debt, which you can see on the graph in the right corner of the slide. To determine our total debt, we added the factoring of receivables and tax installment, payments to loans and financing. According to this rationale, the company's adjusted net debt tumbled seventy 6.1 percent from R873 $1,000,000 in Q2 'eighteen to R209 $1,000,000 in Q2 'nineteen.
Since we amortize nearly all of our bank debt with the proceeds from the IPO. In addition, both tax installment payment and factoring of receivables were discontinued and not used to determine Q2 2019 debt on the back of the current positive cash position of the company after the IPO last April. Current capital structure allows us to execute our growth plans. Let's move to our last slide, Slide 12, to discuss our investments. Both in Q2 'nineteen and first half 'nineteen, our total caps dropped at 19%.
The pace of both store opening and remodeling is increasing after the IPO, but we still did not reach in Q2 2019 the levels of 2018. And for that reason, there is a decline in CapEx. Well, thank you very much. That concludes our presentation, and we can now start our Q and A session. Thanks again.
We will now begin the question and answer Since there appears to be no questions, I would like to now turn the conference back over to Pedro Zemmall for any closing remarks.
Thank you. I would like to thank our whole team for the efforts and for the quarter results, and thank you all for your participation and your interest in Syntelio. We remain committed to customer satisfaction, developing our team and delivering growing and relevant results to our investors, while we position ourselves as a major hub of the sports university in Brazil. I remind you that Syntota's Executive Board and our IR team remain available for any questions you may have. Thank you very much.
See you on our next conference call.
This conference has now concluded.