Good morning. This is Centauro's conference call where we will discuss the company's first quarter 2019 results. At this time, all participants are connected in a listen only mode. Afterwards, the question and answer session will be open when further instructions for you to participate will be given. If you need any assistance during the call, please ask an operator for help by pressing star 0. Please note that this conference call will be recorded. This presentation, accompanied by slides, will be simultaneously broadcasted via the internet on the website ri.centauro.com.br, where you can also download a copy of the company's presentation and its earnings release. 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, the retail sector's regulations and performance, and other variables.
Therefore, these projections are subject to change. Here with us are Messrs. Pedro Zemel, Centauro's CEO, José Salazar, CFO and IRO, and Daniel Regensteiner, treasury and investor relations director, who will discuss Centauro's performance in the first quarter of 2019. Afterwards, they will answer your questions. I would like to turn the floor over to Mr. Pedro Zemel. Please, Mr. Zemel, you may proceed.
Good morning, everyone, thank you for participating in our first results conference call as a publicly held company. I'll start by providing an overview of who Centauro is today. We're Latin America's largest sportswear retailer with 192 stores throughout the country, as well as a solid digital platform that now accounts for 18% of total net revenue with omni-channel, which already represents 53% of digital sales. Above all, the consumer is the backbone of our business, the focal point of our strategy, and the inspiration for everything we do. We monitor our NPS monthly, which provides us with the basis of KPIs and bonuses, and ended the first quarter of 2019 at 82%. I'll start our presentation on slide three, where you can see the key highlights of our first quarter results. Overall, our main financial and operational lines advanced.
Net revenue rose 14.4% to BRL 527.2 million year-over-year. EBITDA came to BRL 46.7 million, 34% higher than in the first quarter of 2018. We reversed a net loss of BRL 10.1 million reported in the first quarter 2018 to a net income of BRL 2.3 million in first quarter 2019. Consolidated same store sales grew by 11%, 6.2% at physical stores and 39.7% on the digital platform. Omni-channel model sales jumped 222.9% to BRL 62.1 million. As a percentage of digital sales, the omni-channel advanced more than 30 percentage points from 23% to 53% year-over-year.
We opened four new G5 stores adding 4,000 sq m, around 40,000 sq ft in sales area, and upgraded nine other stores equivalent to 12,000 sq m of existing area. In accordance with this model, in line of the company's plan of upgrading stores according to the G5 model. Now, I turn the floor to José Salazar, our CFO and IRO, who will discuss details on the quarter's financial highlights. Salazar, please proceed.
Thank you, Pedro. Good morning, everyone. Moving to slide four, we will discuss the detail on our net revenue in the first quarter of 2019. As Pedro just mentioned, consolidated net revenue grew by 14% year-over-year. Such growth was driven by a 10.6% increase in revenue from brick-and-mortar stores, which totaled BRL 436 million and a 36.7% increase in digital platform revenue, which came to BRL 91 million. At physical stores, the key drivers of growth were the addition of four new stores to the base and upgrading nine stores to fit the G5 model, which has been a factor in our increase in sales. Digital platform sales reached 18% of net revenues, a three percentage point increase versus first quarter 2018.
The omni-channels to 222.9% growth was the major highlight, which totaled BRL 62.1 million and a 30.4 percentage point increase, reaching 53% of total digital sales. Despite its still small basis, the omni-channel has revealed promising results. From a historical perspective, as you can see on the graph, we have posted revenue growth consistently since first quarter 2016, reaching a CAGR of 9.4%. Now, let's move to slide five to discuss our gross profit and gross margin. Our gross profit advanced 17% to BRL 264 million in first quarter 2019 against BRL 226 million recorded in the same period last year.
