Good morning. Welcome to Smart Fit's Conference Call to announce the results of the fourth quarter of 2024. For those who do not know me, I am Matheus Nascimento, Investor Relations Manager. Before starting, a message for those who want to listen to English. Today with us, we have Mr. Edgard Corona, CEO; André Pezeta, CFO; Diogo Corona, COO; José Luís Rizzardo, IRO and M&A and Treasury Director. Participants will be connected in listen-only mode during the company's presentation, and then we are going to start a questions and answers session when further instructions will be provided. We remind everyone that the results presentation that will be the basis for this presentation is available at Smart Fit's Investor Relations website at CVM at the webinar platform.
Before continuing, I would like to clarify that statements made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects, operational and financial projections and goals, and information about the potential of its target market are beliefs and assumptions of the company's executive board and are based on information currently available. These considerations are not guarantees of future performance. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Now I'd like to give the conference over to Edgard, our Founder and Director. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to have you here in our conference call for the first quarter of 2025. First, I would like to highlight the main points of another quarter of solid results, the result of solid dedication and the delivery of our entire team. I would also like to take the opportunity to share some relevant strategic messages. The growth of the network and guidance.
We ended the Q1 with a robust growth of 20% in our network of gyms as compared to Q1 2024. We totaled 1,709 stores in 15 countries in Latin America. In the last 12 months, we added 290 units to our portfolio. This strong expansion reinforces our leadership in fitness in our region. We keep our confidence in executing our guidance with 340-360 new units in 2025, based on a consistent performance of mature gyms and a solid ramp-up of units in recent years. The discipline, execution, and allocation of capitals for new projects. The robustness and strength of our operation, the favorable market conditions with a highlight to the pipeline and the real estate market, and growing demand driven by structural drivers.
In terms of membership, our membership is still expanding with 440,000 students, with BRL 5.3 million, a growth of 9% as compared to Q4 2024 and 16% compared to Q1 2024. This evolution is especially related to strong commercial performance driven by historical seasonality. There are favorable new members in our regions. Now about net revenue. The net revenue has reached BRL 1.7 billion, represented by a significant growth of 33% compared to the same period in the previous year. This result is a reflex of a 19% increase of membership under the Smart Fit brand. We have a pricing strategy that is very successful. We want to strengthen our local competitiveness and our value proposition. To promote gains of operational efficiency and to assure sustainable results in all the markets that we work.
Talking about the gross margin, the strong growth in revenue was accompanied by an increase in the gross cash margin that was 50.1%, an expansion of 0.3 percentage points as compared to Q1 2024 and 0.6 compared to Q4 2024. Mature units still have a highlight performance with a very good margin and a gross margin of BRL 5.6 million. It is also worth mentioning the performance of the units that we opened in 2023, whose results are quite significant, in addition to the promising maturity curve of units that opened in 2023. EBITDA and operational cash of the more than 1,300 units, most of them have not yet reached maturity. As this happens, investments in units are likely to be converted at the higher levels of profitability and additional generation of operational cash.
We have a record EBITDA of BRL 487 million in a quarter, a significant growth compared to the same period last year. We have a high conversion of EBITDA into operational cash when 95% was converted into operational cash, with evidence of the strong generation in our business model despite the accelerated expansion. Net income. Net income, the recurring, is BRL 141 million in Q1 2024, a growth of 22% as compared to BRL 115 million in Q1 2023. This performance is a reflex, especially of operational leverage of the company, a highlight to the profitability of mature units and the ramp-up of companies that opened recently. As a final message, we are just in the beginning. We still are very enthusiastic and focused to continue transforming the fitness industry. Once again, I would like to thank all our customers, partners, and investors.
I'll be waiting for you in the Q&A session at the end of the presentation. Now I'd like to give the floor to Diogo Corona, our COO, who's going to continue the presentation. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much, Edgard. Once again, this has been a quarter of many accomplishments. We are very happy to see how Smart Fit is able to expand, keeping its margin and results very consistently. Before diving deeper into the results, I would like to show two things about the fitness market in the Latin America region. Health & Fitness Association is still known by many published consumption trends for the main cities in Latin America where we have a strong presence. It's always good to see external numbers confirming what we are already seeing in our. The Latin American group goes a lot to fitness.
