Good morning, and welcome to Vivara's Q1 2022 results video conference call. Please note that this event is being recorded and translated simultaneously, and that all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. Also, the display of the presentation slides available on the platform is not automatic and must be handled individually by each user. The Q&A session will then start. Questions received via webcast will be answered later by the investor relations team. Now we would like to hand the floor to Mr. Paulo Kruglensky, the company's CEO, who will start the presentation. Mr. Paulo, you may go on.
Good morning to everyone, and thank you for participating in our video conference call of Q1 2022. We are available throughout the video conference call. Otavio Lyra, our CFO and RI Manager, together with myself. We will start on slide two. Here you can see the highlights of Q1 this year. As we mentioned during the last call, we have excellent expectations for this year. The result of Q1 reflects the beginning of a fantastic year and strengthens our optimism for the market consolidation strategy. We totaled BRL 410 million in gross revenue, an all-time record of revenues in Q1, a growth of 41% in same store sales. When we talk about physical store growth, we grew more than 61%. Joias e Relógios has consolidated with 31% share and an ever-growing percentage of market share, 2.2 percentage points in the past months.
Our net income was BRL 46 million, 11 x higher than Q1 of 2021. Net margin of 13.6% and EBITDA margin going to 15.2%, a reflection of the good pace of sales with good inventory positions, good prices and very good budget discipline. We've invested almost BRL 24 million, mainly in the layout adaptations, new openings of stores, technology and refurbishment. The highlight of this slide, ROIC of 42.7% vis-à-vis 24% of the past quarter. Now on slide three, we will talk about store expansions. During Q1, while we negotiated the closing of 35 contracts for new stores, we focused on the renewal and refurbishment of new stores, opening four more stores with the acceleration of the expansion for the upcoming quarters. This is our focus and our projection is to close 50-60 stores of new points of sale for 2022. Here we have 290 stores during this quarter.
On our next slide, we will talk about our market consolidation within our expansion plan and purpose. According to our data, the watch and jewelry market presents strong figures of growth on Q1, which is good for everyone. It's good for Vivara, good for the market, more people buying watches and jewelry. Vivara in this market segment continues growing. This is a growth of 2.6 percentage points in the past six months. We have good market share in the market, driven not only by the opening of new physical stores, but because our assertiveness in our collection and good management of product mix and price. Here is 16.3% market share. On our next slide, we will talk about our ESG agenda.
On the third of this month, we announced the third version of the sustainability report, detailing actions, projections and indicators, bringing sustainability to the entire company. On the left-hand side, we have our strategies for this year. We talk about brand growth, product, digital transformation, and today, sustainability is key. This is why we're making progress in sustainability and great participation of the leadership and the management in our targets. A yearly bonus is connected to the participation of our management. There are three major focus regarding our ESG, and ESG is spearheading all of the. Here we have supplier audits. We have the commitment with the origin of our raw material, and we have a direct supplier audit program.
We also focus ethical, environmental, and social pillars f uture vision, we work with three points, which would be the origin of raw material in our operations, the empowerment of women. This is a company made up of 87% of women and diversity. Another important point, a circular economy. 25% of the gold used in our jewelry is from our Gold Week stocks that were in the market, and they were reused for production. Our next steps in 2022, our priorities are to continue the follow-up of our supplier audit because here we gain excellent indicators like energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, diversity, amongst others. Now I would like to call Otavio so he can talk about our financial results in detail in the upcoming slides. Otavio, you have the floor.
Good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here in another quarter presenting very robust results for Q1 of 2022, and we will start with revenue per channel. The growth that we've seen throughout the quarter, BRL 410.9 million, with 50.3% growth vis-à-vis the same period last year of BRL 330 million, BRL 57 million in gross revenue, a growth of 55%. This is due to the activity of Manaus and the impact on our production lines. Also the SSS. The growth was majorly in physical stores. Our growth in sales has increased a lot. The growth of the physical stores grew 60.5% growth. Life obviously presented a very robust growth, more than five times the size. Digital sales almost dropped 11% for a number of reasons.