Our gross margin also increased by one percentage point to 50.1% compared to 49% in first quarter 2018. The gross profit and gross margin increases are mainly explained by a lower markdown or the concession of lower discounts, promotion and sales during first quarter 2019 compared to first quarter 2018. Let's move to slide six, where we will discuss operating expenses variations. It is worth quickly noting our historical expense trend with a CAGR of 5.5% from the last three fiscal years until first quarter 2019. Selling general and administrative expenses were up by 13.9% versus first quarter 2018, mainly due to a 15.8% increase in sell expenses from BRL 157 million in first quarter 2018 to BRL 182 million. In line as a percentage of net revenue, advancing 0.4% from 34.2% to 34.6% in first quarter 2019.
Selling expenses variation are mainly explained by higher expenditure relating to variable revenue expenses such as commissions, card management fees, digital platforms and freight costs, and expenses adjusted by inflation, such as rental agreement adjusted by IGPM. General and administrative expenses rose by 4.5%, but came lower as a percentage of net revenue at 0.6% from 7.3% to 6.7%. The 4.5% increase is mainly due to inflation variations. Let's move to slide seven to discuss our EBITDA. EBITDA totaled BRL 46.7 million in first quarter 2019, up by 34% from BRL 35 million recorded in first quarter 2018. The EBITDA margin also advanced from 7.6% to 8.9%, an improvement of 1.3 percentage points.
As you can see on the graph in the right corner of the slide, gross margin growth was the key factor that boosted EBITDA and margin gains, accounting for a 1.1 percentage point increase out of a total of 1.3 percentage points. Let's move to slide eight to discuss our net financial expenses. The company's net financial expenses fell by 10.5% versus first quarter 2018. With improved credit profile compared to last year, we obtained lower rates for the factoring of receivables, which significantly impacted our financial results. It is important to highlight that during the first quarter of 2019, due to uncertainties related to the IPO, we kept our strategy to pay taxes in installment plans, which generated approximately BRL 5 million in fines accounted for in the financial results. Such a strategy must not continue after the IPO.
The first quarter 2019 results still does not reflect the prepayment of most of our bank debt made after the IPO. Let's move next to slide nine to discuss our net income. Since 2016, we have gradually reduced our net loss, as you can see on the graph in the upper right corner, and the first quarter of 2019 marked a full reversal to a net income. We posted a net income of BRL 2.3 million, reversing the loss of BRL 10 million recorded in first quarter 2018 as a result of the positive performance we have been delivering up to date. Also, in the lower corner on the slide, you can see the breakdown of our net income reconciliation from reported EBITDA. On slide 10, we will discuss our cash flow.
Our operating cash flow came negative at BRL 108.6 million, up by 4% from BRL 104.3 million recorded in first quarter 2018. Negative cash variation in the quarter is mainly due to the inherent seasonal effect on the company's business. In the first quarter, the payments are made for products acquired at year-end, which results in cash disbursements in this period. In accordance with our policy of maintaining a minimum cash position in our balance sheet to minimize financial expenses, we reduced the financial volume of factor receivables, which was the key cause of the company's cash flow from financing variations. Let's move to slide 11 to discuss our indebtedness. How we determine our adjusted net debt is illustrated clearly on the graph in the lower right corner of the slide. We added up the factoring of receivables and tax installment payment to loans and financing.
For this reason, the company-adjusted net debt was up by 3.6% from BRL 848 million in first quarter 2018 to BRL 879 million in first quarter 2019. Reduction fees in factor of receivable came in line with the company's efficient policy, which advanced to this type of receivables only if it is clear and urgently necessary, thus avoiding unnecessary financial expenses. As an example of this policy, we can point out that on March 31st, 2019, we had BRL 94 million available for anticipation. Again, we highlight that by the end of April, the company paid a substantial amount of its bank debt using the proceeds of the offer, which, going forward, should significantly affect all the figures we have seen in our indebtedness breakdown as we considerably optimized our ownership structure or capital structure.