Many of them go many times and many times on the same week even. This reinforces the fact that we have more and more exercise. The demand for gyms is consistent, and it is operationally important for people who do not have access. According to the research, many people who have never been to a gym have the intention of enrolling in the next few months. Healthy habits are increasingly more part of the lives of people, and we are well aware that this demands, routine, focus, and purpose features to be present in our public. The answers indicate that a significant share of the audience have incorporated health habits such as better diet, sleep, in addition to exercise at many times a week. Additionally, the benefits of exercise are increasingly more associated with the integral health of people, the pursuit for well-being, stress reduction, disease prevention, and others.
This growing awareness of the Latin American population about the positive impacts of exercise makes us very confident that we are on the right track as leaders in the region, and surely they are important catalyzers of this movement towards more healthier generations with purpose, self-care, and quality of life. These are just some of the highlights of this interesting research. As a complement to this vision, we have commissioned a specific study to understand better our position and the opportunities in the main regions where we operate. In this slide, you can see in numbers a little bit of our leadership and expansion opportunities within a growing market that is also undergoing maturation. Currently, there is a potential to implement 1,600 units in the region's analysis.
This number is very similar to the 1,726 Smart Fit units that we have in Latin America, demonstrating the huge potential that the region still has. Currently, we have 801 units in Brazil. This study presents the potential for opening another 800 units in the country. The study indicates the increase of density in cities where we are already present and 87% of units in cities that we are already present. 61 new units could be opened in micro areas that already have one Smart Fit and 28% in micro areas that have at least one Smar Fit. This includes markets such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru, where we operate with 776 units, and we identify the opportunity for opening another 720 units.
These conclusions are based on modern methodologies that incorporate predictive models based on AI, considering variables such as the competitive environment, demographic profile, internal data, Smart Fit, and other market factors. It is also worth mentioning that there is a potential for growth in other countries in Latin America that already have the presence of the brand, which reinforces our strategic long-term vision. We are very enthusiastic about the potential of this magnitude. In looking at the growing and recent growth, we are prepared and confident for this challenge. We are leaders in the region with proven capacity and capacity for delivery, as you can see in the next slides. Now we are going first to start talking about our strong expansion that we had over the last few quarters. In the last 12 months, we have opened 290 new units, a 20% growth as compared to our baseline number.
This led us to end the quarter with 1,759 units in Latin America. The expansion in the last 12 months was well distributed between our target markets, with 38% of new units in Brazil, 26% in Mexico, and 36% in other countries. This demonstrates once again the diversification of our basis and a smaller share of the units we have in Brazil. At the end of Q1 2025, approximately 47% of our units are in Brazil, with 831 units. Mexico accounts for 22% of our basis, with 395 units, whereas other countries already have 533 units. That is 30% of our operation. We ended the period with a mix of 69% mature units, totaling 956 units, considering the definition that a mature unit is when it has been operating for at least 25 months in the beginning of the period.
We know that we have an ambitious expansion challenge for this year, which is to open approximately 350 new units, a growth of about 15% in total openings as compared to 2024, and an annual advancement between 20% and 21% in the basis of gyms. We are confident to face that challenge. We ended April with 104 new units and 278 contracts signed for new units to be opened in 2025, indicating that we are going to have many new Smart Fits still this year. As you know, our strategy to select the points of sales is very careful and based on data, with solid governance and discipline in the process of capital allocation. We have unique allocations and investment in strategic real estate properties, assuring the presence in points with solid potential. Now we're going to see more details about our units on the next slides.
I would like to go into the section of operational and financial results, starting with the evolution of our membership and revenue per unit. You can see a continuing growth of our membership and revenue per unit. You can see very positive values impacted by a high volume of openings at the end of 2024. The first quarter with positive seasonality in many of our regions and a brand and services that are capable of communicating and charming many customers. In Q1 2025, our membership and gyms exceeded BRL 5.2 million, an increase of 16% as compared to the same period last year, a 9% increase compared to the previous quarter. We believe that our robust membership is a direct reflect of our assertive expansion strategy, the maturation of units, and the continuing effort to capture and retain customers.
