Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Vivara's third quarter 2023 results video conference. This quarter, as in the previous one, the company will dedicate 100% of the video conference time to the question- and- answer session. The video, with opening comments by Paulo Kruglensky, CEO of the company, and the analysis of financial performance made by Otavio Lyra, our CFO, has been available since yesterday. It can be accessed at any time on Vivara RI website. For those who'd like to listen to the simultaneous translation, we have this tool available in the interpretation button located in the bottom center of the screen. When selecting it, choose your preferred language, either Portuguese or English. For those listening to the video conference in English, there is the option to mute the original audio by clicking on Mute Original Audio.
Well, for Sell-Side Analysts who cover this stock, we offer the possibility of live participation. To do this, simply send a message with your name and company on the Q&A icon of the platform, and we will then release it according to the order of entry. By default, your name and company you represent will be announced so that you can ask your question live with audio and video turned on. Just accept the request using the button that will appear on your screen. For other participants, we advise that questions be sent using the Q&A icon on the bottom of your screen. If your question is not answered during this video conference, the investor relations team will contact you later to respond to your concerns. Introducing the Vivara team, we have gathered here, as usual, Mr. Paulo Kruglensky, CEO of the company, Mr. Otavio Lyra, CFO, and Mrs
Melina Rodrigues, Investor Relations Director. Now, we will collect the questions, remembering that to ask a question, simply send the request through the platform's Q&A icon on the bottom of your screen. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here with us, with another results calls with our Q&A session. Before opening our Q&A session, I would like to give you some initial messages. Well, Vivara has been creating a market. The market of jewelry without Vivara wouldn't have grown as much as it grew without Vivara. Vivara was responsible for 40% of the market, gaining space in all categories. Vivara is a company that creates its market. We managed to create an event of sales all the season. This campaign that you just saw was a campaign that pushed the sales of wedding rings. Life is here. That's a reality.
We have gone up to the mark of 100 stores. It's a young brand full of potential with impressive results. We firmly believe that we need to focus on other segments as well. And this campaign was very, very successful in terms of innovation, bringing sales performance in pushing the category of rings, wedding rings, and our jewelry section in general in this period. The sale of this type of product is emblematic because it's a share gain right where it matters. There's no share-of-wallet discussion. This is a growth in the market of jewelry. And then we are boosting the market of jewelry in Brazil, not only with Life but with the whole Vivara brand, with years of performance and two-digit growth.
This result we bring today and we share with you today shows, growth, a top line 25% growth and a EBITDA margin of 23%. We always talk about the Rule of 40, companies that show, EBITDA margin above 20 and growth above 20, that combined create a market and are evaluated as a highlight in the market. So I'm very, very proud to be here to show this result, this growth, to the market and open the Q&A session. I would like to thank the team. They were amazing in this month, in this quarter. A little flatter quarter in which we prepare for the season by the end of the year. This amazing team helped us deliver such good results. So now we can open the floor for the first question, please.
Well, our first question is by Clara, Sell-Side Analyst from Itaú. Clara, we will send you the message so you can turn your camera and mic on. Hi. Hello. Thank you for selecting my question. I would like to ask you about this margin dynamics. It's so clear to Vivara, this effect on the wedding rings campaign, advertising campaign, it has an impact on the gross margin. But let me ask you, in terms of product mix, is it going to be more focused on wedding rings campaign? Or could we think about this mix of products in a more structured way, with a lower margin sometimes? And my second question is that, can you talk a little bit about your perspective on short-term sales? We know that Black Friday and Christmas are the main events.
We still have some weeks to go, but what have you felt in the weeks preceding these events, end of the year events, in terms of consumer behavior and sales dynamics? So that's it. Thank you so much. Clara, thank you for your question. Good morning. Well, I will discuss your first question, and then Paulo will tackle the second. Well, let me tell you that we've had a quarter with a quantity of trends that we were seeing, not only growth and expansion, and also effects related to gross margin. And here, let me tell you that we've had this extremely successful campaign that pushed the growth of important subcategories in the jewelry mix.
