Good morning, everyone. Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the Q3 2024 Earnings Release Call for Vitru Brasil. For those in need of simultaneous translation, we have this feature available on the platform. To access it, simply click on the Interpretation button by the globe icon at the bottom of your screen and select your preferred language: Portuguese or English. For those listening to this video conference in English, there is an option to mute the original audio in Portuguese by clicking on mute original audio. Please note that this video conference is being recorded and will be available on the company's investor relations website at investors.vitru.com.br, where you can also access the full earnings release material. This presentation can also be downloaded from the chat icon, including an English version. During the company's presentation, all participants will have their microphones muted.
Following this presentation, we will open the Q&A session. To ask your questions, click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type in your question to join the queue. When announced, a prompt to enable your microphone will appear on your screen. At that time, please activate your microphone to ask your question. It's recommended that you ask all your questions at once. We emphasize that the information contained in this presentation and any statements made during this earnings call regarding Vitru's business prospects, projections, and operation and financial goals constitute beliefs and assumptions of the company's management, as well as information currently available. Forward considerations are not performance guarantees. They involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions as they refer to future events that, therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.
Investors should understand that general economic conditions, market conditions, and other operating factors may affect Vitru's future performance and lead results that differ materially from those expressed in supporting the presentation. Today, we are joined by the company's executives, William Matos, CEO of Vitru; Gabriel Lobo, CFO; and Maria Carolina, Head of Investor Relations, along with her team. I will now pass the floor to Mr. William Matos.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to have you here for the Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Webcast for Vitru Education. I'd like to start by thanking everyone for joining us and for your continued interest in Vitru's journey, one of the largest education companies in the world that has contributed to a new era of education in Brazil. Today, I'm joined by Gabriel Lobo, the new CFO of Vitru, Maria Carolina, our Head of Investor Relations, as well as our IR analysts with Vitru. I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Gabriel, our new CFO, who recently joined our team, and from this quarter on, will join us in this earnings release process. Gabriel is a highly skilled professional, having served as a CFO for Grupo Soma for seven years, and he brings valuable contributions to all the dreams we have at Vitru.
Together, we will share the financial and operating results for the Q3 2024, and we will highlight the ongoing strategic progress of Vitru. So let's start with the highlights of the quarter and the main operational advances that allow us to strengthen our market position in the market, as you can see on slide number five. So moving on to slide number five, this quarter, it's worth noting the great performance for the average ticket, which reflects three main aspects: the new student activation criteria for 2024, our positioning policy for the brands, and the course mix, the mix of courses. This is the effect of a healthier student base, combined with the best commercial practices, which has brought a significant effect in this period, a significant impact. So it should be normalized over the coming quarters as the comparison phase is also normalized.
The net revenue, as you can see, is consolidated. It grew 8.8% compared to the third quarter of 2023, driven primarily by the distance learning undergraduate segment, EAD, which grew 8.2%, our main segment, as well as the solid performance in the medicine segment, with its revenue up to 18.1% and also continuing education increased by 26.1%. The segment is always a win for us in a highly competitive marketing like education, and it demonstrates how effective we can be in multiple fronts. Moving on, Vitru's consolidated adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 200.5 million in Q3 2024, an increase of 9.9% in comparison to the third quarter of 2023, with an adjusted EBITDA margin reaching 38.1% for the quarter, up 0.4 percentage points from the third quarter of 2023. The adjusted consolidated net income reached BRL 64.1 million in the third quarter of 2024, an increase of 76.3% compared to Q3 2023.
These results demonstrate our stability, the importance of our scale, and our commitment to quality expansion. On the next slides, we explore these figures in greater detail. And moving on to our presentation, slide number six, we highlight on the left graph the total enrollment in the EAD, the distance learning segment, which grew by 10.4% over the last quarter. And it's also worth recalling that since the beginning of 2024, we implemented significant harmonization alignments across our brands, where UNIASSELVI aligned its student activation criteria with those of UniCesumar. Focused on the exclusively unengaged students under the new criteria, the enrollment performance was even more positive, with a growth of 12.3% in the third quarter of 2024 compared to Q3 2023. This solid growth demonstrates the strength of our business model and reinforces each of our unique advantages.