In the same period, the annualized average net revenue per propriety gym reached BRL 4.4 million, with an increase in membership and also in average tickets. This is a reflex of accurate price transfers in many different regions and all the actions that we conducted in a period to optimize in a sustainable way revenue per unit. Despite the strong pace of openings, we are able to keep the average performance per unit. The result demonstrates not just the resilience of our business model, but also our capacity to leverage growth with operational efficiency and margin sustainability, as you can see on the next slide. In Q1 2025, the cash gross margin of Smart Fit units, mature Smart Fit units, reached a significant level of 53%, very consistent with the 52% that we had in the eight previous quarters.
If we look at the annualized cash gross profit of these units, BRL 52.5 million, also showing growth and consistency. The performance of mature units reflects the discipline in cost management and continuing focus on initiatives that maximize value. For the units that we opened in 2023, our vintage 2023, we had a cash gross margin of 53% and 10% annualized gross profit per unit. This is a result of strategic expansion choices and an efficient cost structure, especially in occupation. Vintage 2024, with already 2,700 members per unit, has a gross margin of 42%. As a reminder, half of these units opened in Q4 2024, which even reinforces the ramp-up potential that is yet to come. The consistent performance of mature units and the speed of maturation of new vintages reinforce our conviction in the sustainability and scalability of our model.
This journey has been accurate and very right and supports accurate choices in location, cost discipline, intelligence, pricing, and an unnegotiable focus on customer experience. As a reflex, our NPS went from 66 to more than 70 points in March between March 2024 and March 2025, an important recognition from our customers. With the solid basis, we have been more driven to continue delivering growth with quality and profitability along 2025. We are sure that we are building a virtuous growth cycle with positive impact in the lives of people. Now I give it over to José Luís Rizzardo, who is going to continue our presentation with a little bit more information about the solid financial results of the quarter. Thank you, Diogo.
Now moving to the next slide, I would like to show you the solid return over invested capital that we reached in the year of 2024 by the different vintages of mature units. As you can see on this slide, the average return on invested capital for our units along 2024 was 28% already, incorporating this return, the SG&A of units, income tax, and social contribution over the net income allocated to these units. Our different vintage units have a cash gross profit level very consistent, considering that the main difference in return between them is an issue of time.
As our units mature, the reinvestment that is necessary for the maintenance of the assets to continue delivering the same levels of profitability and keeping the differentiated value proposition is above the level of accounting depreciation of those units, especially considering the difference between initial investment in construction versus the need of maintenance. This is evident when we compare the maintenance CapEx in each one of vintage units versus accounting depreciation, where you can see that for newer mature units that have between three and seven years of life, CapEx is 4% of net income and depreciation is 12%. But older units, meaning those with more than 12 years, the maintenance CapEx accounts for the same 7% of the net revenue than the accounting depreciation represents of those vintage units. In this manner, a long time, the fixed asset base of these units is smaller.
At the same time, as the solid NOPAT level is flat, increasing the return over net asset of those units. This does not have an impact in other businesses such as franchises and other non-mature units, as mentioned by Diogo, have been doing very well. Now, continuing the presentation, I would like to go into the financial performance, starting the evolution of net revenue, which in Q1 2025 presented once again a strong growth of 33% compared to the first quarter of 2024. This has been the 15th consecutive quarter of growth of revenue. The net revenue reached for the first time the mark of BRL 1.7 billion in one quarter, especially because of the expansion of 90% in the average membership of Smart Fit-owned units and an increase in the average ticket of 12%, with an increase in all our target markets.
Compared to Q4 2024, the net revenue increased 9%, especially to the same factors that we mentioned before, an increase in average membership and average ticket. The strong growth in the net revenue in the quarter is a consequence of our commercial and operational efforts to capture and retain members, increased to higher average ticket, which is a combination of revenue management, optimizing a sustainable way the revenue per unit. Now, on the performance of revenue per region, starting from Brazil, the net revenue of Smar Fit units in Brazil had a growth of 24% compared to Q1 2024 because of the solid increase of 14% in average membership in our own units and an increase of 9% in average ticket. In Mexico, net revenue grew 14% compared to the same quarter in the previous year, and it reflects especially the growth of 13% in membership in our own units.