Physical restrictions that we faced during the pandemic and in 2021, especially in March, capturing the end of the quarter of last year, and lower share in promotional campaigns during the period. There was a change of positioning that provides us more profitability. Here we have a more robust ticket in e-commerce, more profitability, but sale in digital shrunk a little bit. This comes together with the displacement of capital marketing investments in the period, not only in performance, but adding more investments to our branding, as we've mentioned. This accounts for more flow in our stores, so we don't see this momentary loss of relevance in the digital channel as relevant because now we have more flow to our physical stores, which offsets the results.
We believe that throughout the time, we will see a sound growth of our digital platform with all the investments that will be carried out throughout the year. We will exchange the platform, and we will have good impact in the upcoming quarters. Now about the growth on brick-and-mortar stores. Here we have volume and price. There was a good balance between these pillars of growth in physical stores that grew 65.5%. We grew 27.7% in volume of products, excluding March, where we expected a volume growth. This growth was 17.5%, almost 20%. Robust even without the effects of the store restrictions of last year. Price grew 32%, and Life also has grown three digits with 330% at prices 25% higher. Now the next slide.
Here you can see as we build more history regarding the performance of our stores, and we have Life stores where we have Vivara stores. Here we are building an important history of robust performance when these two stores coexist. The main point of sale from left to right, we start here with the Vivara stores, have grown 64.6% during Q1 of 2022 vis-à-vis Q1 last year. Considering the 100% of the Vivara stores that we have here with or without Life stores. When we start breaking out this growth, we visualize the Life product growing in the shopping malls where we only have Vivara, 57.8% of growth. When we see shopping malls where both stores coexist, but with a higher number of open stores. Here, we're talking about 35 shopping malls.
The category has grown 132%. This shows us that the additional volume of new customers and new sales is very important vis-à-vis the shopping malls where we still do not have Life stores. This is Life's growth in the shopping mall. This is a store with more experience, more assortment, and this has an excellent reflection because of the amount of people coming in. Here, this is gaining momentum. Within the shopping malls where we have both stores, when we see the Vivara stores in these shopping malls, well, they've grown 75.9% more than the average of Vivara stores. This is because we're present in the best shopping malls with better flow, and we've recovered our sales. Life has grown less than in shopping malls where we have Vivara's, of course.
We've expected some cannibalization in the point of sales, and Life has grown 43.3%. Shippings that have only Vivara, it grows 57.8%, and it has dropped 3.9 percentage points of share from 20.5% to 16.7%. This is a slight drop in shopping malls where they coexist, showing the marginal, the additional marginal is important. When we see the additional sales here, Life has grown by itself in shopping malls where both stores coexist. 461.7%, practically five times greater. Therefore, it's important to mention it because as we attain more data, we can give you more information. This means that any cannibalization amongst point of sales, and yes, we are observing this. This is shy vis-à-vis the sale of the new stores because of the experience and the strengthening of brand that Life is receiving.
On eight. Here, we can see the details of the sales mix of the company. Our performance was excellent among all categories. Very little changes regarding the same period last year. I would like to highlight jewelry growth of 51.6%, almost 32% in amount. This category is the most elastic in terms of price, and we are selling volumes not only higher than last year, but higher than 2019. Life, with a growth of 48.8% or 49% and 16.8% in volume. Here, it loses relevance 0.3 percentage points. In the combined, in the company, it gains one percentage point in the brick-and-mortar channel because of the additional flow in the brick-and-mortar stores because of the new strategy of marketing a new store, but loses relevancy in our digital channel because we have less shares in promotional campaigns. Watches have grown 53.8%. This is a significant growth of 33.7%, and accessories growing almost 30%. Very balanced like last year. The growth comes from price and not quantity. Now, our next slide.
Here, details about our gross profit and our gross margin. BRL 228.2 million in gross profit with 16.7% gross margin. A relevant gain vis-à-vis last year of 2.1 percentage points, mainly driven by more efficiency in cost reduction and the assertiveness in our collections, and there were fewer losses this year than last year. Last year, we had problems regarding geographic restrictions. These three effects grew 2.8 percentage points of margin, excluding the planned expenses. When we analyze the plan, there is an important message. The pressure is less than past quarter. There is still pressure in the quarter because of new people that we need for the greater production expected for the entire year, more headcount training and 90 days for them to become productive.