On the right, we also showed the breakdown of enrollments for this quarter among engaged and non-engaged students. Engaged students are those who are recognized in the enrollment and the student base, while the non-engaged students, according to our new criteria for student activation, they are not recognized in the student base. These criteria have been in effect since the beginning of 2024. Moving on to slide number seven, we can see that the student base for distance learning, EAD, reached 745,000 students in Q3 2024 under the new student criteria. For a clearer comparison, if we exclude 72,000 non-engaged students from Q3 2023, we observe that the student base at that time would have been 708,000 students. Therefore, the year-over-year performance of the EAD, distance learning base, is positive, growing approximately 5.2%. The performance in 2024 is in line with the company's expectations, as we explained throughout the years.
Since the first quarter of 2024, the non-engaged students from UNIASSELVI, those who signed a contract with UNIASSELVI but have not taken any exams and made any tuition payments, they are no longer included in the student base. So no doubt, we are already the largest distance higher education company and remain confident in the potential of this segment that now accounts for over 97% of our student base. So we have a substantial in-house statistical sample of the interest of our target audience in this segment, in this modality. Moving to slide number eight, here we showcase our solid presence across Brazil. As you can see, we continue to expand our network of hubs, reaching a total of 1,675 centers or hubs in the third quarter of 2024, a 12% growth compared to the Q3 last year.
We're making steady progress in the Southeast region, which has a higher population density, and this region offers opportunities for expansion for both brands and, consequently, an increase in the number of hubs and the high student population in this region remain prominent. This growth also demonstrates Vitru's ability to execute its strategic plan with excellence, since the objective spanning the Southeast region has been announced for quite some time in our earnings calls. Moving on to the next slide, slide number nine, here we have a clear vision of our presence across all regions of Brazil through our network of partner hubs, both brands. As we mentioned, we closed the third quarter with 2,675 centers. Additionally, it's worth noting that Vitru continues to expand the distance learning segment, EAD, expanding its penetration across Brazil and in the Q3 2024 with a coverage of 1,450 municipalities.
All of that aligned with our synergy plan as the cross-brand expansion of UNIASSELVI and UniCesumar continues to progress effectively. And in September, we had an increase of 13.1%, increasing the number of Brazilian cities served by both brands compared to the same period in 2023. Moving on to slide number 10, let's take a look at the performance of the average ticket for distance learning programs, which grew 7.3% over the past 12 months, with a figure of 6.3% variation close to inflation, confirming the differentiation of all our products and our positioning as a quality player in digital education.
In the third quarter of 2024, this growth also reflects the change in the criteria for student activation, which excludes non-engaged students and associates it with intake policies with fewer free enrollments, resulting in a much more robust net revenue and a student base mix way healthier, since the average ticket is no longer diluted by non-engaged students who do not generate revenue. So on the right side of the chart, we observe that the pedagogy-related courses and technology programs continue to represent the largest share of our intake. These courses typically have a slightly lower average ticket overall, and Vitru has maintained a consolidated average ticket at healthy levels, reflecting the success of our pricing strategies. Moving on to slide number 11, I'll give you a brief overview of Vitru's net revenue, which grew approximately 8.8% in Q3 2024.
As you can see, this performance was primarily driven by continued growth in the EAD segment, which increased by over 8.2%, our main growth driver, with a much more engaged student base now. In addition to that, the medicine and continuing education segments delivered solid results, reinforcing the diversification and the resilience of our company with growth of 12.1% and 26.1%, respectively, compared to the third quarter of 2023. Thus, as you can see on slide number 12, we highlight the relevant contribution of those two businesses within Vitru's overall portfolio. And here we should pay special attention to the continuing education unit. As I mentioned before, this unit grew by 26%, a significant achievement that demonstrates a high potential for digital lifelong learning in Brazil. And because of that, in the share of the revenue of the company, it increased its representative from 6.1% to 7.1%.
Another segment that gained share in Vitru's revenue was medicine, which accounted for 13.5% of the net revenue for the quarter. This representation reflects the segment's 18% growth in Q3 2024 in comparison to Q3 2023. I'm going to talk about that on the next slides and discuss the excellent characteristics of the segment in our portfolio. Moving to slide number 13, we highlight here the main unique advantages of Vitru's operating segment, starting with EAD, distance learning education, which continues to show steady revenue growth both quarterly and year to date. It's worth emphasizing that this growth in 2024 already reflects the adoption of more conservative criteria for student activation. Thus, even with the student base growing at more modest rates, our scale gains and healthy pricing policies are clearly reflected in the net revenue of the segment.