The region, other countries, was again the main highlight with positive growth in revenue in our target markets, with an expressive increase of 61% compared to Q1 2024, a consequence especially of the growth of 30% in our membership and 24% expansion in our average ticket. To close the slide, it's worth mentioning the 50% growth, considering the same period in the year before, underlining others, which closed Q1 2025 with a revenue of BRL 95.6 million. This increase is explained especially by the acquisition of Velocity and also the strong growth in revenue in other business units in our group. Now, moving to the next slide, you can see that the cash gross profit totaled BRL 851 million in Q1 2024, an increase of 34% compared to Q1 2024, and above the growth of net revenue in the period.
The cash gross margin was 50.7%, 0.3 percentage points above as compared to Q1 2024 and 0.6 percentage points above Q4 2024, a reflex of the solid growth of net revenue and the efficient cost management, which had the consequence of dilutions of fixed costs despite the record expansion scenario in the number of units. In the last 12 months, cash gross profit totaled BRL 3 billion with a cash gross margin of 50.2%. It's still worth noting that the cash gross margin before pre-operational costs, meaning those related to openings of new units, reached 51.3% in Q1 2025. It's worth reinforcing what Diogo already said, that the solid result in the gross margin is a consequence of the excellent performance of mature units combined with a very positive percentage of new units.
We are going to show you the operational expenses of the company in Q1 2024, focusing on SG&A. Expenses with sales, general, and administrative expenses totaled BRL 324 million in Q1, accounting for 19.3% of the net revenue. General administrative expenses totaled BRL 174 million in Q1 2024, an increase of 37% compared to Q1 2023 because of more investment in the structuring of new businesses, reinforcements in the lines of personnel, and higher volume of corporate events that we had in the period. The expenses with sales had a growth of 50% in the same comparison basis, a reflex of record expansion in our membership, or rather, better saying, in our network of gyms. We also had marketing initiatives to strengthen the brands of our business units. Compared to Q4, expenses with SG&A grew 15%.
Now, moving to the next slide, you can see the evolution of EBITDA in the first quarter of 2025, which was BRL 520 million, the highest level ever in one quarter, with significant growth of 32% versus Q1 2024. The EBITDA margin of the quarter was 31%, a solid level despite the recent record of openings of units. It's worth mentioning that in the last 12 months, we have also reached the record level of EBITDA of BRL 1.9 billion, with a solid margin of 31.5%, one of the higher record historical levels ever of EBITDA margin for the company. Lastly, considering the adjusted EBITDA before pre-operational expenses, also a record level, we have reached BRL 538 million in Q1 2025, which represents a 31% growth as compared to Q1 2024. The adjusted EBITDA margin before pre-operational expenses was 32.1%.
Now, I give the floor to André Pezeta, CFO of the company, to continue the presentation of the results. Thank you, Rizzardo. Good morning, everyone. Now, moving to the next slide, you can see the recurring net income was BRL 141 million in the first quarter of 2025, representing a 22% growth compared to the same period in the year before and a net margin of 8.4%. The strong performance reflects especially the operational leverage of the business driven by the consistent profitability of mature units and the solid ramp-up of units that we opened in the last years. This operational performance was partially offset by increase in depreciation, amortization, and financial expenses in the period. A time reflects the acceleration of investments in the expansion of the network of units.
Moreover, it's worth mentioning that the result of the first quarter of 2024 had the positive impact of tax credits resulting from the cumulated tax loss, which explains part of the increase in the effective rate of income tax and social contribution in Q1 2024 compared to the same period in the year before. Moving to the next slide, we are going to talk about the company's adjusted net debt and the main investments in a period. In the first quarter of 2025, the adjusted net debt of the company increased by BRL 11 million, a reflex of the solid generation of operational cash that more than offset the investments that we made in a period in the payment of interest on equity.