With this, yes, there is short-term pressure because we add people. The message is that when we analyze March and the quarter, this pressure doesn't appear. Here we have selling that comes from the maturing effects of the stores that were opened a year and a year and a half ago. We start eliminating this pressure and the trend that will continue in the upcoming quarters of the year. The following slide. Here we have BRL 113 million of 2022, a growth of 34% regarding the BRL 85 million during the first quarter last year. This growth not as strong as the revenue, but because of their real expenses. One would be commissioning, leasing, marketing that are relevant as the company grows 50% in sales. These expenses represent 33.7% of the period's revenue. This is an additional dilution of 5.3 percentage points, material margin gain, especially in variable expenses.
Because of 2.0% drop in personal expenses, 0.8 percentage point in expenses with rents and condominiums, and 0.6 percentage points in expenses with freight. Although with additional relevancy, e-commerce still represent a good part of our revenue. We have brought efficiency to our freight line, thanks to the team of logistics. Because the development of more segment practices in cities where we become more relevant. On the next slide 11, here we give you color about as general administrative expenses. Here, BRL 42 million, a growth of 30%. Despite this growth, there has been a dilution of 2.4 percentage points among periods, mainly coming from personal expenses, 1.5 percentage points less and 1.4 percentage points in third-party contracted services. Everything that supports our digital strategy and our strategic discussions that despite increasing are losing relevancy regarding the growth of the company.
Now on slide 12. Here we have excellent results, operational and net results. Here we have BRL 52 million of Adjusted EBITDA. Going back to the rent expenses with 15.2% of EBITDA margin, 10.4 percentage points above last year. Therefore, here we see an EBITDA growth of almost four times, of almost five times with 388% of growth vis-à-vis the same period last year, impacted in March by strong restrictions throughout Q1 last year. When we see our net income, BRL 45.9 million. Here we have 13.6% of net income margin, a growth of 11%. This is an excellent result that is because of the restrictions in 2021 and all the good results from same-store sales, and because of greater activity in our plan that is benefiting social contributions and income tax over net income.
The signals are excellent. This has exerted less pressure over income, and this is contributing to convert our income and cash in indebtedness. Now on slide 13, no major changes regarding the end of the year. In the company's indebtedness profile, we end with BRL 285.5 million in funding and debt. With a subsequent event in April, we amortized a major contract of BRL 50 million, among other small maturities, which was BRL 54 million. We are dropping the debt of the company in a scenario of ever-growing interest rate, and this will benefit the future results of the company.
We ended March with 579.6 BRL in cash flow. This is a drop of the net cash flow since December up to the date of 18.9%, mainly because the operational cash consumption that we presented in the periods, and I will show details and what happened in Q1. On our next slide 14, you can see the investment throughout the period. Paulo has mentioned this 23.9 million BRL on Q1, also a high time record of investments to support all of the upcoming cycles, and it is for new stores, for also maintenance and refurbishments, and they are distributed in factory systems.
Due to the expectations that have been announced in our last conversations, we expect a very robust year of investments, mainly because of between 50 and 60 new stores, and because of the return of maintenance and the displacement of points of sale during the pandemic, we took the foot off the gas, but also investments in factory systems to support the increase of production and to support our digital channels and also technology, because technology has been relevant for some time. At last, on slide 15, here you can see our cash generation. We used BRL 44.9 million because of the increase of inventories. We continue growing the same-store sales base. This is not only from the organic growth of the company or new store, but this is due to the company sales that comes from our base.
Here we added 92.6% in new inventories and other assets and liabilities that due to the credits of ICMS recognized in 2019 or PIS/COFINS. Here we start collecting these taxes as we've consumed all of our credits. In the future, we expect to use other credits, the ICMS that are accumulated on our balance sheet. This, we will be more diligent. We will focus on this in the upcoming quarters, but I believe that we will start using these ICMS credits. One comes from our strategy to open a distribution center in the region of Pernambuco to leverage the accumulated credits in this region. This operation was initiated in the beginning of April, and we're already sending products to this distribution center from our São Paulo distribution center so we can consume these tax credits.