However, I would like to draw everyone's attention to the right side of the table, where you can see that according to the latest higher education census by INEP, Vitru once again confirmed its leadership in the EAD market. Vitru holds 25% of the private undergraduate EAD market and stands out. This standout position represents the continuous growth of both brands. And over the past six years, UniCesumar and UNIASSELVI have gained a 12% increase in the student share. And we believe firmly that the EAD undergraduate sector in Brazil still has great growth potential in the coming years. After a period of accelerated expansion, we have, of course, recently observed a slight increase in interest in on-campus and presential learning after the pandemic. And we've been observing that with great care. But we believe that this segment has a great potential for the coming years.
After an accelerated expansion in EAD, we see an interest in the presence of on-campus learning that we observe. However, we see this movement as conjunctural. From a structural and secular perspective, the quality EAD is positioned as an ideal situation for the gap in higher education in Brazil, and it's consolidated as the primary choice of students who are increasingly digital and technological, tech-savvy, in education as well as in other sectors of the economy, so moving to the next slide, number 14, I'd like to emphasize once again the unique advantage of our medicine program. Year to date, the solid revenue performance is a combination of maturing seats in the medicine program and the average ticket growth. Here, it's worth noting that our medical school is the largest in the southern region of the country and offers a distinctive advantage.
It's located in a city frequently ranked among the best places to live in Brazil. It reinforces the high quality of our institution and the quality of the services that we provide to our students. With the fifth, yes, the fifth best private medical program in the country, we've been able to maintain an average ticket aligned with this level of excellence. So moving on to the next slides, we present additional data on the continuing education segment, which includes, I'd like to remind you, technical, professional, and postgraduate courses. As you can see on the left, according to the latest census, Brazil graduates 1.3 million students annually. A potential market for our postgraduate courses. Also, all the professionals that seek to improve and develop their skills through new specializations and academic development.
And when we look further down the educational pipeline, we see substantial numbers: 7.7 million young students aged 16 and above who are about to enter the job market and they find in technical and professional courses a gateway as they seek their first jobs. So this clearly shows us that there are still plenty of opportunities in the segment, which remains relatively untapped by large-scale players. And Vitru has pursued a pioneering approach in the segment, holding, as you can see, 42% of the seats in federally authorized and technical courses. Moving on to slide 16, I would like to expand our perspective to another strategic initiative for Vitru. I present to you for the first time our transformation program that will drive us into Vitru's next growth phase. This program represents a strategy that is comprehensive, innovative, aimed at accelerating our growth and profitability.
The primary goal of Vitru's transformation program is to secure a greater competitive advantage in our core business and, at the same time, strengthening our presence in adjacent areas. We are focused on building sustainable value, achieving growth above market rates, and seeking for excellence in every aspect of our business, including student experience up to the development of our employees. Additionally, we aim to enhance margin gains in a challenging environment through operational improvements and also by exploring opportunities that are highly profitable. This initiative with effort is a top priority for Vitru, involving all areas of the organization. It's an ongoing medium to long-term effort that will be executed based on some fundamental strategic pillars. We have established 11 strategic pillars to guide the program's implementation, including some on-campus programs, our core and adjacent areas, and also some key enablers for the success of the program.
With over 30 initiatives across multiple projects, we will address the main growth drivers for our organization. One of our primary focuses will be technology and digitalization, with a significant effort put in strengthening our technological platform and providing a superior digital experience for our users. I'm going to repeat this concept because it's very, very important. One of our primary focuses will be technology and digitalization, with a significant effort to truly strengthen our technological platforms and deliver a superior digital experience for our users. In addition, we will have a dedicated transformation office that will provide external support, the orchestration, tracking the generated value, and monitoring the performance of the teams involved. Finally, before passing the floor to Gabriel for a deeper dive into the quarterly financial results, I would like to highlight three recent recommendations and acknowledgments we have received.