The generation of operational cash was positive by BRL 493 million, driven by a record EBITDA in a period and the high conversion of EBITDA into operational cash, which reached 95% in the quarter. The investment activities totaled BRL 452 million, especially due to the CapEx referring to the opening of new units that I'm going to give you details next. Other activities accounted for an addition of BRL 51 million in adjusted net debt, especially because of the payment of interest on equity booked in Q4 2024. Details of the investments in a period, we move advancing with our expansion plan. This resulted to a total CapEx of BRL 441 million, a growth of 46% compared to Q1 2024, a reflex especially of advance of expansion CapEx of 43%.
This increase reflects the flow on investments of units that open in Q4 2024, especially those that we opened during the month of December, in addition to investments in the construction of units with the expectation of openings in future quarters. Lastly, it should be mentioned that in the last 12 months, the maintenance CapEx of the units under the Smart Fit brand reached BRL 260 million, 6.3% of the gross revenue of mature units, a level that is compatible with offering a high level of experience to our customers. As we showed in the previous slide, we have intensified our expansion plan and investments, but keeping good levels of leverage. It's worth mentioning that the adjusted net debt over EBITDA ratio in the last 12 months, excluding IFRS 16 effects related to the lease of real estate, ended the first quarter at 1.65 times versus 1.76 in Q4 2024.
We consider this a healthy level, especially due to the high predictability of the company's results and a very long debt profile. Moreover, the adjusted net debt over EBITDA in Q1 2025 annualized, excluding IFRS 16 effects related to real estate lease, is 1.5 times. Lastly, it is worth mentioning the company is locally funding its needs for expansion at the end of the period. Brazil, Mexico, and other countries represent respectively 29%, 30%, and 40% of the company's net debt. This net debt in different geographies gives us flexibility to invest in most of the countries where we operate with our own units. The current prospect is to continue the reduction of local interest rates. I would like to close the presentation thanking everyone who has contributed towards our results and all our investors.
Now I'm going to give the floor to Matheus, who's going to coordinate our questions and answers session. Thank you, André. Now we are going to start our questions and answers session. If you have a question, click on the Q&A icon at the lower menu on your screen to send your question in writing. We are going to collect and answer the questions as received. Please wait while we collect questions. Are expanding YoY , and I would like to understand from you which were the drivers of this expansion in terms of pricing, or were there any other reasons? I would like to ask your help to understand how we can think about the margins in others Latin America. This is my first question about others Latin America and margins. Second question is about Mexico.
When we look at the gross margin in Mexico in the first quarter of 2025, there is a drop that is not just in sequence, but also YoY . We did not see this in Brazil and neither in other Latin America. I would like to try and explore with you a little bit how do you diagnose this for this drop specifically in Mexico. Thank you so much. Okay, thank you, Rogatis. This is Pezeta answering your question. Good morning. First, with other LatAm, I think that there are two effects for other LatAm. First, you talked about last year, we have been adding many units to our mature base. This is the region that added the highest number of units in a mature base. This is an effect of the previous year.
Before we had other units, and most units started having a slightly lower margin than we had in the past. This is talking about last year. Now, talking about this quarter specifically, the things that have contributed to the margin. As others, Latin America has many units, we had a price adjustment at the end of last year. This contributed to a higher average ticket this quarter. Additionally, the new unit that we opened in 2024 came already with very, very good margins above the margins that we had in the first quarter last year. This has driven us to have an increase in the gross margin in the region of other countries. About your second question, Victor, about Mexico, once again, with a very brief context of last year.
Last year in Mexico was a year when we had the first price adjustment implemented that we had in late 2023, and the main cycle of capture that took place along last year. We started last year very strong with historically inflows, historically above our history. It was the second quarter in a country with attraction of new members, especially towards the end of the year, below historical levels in the country. As a reminder, it is always in the second quarter in Mexico, we lose members and we win members in the first half of the year for mature units.
When we see the first quarter of 2025, this has been a quarter once again as the first quarter of 2024 that is above historical levels in terms of attraction of members, but it was not yet sufficient to offset the end of the year in Mexico that was worse in terms of attraction of new members, which along with the impact of inflation adjustment in the country explains a drop in the performance when we look at this in terms of the gross margin. The new vintage units in Mexico are performing very well. 2023 vintage is very solid performance. Vintage 2024, that is still a very new vintage, has more than 40% gross margin, and we have for 2025. The lessons that we learned in Brazil over the last few years, especially in terms of CapEx per unit in Brazil.