I believe that we will see some benefits in our company's cash. Okay. 68.8% of free cash greater than last year. Free cash generation in addition to the investments that we've seen in details. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating in our earnings results call. We are so excited with this period. April and May have exceeded our expectations in terms of sales, especially in revenue. This is what we will discuss with you in the upcoming months. I believe that now we can initiate our Q&A session.
We will now initiate our Q&A session only for investors and analysts. Should you have a question, please press star one. If your question is answered, you can leave the queue pressing star two. All questions will be answered in order of arrival. Please take your telephone off the hook while you pose the question in order to improve sound quality. Please wait while we collect the questions. Our first question from Thiago Suedt, XP Investimentos.
Good morning, Otavio Lyra, Paulo Kruglensky. Congratulations for the results of Q1, which were strong, and thank you for taking our questions. I believe that we basically have two points that we would like you to elaborate on. Some of you have given us some color in the call, but on the sales in the short term, could you elaborate what the beginning of Q2 has been like, when we break out the performance of Vivara, like we had Mother's Day recently that has been positive for you and linking this point to the e-commerce expectations.
From the consolidated results penetration and the absolute results, I believe that the flow of customers in your stores has become more normal, this is no longer a problem. You talked about the positive prospects regarding all the investments that you are carrying out to improve your e-commerce service, changing your platform. A follow-up on profits, if you could give us more color regarding what you see in terms of gross margin and EBITDA, because you are still investing in your factory to deal with the expansion of this major operation. We were highly impressed by what you have achieved vis-à-vis the material purchase opportunities that you had. This means that you have inventory at a better cost, or you've attained material at better cost to produce.
Hello, Thiago. Thank you for your questions. There are a number of them. I will start and please tell me if I forget answering one of these questions. Yes, we are excited because of the month of April and the first days of May. In last year, in April, we felt the effects of the pandemic. This is why this April is strong, not as strong as March, but is stronger than the average that was announced on Q1. This is still a growth that touches all categories, very similar to what we saw in Q1. There hasn't been a material change in sales mix. It's strong in Life accessories, jewelry and watches. A bit lower in accessories, but it's still robust because it's 30%-40%.
I believe this is, you know, the continuity of accelerated pace during Mother's Days. We had a great assortment of collections and additional inventories for our traditional products. This has driven the growth in jewelry, and this is why there has been a growth in volume and growth in other categories. The end of the restrictions in some regions, and also the lift of using masks has allowed greater flow of people. We see the displacement from digital to brick-and-mortar stores as something natural. In the beginning of May, slower figures of growth, but still strong. Well, here we had an all-time record in sales for Mother's Day. You know, it was higher than any day last year, including Christmas. This was a reason of celebration in our company. I believe that this will spill over on the other quarters.
I also believe that there is no correction, but how we see e-commerce internally. You cannot see e-commerce as a deterrent of growth for the company. The company is integrated regarding how we allocate capital, marketing, and regardless of the return offline and online. Of course, we've opened more Life stores in shopping malls, and these points of sale are maturing. All of these stores opened last year. This results in this migration. This is why Life is losing momentum in digital. This is momentary. This is just for some time, but you will see it grow throughout 2022. The profitability of our channel is very attractive, and we will continue strongly investing in the growth of this channel.
In the subsequent years, we do believe in the sustainability of the elevated shares because of the search profile. This is a category that is searched by the consumption market much more than fashion, for instance, among other luxury markets. We must participate as pioneers and leaders of the jewelry industry in the country. VTEX. Well, VTEX, well, there are increases that are part of the investments. This is to sustain all our growth in the digital channel. This is in the test environment in our company as we are going into two important seasonal months here, May, June, Mother's Day, and Brazilian Valentine's Day.