Important points, let me tell you that Life has been growing, well with product margin within this category in a reasonable and sustainable way, contributing to the whole result. This will keep on going, not only in the following quarter, but also in the following years. This effect of the jewelry category and mix inside the jewelry category, I think Paulo discussed—I mean, he said this in his opening presentation. We managed to create this effect out of season. So in the fourth quarter, and from now on, we will follow the season and events according to the behavior that the company has always followed.
We entered a fourth quarter in which the seasonality of collections is bigger, and we have then bigger margins than only wedding rings, which are one of the main products that follow closely or more closely the prices of the competition. So let me tell you that the focus pressure of this quarter on margin has been supported by a less relevant tax credit due to the change of factory, and also due to the accounting reclassification of the DIFAL, that weigh BRL 8.2 million in the deduction group, that squeeze growth of liquid income in this period. We entered this fourth quarter, in which one reclassification keeps on being done, and this effect will disappear throughout the year of 2024.
The tax credit effect might be less relevant in spite of the change of gold factory to be ex- that is expected by the end of this year. December is not a strong production month, usually. December is usually a month in which we have already produced and delivered the stock for the stores, and you have expectations for the beginning of the year, which is not very strong compared to the other seasons of the year, and then this will lead to a somewhat balanced situation. We expect to continue gaining Life mix growth, a margin that is concretely above. In 2024, we expect acceleration of 5-10 stores in addition to our portfolio, and we still have Life with the biggest opportunity in terms of return and also in terms of geography.
And then nothing changed, structurally speaking, regarding what we expect for upside in our business, in the opportunity of a Life share gain for the next few years. We still expect that part of our profitability or additional profitability in this long run comes from gross margin, coming from Life mix and from other improvements. For example, in the Manaus factory, we have just opened, and we expect to gain profitability in the next few months. I hope I have answered your first question, and now, Paulo, with you. Thank you, Otavio. Now, talking about short-term and seasonality and end of the year events, let me tell you that we started the quarter in a very good position, in the same pace we finished the previous one. 40 days of sales with the same level of growth we've had.
before, and the expectation for the Black Friday event is very huge inside the company, not only considering our preparation, as I discussed, with new collections live and Tommy watch positioning, but also with the growth or the market, the jewelry market growth that we have seen. In 12 months, we grew 7.1%, and Vivara is responsible or is accountable for 40% of this growth in this market. We have been creating demand, and this is very important. And in this beginning of quarter, we are encouraged to sell in during the Black Friday and Christmas. I believe we'll surprise many people here. Thank you very much. That was super clear. Our next question is from Eric, Sell-Side Analyst from Santander. Eric, we will send you the invitation for you to turn on your camera and your video. Please accept this.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for selecting my question. I have two questions. One is a follow-up regarding this, gross margin aspect. So in jewelry category, how much of a difference we have here? Is it relevant in terms of collection lines and more commercial lines? If, functionally, we see a movement of what we could expect in terms of gross margin... And on the Life side, in this quarter, you showed an observed evolution of sales in mature stores in the past 12 months, right? If you could comment on how we have observed the evolution of this dynamic by store tier and also or cluster, and also in the most recent waves of expansion. Thank you very much. Eric, thank you for your questions.
Well, I'm not going to talk about strategies of the company in terms of pricing or secrets of the company, but let me tell you that in the subcategory of jewelry, there is a margin differentiation between wedding rings, solitary rings, and in this category, we operate in the whole with the caps around 4-4.5. And the difference between caps for collections and other lower cap categories is around 1 point. So this advantage of growth that we've seen in the third quarter, based on a successful campaign focused on the subcategories, then we started to see and felt this effect.
And again, thinking about the fourth quarter and next year, obviously, we are subjected to everything new we do in our business, but the Life and Vivara's average behavior will remain. Of course, there will different seasons and biggest events where we sell, where we sell more the subcategories, not only in jewelry, but also seasonal events in which we sell more of Life product. This leads to this combination or mix of the fourth quarter, which is not only the largest one in terms of sales, but also in terms of growth profitability in the level of growth margin or growth margin. So we expect to see the normalization of these behaviors in terms of this sales, except there are new creations and the consolidation of the mix of a Life category and in front of other subproducts of the company.