The first is the award for the Fourth Innovation Award by SEMESP and STHEM Brasil, one of the most important higher education entities specializing in promoting best practices and pedagogical innovation. This acknowledgment underscores Vitru's role as a leader in academic innovation, driven by the real impact of technology and delivering academic content and focusing on student experience. The second highlight is that Vitru was ranked among Brazil's leaders in open innovation, according to the 100 Open Startups ranking, one of the main platforms for connecting large companies and startups in Brazil, so fostering collaborative innovation, and it highlights the participation of Vitru in this ecosystem of collaborative innovation, accelerating the development of new solutions and partnerships to co-create these collaborative innovations, and lastly, we cannot leave it out.
We were awarded the 2024 Innovative University Seal, one of the most respected publications in Brazil, the Ensino Superior magazine, evaluated Vitru's innovative initiatives, including their impact on educational quality, retention and satisfaction of our students, granting us this seal. This acknowledgment is the accreditation that reinforces our commitment for educational excellence and business innovation. So I'd like to take a personal moment commenting on these awards. So of all the aspects a company can be acknowledged for and recognized for, being awarded for innovation is a great joy for me personally. In a fast-evolving world that is built on technology, so focus on innovation seems to me the most assertive, strategic of the efforts.
As a French academic once said, "Companies die today not because they are doing the wrong things, but because they are doing the right things for too long." So I share that with you to reassure you who trust in Vitru that this company's management practices are fully aligned with the demands of the future for those who intend to stay ahead. Now, finally, I'll pass the floor over to Gabriel Lobo to continue with the quarter's financial results.
Thank you, William. First, good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by thanking William for the introduction and for the warm welcome. These first 60 days at Vitru have been intense, and they confirm that we have a path ahead filled with opportunities for evolution and a great potential to capture and unlock.
Vitru presents characteristics that make it a unique player in the sector, with competitive advantages and a structure ready to unlock more value over time. So diving into the company financial results for the quarter, slide number 19, I'd like to start by emphasizing great performance in consolidated net revenue for the company. In this quarter, we reached BRL 530 million reais, growing 8.8% compared to the same period last year. Year to date, revenue totals BRL 1.6 billion reais, an increase of 10.9% compared to the first nine months of 2023. It's important to note that the 2023 revenue basis we mentioned about the presentation was still boosted by a more flexible student engagement policy. It shows that on a comparable basis, it will be growing even more than these figures indicate.
Given our current stricter policy today, so if I compare now, we would certainly be growing more than we had previously. Looking at each segment's revenue, it's essential to highlight first the EAD revenue, our main driver, which continues to deliver consistent numbers, even with a robust growth over the past few years. We delivered BRL 167 million for the quarter, growing 8.3% compared to the same period last year, reflecting the more engaged student base and a higher average. The medicine segment, which William also discussed extensively, showed an 18% growth in the quarter and 70% if we see the year-to-date picture, reaching BRL 217 million. This is the result from a combination of high-quality and strategically located positions, where our seats are located, so we could also deliver tickets above the national average.
It's worth noting that, although we do not disclose this specific data for the market, it delivers a very high contribution margin. So we have both high growth and seat maturity, as well as a very robust contribution margin. Moving on to continuing education, which has been our fastest growing segment in percentage terms for a few quarters now, we could see a growth of 26% in the Q3 2024, reaching BRL 37 million. And year to date, we have achieved BRL 106 million, an increase of 34% compared to last year. As William emphasized, we believe the segment will no doubt be one of our three growth drivers for the future, not only because of the market size.
We mentioned the number of students graduating from higher education who are potentially looking for a postgraduate and other training options, but also because of the opportunity to offer to our student bases an opportunity to extend its journey with brands they already know, in postgraduate professional and technical courses. Moving to slide 20, we present the breakdown of expenses and costs. On the left, you can see the total costs and expenses grew by 7.5% YoY . This growth was necessary to support the growth over the years, of course, adjusting structures and reinforcing its population. However, it's essential to highlight that these lines are growing below the company revenue growth level, ensuring that what is critical at a time like that, that the profitability of our business is keep growing up through significant operational leverage.
So this quarter's service costs showed a slight increase above revenue growth in recent quarters, representing 32% of the total net revenue, while in Q3 2023, we see that line only represented 30%. But this increase, as we previously mentioned in the calls prior to my arrival, is a natural consequence of the hybrid health courses maturation, which increases some operating costs. However, up to this moment of the year, the direct cost remained very stable as a percentage of revenue, aligned with our initial plan for the year. Another positive point for the quarter is the good control of SG&A lines. We observed a clear reduction in sales and marketing expenses during the quarter. [Foreign language] . As we previously communicated to the market, these expenses were anticipated with higher spending in the first half of the year.