We will be able to have good levels of return for new vintage units and new mature units. Thank you so much, Rizzardo and Pezeta. Our next question comes from Danny Ager from XP. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. I have two questions. One is about TotalPass. People discuss how much it is an offender in the metric of membership per unit when we look at Smart Fit. If you could help us sharing the penetration of TotalPass within Smart Fit membership or something else so that we can understand better the net effect. The other thing is that it got my attention, this better profitability of mature units of 53%. Okay, we are seeing some newer seasons that were performing at this level, but this seems to be a more structural movement of mature units.
How do you think about the trade-off of this better margin versus growth? Does it make sense to operational performance being converted into better performance? Hi, Danny. This is Pezeta answering your question. As to TotalPass, we are not still sharing much information on the penetration of TotalPass that we published. It is the only number that we have been publishing. Average penetration last year, this is what we have published. Obviously, along last year, it has been growing, so it closed at a slightly higher level, and this penetration continues to grow this year. We will announce again a new number at the end of this year in terms of what is the TotalPass share in Smart Fit Brazil. TotalPass has also been transferring more value to Smart last year.
The number was significant, and we are going to close the gap a little bit, not 100%, but I think that it's going to get smaller. Total Pass, as you know, has been gaining share in Smart Fit's business. And Total Pass in itself, it has not been an offender of our bottom line, but most of the structuring that we have been doing is related to that. About margin, we always look at ROIC of our units, and our goal is not to maximize the return of units. We want to maximize the opening of units with a healthy ROIC. So the 53% is a reflex of the good performance of our units in the revenue management agenda and also cost control agenda, but it's a one-off number. We look at the range of 51%-53% overall.
This quarter, it exceeded, but our goal is not to keep at these same levels. It might be at those levels depending on the mix and what happens specifically in each region, but our vision is to keep the range of 51%-53%. Okay, thank you so much. Congratulations on your performance. Thank you, Danny. Our next question comes from Felipe Rached, analyst at Goldman Sachs. I would like to go back to Mexico. I would like to understand better how do you see the macro scenario. There is an expectation of slowdown and a growth in the region, but at the same time, they have been saying that the consumption dynamics should be incrementally positive from now on.
What I would like to understand better, is there any room for any price increase or to accelerate revenue management in Mexico considering the current scenario there, or do you think that potential operational leverage during the year would come from the improvement in inflows? Every detail you could give us about this, it would be helpful. Thank you so much. Hello, Rached. This is Rizzardo answering your question. Thank you for your question. We always have a very intensive feedback of what is happening in the front end, and we see everything about cost and expenses and revenue. The performance is very much detached from the macro as much as possible. As we said, even in the performance in the first quarter of 2025, what we've been seeing so far is an inflow above what we've been seeing historically for the region.
Obviously, considering the countries where we operate, Mexico today, in terms of margin, this is where we have the highest uncertainty, and our focus continues discipline and cost management. The theme of higher prices is always very alive in the company, but as we said in our last conference call, right now we are not seeing any price increases for that region, and the focus of the year for Mexico is much more in terms of recovering good levels of inflow and both in cost and CapEx per store. Thank you so much, Rizzardo. Our next question comes from Bob Thornton from the Bank of America. Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on your performance. How do you assess the growth pace of demand as compared to the capacity of the industry as a whole, as perceived value?
What do your corporate customers value the most, and how should we think about the many differentiation criticisms? Bob, thank you for your question. I think that fitness has become trendy. It's something that people are looking more at. There is an expectation and a projection of investing $72 billion in the U.S. in GLP-1, so 9% using these products. This leads to growth that leads to loss of muscle mass, and the solution is to exercise. Along those lines, the market in the U.S. grew 3 percentage points last year. We thought that it was a saturated market with not much room, but it had 9 million new members. In Europe, according to the Fitness Association of Europe, the numbers were kind of similar. Same thing has been going on in Brazil. This market has been growing very strongly.