This, to give you a highlight, this is the first quarter in which Life stores surpassed the channel of Life within Vivara. So it's clear to see that we have created the perfect environment to sell this type of category. So the stores are really nice, and we will open more of them. Rubin, complementing on what Otávio said regarding the surprising performance we have seen in the mature stores, we have looked at Life not only in the points of sale, but also considering a 360 strategy in marketing, product, CRM, evolving so much in the Life clients' journey. This will have a direct impact on sales. So we see these mature stores growing over 35%.
When we look at the companies we've opened, the second-tier stores, they have also had a performance above what we expected based on the strategy and these strategies that we have decided to follow, they are good for the mature stores, and they are good for the second-tier stores as well. This makes us feel comfortable to accelerate this growth. We want to have over 100 Life stores. We will reach 106 Life stores, and we still have on track launchings. But this moment in which we want to empower the Life brand with new communications, new products, to make this brand more relevant, increase or enlarge, expand its awareness, it has brought results to us already. That's perfect. Thank you for your answers. Our next question comes from Daniela, Sell-Side analyst at XP.
Daniela, we'll send you the message so you can turn on your camera and video. Please accept it. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for selecting my question. I have two questions. First, regarding SG&A, it called our attention because the second quarter, there was a little lower in sales. Let's think about the future. Can we expect them to be more relevant? There is more investment in marketing, like the campaign you have discussed. So let's discuss this SG&A dilution. And the second question is regarding competition. We have seen on the media a re-acceleration of opening of store, of Pandora stores, and they have a positioning above Life and below Vivara. So let me ask you, how do you see competition with this more aggressive dynamics presented by Pandora? Thank you. Thank you, Dani. Good morning.
Well, first of all, I believe that recently, we've had an accounting reclassification round, so our results could be clearer, with a clear trend showing where we were going or where we are - where we could see operating dilution in our business. From now on, I believe we will add less weight in our business to this. We have prepared the structure of most of our, the structure we need to make it, make this business happen in the short, medium and long run. But talking about more details on what we did in the previous quarter, good part of the seasonal operation in our business, because they were below administrative areas, they were accounted on staff expenses and general and administrative expenses.
Thus, in seasonal events, it seems that the company were growing in overhead expenses, fixed expenses, and more adhered to the increase of inflation in the period, or even more because we were adding structure in that period. This explains two effects that we can see in the results of this period: a stronger weight or a heavier weight or heavier pressure on per, staff, sales related to sales. This is heavier if compared to pre-operational expenses in our company. This leads to more pressure on operational and administrative expenses due to these reclassifications that we did also. So areas like technical assistance, logistics, and good part of the marketing department, we opened this detail in the immediately previous quarter.
This is weighing on top of that, and this was not done a year ago in the third quarter of 2022. So from now on, to sum up, we can simplify the administrative expenses of the company in general, even in an accelerated pace of expansion, 5-10 additional stores to be launched next year. So we want to have this expansion with expansion in profitability. And next year, we have a better and more efficient structure, so we can enter next year like this, in a more prepared way. Now, talking a little bit about the competition. Well, before I talk about the competition, let me talk about Life's journey, positioning the past few years and in our change of the mix. Today, Pandora's products competes with Life.
It doesn't respond to 35% of our turnover. Vivara and Life could reinvent themselves in this market model. Today, Moments is a less relevant category for us, and the competition's is growing in a different model, different from our business model. We decided to grow more in stores and not so much in kiosks, and this competition expansion is primarily based on kiosks. And my personal idea here in the customer's experience, I believe we have some competitive advantages that makes us feel comfortable concerning all of these changes in the market. You also talk about lab diamonds growth, and what we see in the world is that the price is going down. If we did that movement before, we would suffer with our margins, because the price, which was too high, is going down.