If you see the picture of the year, sales and marketing expenses are converging to a historical level for the company if you look at the percentage of the revenue. And we're confident that the adjusting of the route is going to bring expected results for our operation. Another very positive highlight is the CLD, one of our primary focuses in the sector when considering the flow and student quality. Of the students that we bring to our bases, the CLD line decreased in nominal terms in Q3 2024 compared to Q3 2023, totaling BRL 51.9 million for the period, compared to BRL 51.1 million the same period last year. As a percentage of revenue, the PCLD of the quarter corresponded to 9.6% of net revenue, nearly 100 basis points lower to the PCLD of 2023.
In nine months, PCLD corresponds to 10.4% of the total company net revenue, a significant reduction of 1.9 percentage points compared to the first nine months of 2023. Here, it's important to note when it comes to the impact of non-engaged students from 2023 on the PCLD this year. When you look at the picture for the first nine months of 2024, we see an effect of BRL 52 million related to the non-engaged students from 2023, which won't be a recurring effect if we look at 2025. It's important. We don't make this adjustment in our EBITDA reporting, but it's worth considering that our PCLD, which is already lower than last year, would be even smaller if we excluded the impacts of the BRL 52 million from 2023. Moving on to slide number 21, we now present the adjusted EBITDA bridge.
The third quarter of 2024, Vitru's adjusted EBITDA reached BRL 202.5 million, nearly 10% above the BRL 184.2 million reported in the previous year. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 38.1%, representing a 40 basis points increase compared to the Q3 2023. This figure reflects good expense management in sales and marketing and the positive performance of our PCLD, as I have just discussed. And it's now important to emphasize the benefits of changing our student activity criteria. It's a topic we have been discussing since the beginning of the year, which is now tangible and perceived in the company's results. We remain confident in our ability to sustain growth with profitability, fully adhering to our initial 2024 guidance. Moving to slide 22, regarding the company's net income, adjusted net income for the Q3 2024 was BRL 64.1 million, 76% higher than the Q3 2023.
Here, it's important to tell that it reflects important impacts on financial expenses. We had an early redemption of the first series of the debentures. We had an extraordinary amortization in the first and third quarter that brought some impacts in the financial results. We didn't adjust for that as it's a natural part of our operation, but it's important for the market to see that as a key liability management strategy for the company that will yield very positive effects in the coming years. And also, of course, making our balance sheet more robust with significant cash captures over time towards that cost and naturally contributing to future cash generation for the Vitru. Moving to slide 23, table on the left shows another quarter of strong cash generation.
Even when I have a 17% decline compared to the same period last year, we continue to achieve strong cash conversion above 6% of the company's EBITDA. This quarterly reduction is mainly due to a shift in accounts payable that was affected by some advances that we made to our partner centers to support investments of marketing from a local perspective. So after that, we have a basis effect here because in 2023, we have some advances, especially regarding technology partners that varied among September and October. It was a situation of the weekend. We expect to see the working capital difference in the cash generation.
It's very important that after the service of the debt, we also had inside the quarter some non-recurring effects as payment of interest referred to the first issuance of the debentures that were settled with our cure of the debenture and also the payment of premium because of the extinguishment of this commitment. So in the chart on the right, we see that the CapEx totaled BRL 37 million, with a higher concentration allocated in fixed assets. And we also like to highlight that our project for Corumbá and Ponta Grossa. Additionally, we made significant purchases to equip our new laboratories, exceeding last year's investments as a revenue proportion. For the first nine months of 2024, CapEx remained stable with a slight reduction of 40 basis points as a percentage of revenue in the year-to-date comparative.
Finally, moving to the last slide, we present an overview of our indebtedness and our leverage ratio. The company's net debt is stable compared to the previous year and already reflects the fourth debenture issuance, totaling BRL 850 million as of September 30th, 2024. This net debt, based on the net debt to Adjusted EBITDA ratio, IFRS, which we believe is the most appropriate way to look at the figure, closed at 2.4 x that was well below our current covenant of 3.5 x and naturally maintained the downward trajectory. With this strong free cash flow generation throughout the year, along with a growing company EBITDA, one of our main focuses is to keep the leverage agenda, creating future balance sheet capacity to pursue new growth initiatives, as William said, the agenda of transformation of the company that is purely organic and some inorganic opportunities such as potential benefits.