The breach of patent of Ozempic next year will make accessible what some units are doing to have lifetime planning as we have in the U.S. to measure body fat impedance with specific training using GLP-1 to reduce obesity of practitioners, especially obesity levels in the U.S. that dropped 2 percentage points in one year, which is quite amazing. Brazil and Latin America, we are looking at a scenario maybe one day get to 7%, but we see that this, I think that units cannot keep up with demand. Demand is much stronger than we had projected. This is because there are products and units and facilities in places where there is no supply. Looking at that, a market that still has a good growth potential, as André presented the potential, but for more people, they have the same condition, and we are really excited.
The corporate market, we have been working using first convenience, proximity to adapt products to new demands with much less cardio, much more bodybuilding. There are a few things through which we can manage body fat, the kind of workout program that you need to have considering everything to meet the demand of the population. How we can help reducing obesity, gaining muscle mass or lean mass through bodybuilding. This helps the country, reduces pressure on the health system, making the population more active and healthier. This is the contribution that we have. This is a huge opportunity in the fitness industry that we have in the next few years, and we hope that for a long time. Bob, this is Diogo complementing what Edgard has said.
It is very interesting and curious that when we talked about the future and the future in our industry, we used to say that the risk was the weight losing pill that if someone created, it would be a problem, but they created and it helped us. It has increased demand in gyms. People say that they need to lose weight, they need to lose weight to then go to the gym. People used to think about that, and GLP-1 has been helping. People that have good results, they continue, and if they do not, they are more likely to leave. This has been helping us, and in future years, this is likely to become even more popular with the end of the patent. Other than that, the increase in demand is already going on.
This is happening, and I think that our increase, we have been increasing our guidance year over year in terms of the number of units, keeping the quality and the margins of mature units. Cannibalization is not affecting the margin of mature units, and the ramp-up of units are at least the same historical levels. This demonstrates that we can increase the pace of expansion and to minimally keeping quality. This is a reflex of increasing demands in the unit that is also very strong, but we always think that we need to do things right. It's not because demand is increasing that we'll do it in any way. We reject many more points of sales than we approve, even though you might be impressed by the numbers considering the guidance that we are updating. This is it.
We've been increasing the offer to supply demand to know that we need to do things right. Otherwise, we are going to have the check at the end of the year. As to B2B, we see that corporate customers, human resources departments, especially enterprise, which is a demand that is more difficult to cater to, they require capillarity. What we did is to get to those customers. One prerequisite was capillarity, the number of units in the cities that were included. This increased more and more in last year. We started providing good services to those customers this year even more. We are likely to increase. We need to have capillarity, the number of units, and we need to have brand. We work in the group to complement the marks on many verticals, almost all important verticals, high-end studios, low-end, everything.
We've been focusing on meeting each and every layer in our industry with good quality. We want to have a model focusing on experience, building a strong brand. I think that all of this, the Total Pass offer is increasingly stronger. HR, human resources needs, departments need that more and more. It is a positive scenario for the next 12 months. There was a little bit of brand. Your product is very good, but people do not know who you are, and then if you do not have a good brand. What we have been doing, we have been working with a brand so people know what Total Pass is. It is useless if you do very good work, but if people do not know who you are, it is not very helpful. We have been doing this work and technology.
It's really not our core business, but it needs to work very well for us to increase our membership, which is already going on. Thank you very much. In a follow-up, the market is very concerned with the franchise such as Panob ianco. What do you think in terms of critical areas and differentiation for you? This is Diogo complementing. These models have expanded considerably recently. I think that we need to prevent their expansion. This is not going to happen. They're going to expand forever. I think that we need to look and try and to focus in our users' experience brand. We need to look inside a little bit, and we see a significant expansion. The fact is that our margins are going on. We are keeping them.
The market will know the difference, the models that expand, but expand with models that sometimes you have very long loans to pay for equipment. If supply and demand are adjusted over the period, we still have the check at the end. We've been here since 2009, and there have been many ways, many things have happened. I think that keeping the discipline and focus, looking inside, focusing on customers, this will provide results, which is what has been going on. Even though we have hundreds of units, this has not yet affected our margins, and this is what we've been demonstrating. I think that Mexico is a different challenge. We are going to see how Mexico is going to perform, but it's a completely different reality as compared to Brazil. Thank you so much and congratulations. Our next question comes from João Soares from Citibank.