It's becoming cheaper and cheaper, and we haven't seen any big movements of Pandora itself regarding turnover performance. The Phoenix projects are not even one half percent of that turnover. It doesn't call our attention. We will keep on following the market and the competition. We will see how the world will deal with that, but for the short and medium terms, we are not so concerned about that. Thank you very much. That's great. Well, we have no sell-side questions yet, but there is a buy-side question here before we end this call. Natasha from Artis is asking us about PIS and COFINS credits, that if we can have a larger opening of other revenues that appeared in the EBITDA consolidated movement.
Well, before talking about more details, it's important to talk about the transfer timing of these credits. We recognized this during this quarter, and trying to be more efficient, by the end of this year, we'll be able to make transfer regarding Black Friday tax payment, which are very relevant. So what comes from this will be used in the next periods, and we have cash operational gains that are higher. And other events that are there, and which haven't been adjusted as recurring events, it's because they are recurring events. We're talking about a mix of three main topics, which are rent allowances. Three recurring things in this period in which we are checking the results, which are the combination of allowances, rents, agreements, rebates regarding the company's payroll agreement, that's super usual, and also import credits.
We've talked so much about that this year was a year of changes, changes in terms of factory. We anticipated the production to, regarding also this import of the Life line, and they have different counter. It may lead to lower markups regarding products, and also allows us to have import credits here, which are obviously positive effects in this period. So these are three recurring events that distribute themselves through this number, or in this number, this figure that you can see, the post-adjustment number after the event. And we only adjust for events that are material events and not smaller events. So these were the details.
To complement my answer, I would like to say something that wasn't said before, and maybe it's not related, but regarding the expectation that we have for 2024, we've had on the seventh, the happy news that our interdependence regime was approved. Let me just remind you all what it is about. Well, we have BRL 108.85 million of ICMS already rectified or accounted for at Conipa in São Paulo. They buy gold, and they transfer to Manaus and generates credits here in São Paulo. This credit couldn't be used even if they were accredited, because Conipa cannot consume or make use of all of these credits. Now, with this interdependence regime, we have the approval, so Tellerina makes the payment of taxes using these credits, these Conipa credits.
And with that, we have the happy news that we have available the use of BRL 85 million in ICMS, this BRL 85 million in credits for the next month, along with the PIS and COFINS credits that were accounted for in this third quarter and will be used in the following periods. So besides that, we have additional BRL 85 million that will be used in operational cash in the next year of 2024, in which we will use up most of this BRL 85 million. This is something that also increases our expectation regarding 2024, a year in which we'll also discuss accelerated growth in the order of 15%-20%, with openings of 5-10 additional stores.
If compared to this year of 2023, 2024 will be a year in which we'll be able to balance strong growth and operating rehabilitation. With all the events that were already being described, this will be a year of more balance in terms of cash management. The increase of profitability will bring benefits to operating cash results, along with the events I've just described, the consumption of important tax credits, and summed, they will lead to over BRL 100 million to be used up, not only in 2024, but most of them will be used in that next year. Next year, we'll have sufficient cash generations to cover the many investments we'll do next year. And also, profit share, as expected in the company. So we have this turning point next year.
After the IPO, you were using this capital to generate growth, and for 2024, we will achieve a higher balance in our business as a whole. I've also talked about our expectation to generate more working capital. This is a part of our business in which we all, I mean, to which we all pay attention. Maybe in this first quarter, it's not so visible, but it will be more efficient in terms of the use of inputs in the factory, less purchases in the period with due dates of important agreements that will appear in our cash flow management, and this will reflect in stocks drops.
It's not still reflected because of the changes we made in the factory for watches and Life's, and also the last part of the gold, which is still in the old factory. Thank you. Do you have any other question waiting in line? If not, we can end this call. We do have two additional questions from buy-side questions. They have just been. They use some working capital stock. I think Otavio discussed this in his final answer, I believe. Well, thank you, guys. So our main key takeaways, this is a—there's a very good growth in the EBITDA, stock composition, so we can have a very good Black Friday, and then Christmas here. We're very happy with the results, with the growth and margins, and thank you very much.
Let's sell, okay? Thank you so much. Thank you for your participation. So we now close Vivara's video conference. The RI department is available to answer further questions and comments. Thank you all, and have a wonderful day.