We are confident that the company is poised to boost and take advantage of the next growth cycles. Let's move to our slide 12 to discuss our investments. Centauro CapEx dropped 18.5% in first quarter 2019 compared to the same period last year. The conclusion of omni-channel systems installed in our stores in 2018
Drop this drop leading to lower CapEx levels in first quarter 2019. The most relevant CapEx in first quarter 2019 was in IT, which investments allocated to the upgrade and maintenance of our current technological hub. In line with the Initial Public Offering documents, we expect investments to increase over the upcoming periods, enable the execution of our CapEx plan, store renovations and measures to modernization of the company's digital platform. Well, that concludes our presentation, and we can now start our Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, now we will start our question and answer session. If you have any questions, please press star one. To remove a question from the list, please press star two. Please wait while we collect our questions. The first question today will come from Irma Sgarz of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask my first question on, when you think about the outlook for this coming second quarter where you obviously comp against the World Cup quarter, can you maybe help us understand a little bit on, from the one hand side, in terms of product launches or any special initiatives that you may be launching in the second quarter to sort of offset this impact that might be weighing on same store sales and just from a comp basis from the World Cup last year. My second question is regarding just what you're seeing in the traffic on the malls. I think you said on your earlier call that the same store sales was largely driven by traffic and conversion.
I was just curious, when you look at the traffic that is coming through the malls, how you're seeing this start to the year. I've heard from some companies that obviously the consumer is still pretty restrained in his spending capacity. I was just curious to hear what you're seeing on your mall-based stores and what sort of actions you've taken, specifically in the refurbished stores to try and drive more traffic into the store and drive the conversion up as well. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That's Pedro. The first question was on the World Cup. The World Cup is what we call low recurring event, happens every four years, and it won't happen in 2019. That means that the second quarter, where the bulk of the sales on 2018 took place on the World Cup is a hard comp, and the second quarter of 2019 will compare to that. It will be impacted on a comparison basis because there will be no World Cup in 2019, and there was a World Cup in 2018. That said, we have multiple initiatives going around product wise. There's one factor that might attenuate the fact, which is the launch of the white jersey of Brazil and the fact that we're hosting the Copa America in Brazil. It's still to be seen.
It doesn't have the same impact as a World Cup, of course, but it mitigates the fact, specifically in the soccer division. It will be a hard comp, that's for sure. On the second part, which is the traffic on the malls. Our stores are in malls. The numbers we're seeing are based on consumers. The brick-and-mortar numbers, right, are based on consumers that walk into the malls. What we believe we've been able to do given that our growth, and we're still reading the numbers of the malls, but our growth could be slightly higher than the average malls growth or higher than the average malls growth, is that we're being able to make consumers that are walking into the aisles to walk into our stores more often. One of the main triggers for that is the G5.
When you look at the G5 and you see how the growth on the G5, where the growth comes from. It comes from more transactions, either traffic or conversion. More transactions and not the average ticket. What we assume here is that consumers are walking to the aisle because of the look and feel of the store, because of the experience one can have walking to one of our Centauro stores, they will come in more often. The second part is the omni-channel approach. When you observe that the omni-channel sales represent 53% of the digital sales and a big chunk of that is click and collect, that's consumers we're pushing to the store. The consumers, they're buying online, we're pushing to the store, and they can buy something else, right? Sometimes they do. That's also pushing traffic to our stores specifically.
Finally, I believe that the factor of being vastly in service and pursuing a NPS that has been growing year-over-year also allows consumers or stimulates consumers to come back. We're growing, and we're growing with a satisfied consumer base, which we can only assume that we have a higher chance that they will come back more often. Those are a couple of things that I can mention that we are doing at Centauro to boost the number of clients that buy at our store despite or in addition to the market growth.
Great. That's very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you.
We will now end the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Pedro Zemel for his final considerations. Mr. Zemel, you may proceed.
Thank you everyone for participating in our first earnings release after going public. Again, I would like to thank all those involved in the IPO process, especially Centauro's team members, whose talents and commitment to advancing the company made this achievement possible, and our shareholders and investors who supported the company in the construction of this new growing cycle. We remain committed to offering the best service to our customers and delivering long-term value to our shareholders. See you on our next conference call.
The conference is now concluded. We thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.