Hello, good morning everyone. I would like to go back to the expansion. We've been conducting a study here based on the analysis that you make of white space. One assumption that is really key are the micro regions, how much we should assume that there is one unit per every 100,000 inhabitants. When we talked about the adoption of healthy habits by the population, this is very much based on old numbers with 6%, 8% penetration. If penetration is much higher, you do not need to have one unit per 100,000 inhabitants. My question is, if we manage to do a theoretical exercise in terms of units, what I mean is the following. This should increase. It should increase along the time due to adoption. The point is this: to analyze the penetration a long time.
I don't know how you see this today, how you see these numbers and whether we should think about the white space increasing as penetration increases. I don't know if my question is clear. Hello, João, this is Pezeta answering your question. I think I understood it. We can even have a perspective of the last 15 years and what has been going on. We used to look at a certain population to open a gym, and obviously this population has been going down a long time. For example, the district of Moema in São Paulo, Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, in Mexico, we used to have one or two units 15 years ago. Sometimes we have more than five units today. Most of that obviously comes from the evolution of the market. How can we look at this?
We can be much more accurate looking at our internal numbers than looking at external numbers. We look at the performance of our stores, we look at the region or the district where it is located, and then we have a white space based on those assumptions, which are the other areas of the city that have a similar profile that do not have one of our units or the competition unit for us to calculate the size of our white space. As time goes by, the more units we open, the more we learn, and the more accurate we are with those numbers. At the end of the day, as time goes by, if market penetration increases, we are going to have an improvement in terms of the white space.
What we can say is that considering the current profile that we have in our basis today and the penetration profile that the market presents today, our white space is what we showed in the presentation to double in the main geographies where we operate. This number has changed since last year because we have learned with our new openings and also market evolution and this increase from last year to this year, even though we opened many units in the last 12 months. Looking into the future, it's very difficult to know what is going to happen to the market. We know that the market has grown in history, but all we can say is that looking at our network today and a profile, there are some other areas of cities where we are not today and where we could be.
This is what we can say that we can execute today. Pezeta, this reflects penetration that agrees with the numbers, or would there be a higher penetration? It reflects the penetration that we have in the neighborhoods where we already operate, but if we go to other districts where there is no product offer, it should drive up market penetration. Thank you. Our next question comes from Julia Rizzo from Morgan Stanley. Hello everyone. Thank you for taking my question. It is short and sweet. I would like to understand more about expenses. In terms of expenses, understanding where we are, where it is headed towards, do you keep the same performance as in previous years, and what is going to happen? It is a very simple question. Hi, Julia. Thank you for your question. This is Rizzardo. I am going to break it down between two main components, marketing and G&A.
For marketing, it's always important to remember that the first quarter is usually the quarter with the highest expenses because we want to attract members. That's why we invest more on this line in this period. We also accelerated investments in other marketing lines more related to sales and institutional marketing. This happened for all brands, Smart Fit, Bio Ritmo, studios, and other business units of our holding. They were well-planned investments with a positive impact on sales.
When we think at times versus our traditional investment in growth, looking into the future in other quarters in the short term, we expect this line not to change levels when we think in terms of phase levels, in terms of marketing expenses, because while on one hand these expenses are not going to be repeated in the same way, naturally you would see the growth of the company and new units also demanding marketing investments. One thing offsets the other. When we look at general administrative expenses, in the first quarter, we had a recurring increase of G&A expenses, basically explained by investments in other business units, adjustments of wages in countries other than Brazil, and in headcount for the company to grow.
Additionally, in the first quarter, we usually have our meetings in the same countries you operate, and there are always additional expenses which are just in Q1 one-off. All these factors explain the higher G&A if you look at the sequence, if you compare the first quarter in 2025 to the fourth quarter in 2024. Now, when you look at marketing, what is non-recurring and the growth of the company in future quarters, the expectation is for this line to keep at similar levels. You should be able to see a dilution along the year for the company's expenses. Thank you very much for your answer, André. Our last question comes from Isabella Lamas from UBS. We now end our questions and answers session. Thank you very much for your participation. Our Investor Relations team is available to you to answer any questions you may have.
Have a good Friday and a good weekend.