We are carrying our adjustments in the system, and as soon as these two relevant periods come to an end and we eliminate the risk, well, we will turn the system on, and we will have a much more agile platform prepared for changes with less marginal investments from here on. This platform fosters facilitated integration with other suppliers and allows us to increase these services and provide more options to provide convenience from here on. The focus of the company is to provide additional experience to our consumer, and we want to work better than what we're doing today. We want to use CRM, and we want to focus more on persona and on greater than on greater groups. Perhaps the last part of your question.
Now, gross margin expectations and EBITDA expectations for this year aren't different from last year. We have delivering profit during Q1. The second quarter will be more relevant because of the seasonality, especially on Q4, especially December, which there is a great concentration of revenue and profit. This is a year where we will show the profit capacity of the company coming from a more elevated gross margin and not pressured by the increase of costs that we saw during the past two years. The potential of showing more efficient operational dilution. Perhaps we are in a stronger position than what we expected, but we believe in a margin expansion of 100 basis points per year. Depending on the exchange rate and the impact of gold. We will see this in more stressed markets as we get closer to the presidential elections.
I do believe that we will deliver robust gains in this line. For the time being, we are seeing this deliver. We've bought metal above the average cost, and they are in an inventory, and this will help us to deliver the mid and long run because there's a specific impact takes some time, as also the price increase takes some time. That would be 10, 12 months. Here, the deflation on metal takes some time to appear in our results. It appears as the inventory is turned over in inventory and the retail. This is a scenario post Russia and Ukraine conflict, where the increase of the price of gold wasn't as high as we expected. Manaus has become an important area with good gold prices.
Thank you very much.
Our next question from via web. Maria Clara, Itaú. Good morning,
Good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. From me, Itaú, we would like to better understand the Life perspectives and the dynamic of the competitive environment. One, regarding Life, could you share how you see the sales evolution of new stores, especially in new cities? How have you seen the cannibalization index between Vivara and Life too? With the resumption of the economy and the recovery of the jewelry market, how have you seen the recovery of the competition? Do you see your competitors frail and with difficulties to make up their inventory as we saw on the past quarters?
I am going to answer. Thank you, Maria, for your question. Well, the Life possibilities are better than what we expected, actually. The maturity speed of these new stores is above expectations. Our stores are selling more than what we expected. Now, the margins of these stores have been better than Life selling within Vivara is very important. Life jewels selling have better performance than Life inside Vivara because of the exposure, the communication, the average ticket, and the experience inside the store. What is new and what we've seen is new customers through our Life stores. We are increasing our customer base inside the shopping mall in an accelerated fashion and in a very good way.
We are gaining new customers. We have new relationships. Life is a success. All stores that we've opened have presented positive results with excellent performance, and this reassures us to continue expanding on Life. The cannibalization level is very low or inexistent, actually. The participation, or the share of Life jewelry in the mall grows the mall EBITDA. That would be the sum of both operations. In Life, it grows in percentage and in volume. Same stores are still maturing. The ROIC is above our expectations. I believe that as a whole, Life is providing us excellent results. Now, the competition.
Well, I always like to strengthen how difficult it is to compete with Vivara in the omni-channel. We have 16.3% of market share, and the second place has 2%. This omni-channel, the purchase of online media, will always punish the smaller. Vivara, with its size and with all that it invests in media, we invest 50% of the turnover of number two. For them, it's very difficult to bid in Google or to buy word to impact the customer. It's difficult to see our customers being impacted by the competition. If they were impacted, the competition had to pay a lot to acquire this customer, much more than Vivara within the omni-channel.
To impact the customer and bring the customer to the store, it's difficult. During Mother's Day, for instance, there were many customers that chose their products through the site. They were impacted by Instagram, Facebook. They came afterwards to the store, totally decided to buy the jewel. It's even more difficult when Vivara opens a Life store, because now you have two points of sale. If it was difficult to compete with one Vivara, now it becomes even more difficult to deal with two stores. It's difficult to talk about the competition. I see the competition trying to replenish their inventory to transfer prices, but I don't see any great change. In the malls where we're opening Life stores, I see a more affected competition for the competitors.
Thank you.
Our next question from Guilherme Vilela, JP Morgan.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. As the level of tax incentives were higher during this Q and increased net sales, I would like to understand how this line will perform during 2022. I would also like more clarification regarding the sales level of April. What is the level of SSS for the month? What do you believe will be a feasible growth rate for Q2?
We had problems with our audio here. Before answering your question, I would just like to mention something. I think that you were talking about Pandora after the fourth quarter of last year, where they closed stores. Now they've also closed stores on Q1. I think they closed seven stores. We're talking about competition, so we're talking about their stores and franchises. Now, this is just an add-on. Now, regarding your questions, I believe that the Manaus activities and the production pace is increasing because of life. Life is driving production, and we are increasing our production because of the company's organic growth, be it in jewelry or be it in life. We've had more production volume in life. I believe that we will continue benefiting this line, and we will have better net revenues, but perhaps not as strong as what we've seen in the beginning of the year.
It is a combination between the increase of production and the company purchase. Throughout the company's activity and throughout the upcoming months, this balance could, you know, be better or worse for the growth of our net revenue, or it can be slower than gross revenue. Once again, I believe that we will continue observing this in the upcoming quarters, but not as distant as it was on Q1. Now, the anticipation regarding April sales, the acceleration regarding the 50% of growth that we presented during this quarter, and also this change and the effect. I can't talk about reopening, but the lack of restriction benefits growth in brick-and-mortar stores. We're growing almost at 60%. Same store with e-commerce continues high and rising 45%, 50%, and it's even higher in stores because e-commerce once again continues driving a similar trend, something that we observed on Q1 of this year.
This is what we observed throughout the month of April, and probably we will see this throughout this quarter. Last April, we felt the pandemic effect. This is why it's stronger, especially in brick-and-mortar stores.
Thank you.
Our next question, via web, Robert Ford Aguilar, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Congratulations for your results, and thank you for taking my question. Could you elaborate on the mix of evolution? You are strengthening your high prices and building more offerings of accessible prices. Is this a correct interpretation?
I will start answering, and then Otavio can come in. Bob, thank you for your question. This is a correct analysis. We have been developing SKUs to increase our mix. Our active mix from one year up to the date has increased a lot. We are focused on long tail with the emergence of opportunities.
The main effect that we can visualize in the mix development and working with more expensive and more expensive is the increase of the amount of pieces and the gain. We started doing this in the past years, and now we have a growth in same-store sales and in mature stores that hadn't grown this way for so many years. Shopping Morumbi has grown 40% that for some time hadn't grown, and this is due to our assertiveness and mix and in terms of inventory. We see more opportunities in other categories as well. Why not men's jewelry for men, metals, silver? We're bringing different types of technology to have a lighter appearance. We're working with customization. We will continue developing products to increase our same-store sales. Okay, now I'll mute myself. Otavio, you can go on.
Bob, Paulo's answer was just perfect regarding what we've seen throughout the quarter, but the effect on the average ticket, which has affected us in this quarter, especially the summer campaign, that is the January campaign, where we have less items and especially for Life. Well, they help us to contribute with the increase of price that I mentioned throughout my call. Now, the average price per unit, and it's not the price transfer, just regarding of this effect during the quarter because of the summer promotional campaign that took place in January, that impacts the total figures, presented on Q1.
Now, when we talk about campaigns, it is important in what Vivara has been doing. Not all retailers are doing this. The retailers depend on campaign and promotions to sell and maintain a high growth share. Vivara, during Q1, delivered growth, delivered margins without campaigns, so without offering specific promotions. I'm talking about promotional campaigns, and this is very important for the sustainability of the brand. Now the campaign that Pandora did abroad, they were selling only when they had a promotional campaign. I see many retailers only selling with promotional campaigns. We did the other way around. We eliminated discounts, and we delivered growth. This we were bold during Q1, and this shows that we have a long-lasting brand.
Thank you.
As we have no further questions, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Paulo for his final comments. Mr. Paulo, you may go on.
I would like to thank all of you for participating in our earnings results call, all the Vivara team for delivering the results on Mother's Day and the results achieved.
Should you have any questions, we are at your disposal. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The earnings results call for Vivara has come to an end. Have an excellent day.