At the bottom of the slide, we present the company's schedule of amortization and future interest payment, demonstrating that our maturity profile is very extended with no major short-term commitments. We see some opportunities in debt management and will remain focused on capturing this potential, particularly concerning the cost of debt, because we believe that is a long-term spread reduction for the future. I will conclude my presentation here and hand the floor back to William for closing remarks, and after that, we will open for the Q&A session. Thank you.
Thank you, Gabriel, for your words, for your introduction of our first earnings release call for the company and the partnership we've been building.
Once again, I would like to thank everyone for joining us and reassure our commitment to delivering solid and resilient results in the face of challenges, but very, very secure with a clear focus on what needs to be done. Now we are open for the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
[Foreign language] . We will now begin the Q&A session. Please remember that in order to ask questions, you have to click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen and type in your question to join the Q&A. When your name is called, a prompt to activate your microphone will appear on the screen. Then you should activate your microphone at the time to ask your questions. We kindly ask that you ask all your questions at once. [Foreign language]
Let's move on to our first question. It's from Lucas Nagano, a sell-side analyst. [Foreign language] . We will now enable your audio so that you can ask your question. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the perspective. We have two questions. The first is about the costs. And in fact, it increased, as you said before, but in the release, you said it's non-recurring. I'd like to understand that better. For the fourth quarter, you don't see that increase. It was concentrated for Q3, or you don't see an increase beyond the guidelines you have. And the second question is about the regulation. Now that we are approaching the end of the year, do you have a more clear perspective of where the new regulatory mark is moving on and how do you imagine the possible changes?
Do we expect that something is going to be published up to the end of the year, or it's going to be postponed? About that, I'd like to ask about the suspension of courses and hubs. Do you expect that it will be normalized, or it will suffer some change or extension? Thank you.
[Foreign language] , Lucas. [Foreign language] . Thank you, Lucas, for your question. Thanks for your participation here. I'd like to start, and Gabriel, feel free to intervene. About the costs, as we said before in previous calls, this perspective mainly due to the maturation of our medicine, healthcare, and engineering courses that are spread among our hubs in Brazil. These courses of this maturation, some of them reached its third or fourth year, and now we have an interesting addition of perspectives to serve the academic dynamics of the institution.
And there's another factor that's very important here that also contemplates the maturation of the courses, that is the supplies for the labs that are purchased previously for six months. So we've been working on that for that not to be just a one-time thing, but as we said before, this increase would always exist. Maybe it's not structurally for the model, especially because it's the beginning of a semester, a term, so it has a higher cost when we think about all the academic strategy for quality development at the end. But at the beginning of this term, we are at the fifth year of medicine, maturing the residencies, the intern phase of the course, so it has a direct maturation in the academic part.
So we have been boosting that, this increase, as I said, this quarter brings it a little higher than the expectation, yes, but it might have a slight reduction for the next quarter, and we are assessing within the model what's going to be 2025 because we are increasingly bigger in our medicine course. I don't know if Gabriel wants to add something.
First, Lucas, thanks for your question. Just to complement what William said, when we talk about this non-recurring structural cost, it's because it's a pressure that we struggle with. As I've talked about, 2.5 points is not something structural that's going to be normal for the future, so we have some cost opportunities, and we are looking at 2025 that will affect this line specifically. We're looking at opportunities and models and ways to reorganize ourselves structurally.
But I think that the delta of 2.5 points was a little higher than expected. So from this place that we see non-recurring, we understand that we'll suffer some pressure compared to the previous years, but the delta will not be high like that. And for the second question, I will pass the floor to William to answer.
Lucas, [Foreign language] . This is the question that I have been hearing for the latest months when we talk about regulation. We have been working aligned with the Education Department and the Secretary of Regulation and INEP. We've been talking to the advisors of the National Council of Education because it's going to have a prominent role from the moment that the benchmarks of quality are set on the table. As we understand that the Education Department will move on with the deadlines termed.
The process is very advanced in the department, but the next step is to publish the new reference plans. If I'm not mistaken, yesterday there was a very important meeting with municipalities, and they have many representatives of the private institutions attending, and they could see and communicate the first vision of what is going to be the quality benchmarks for the distance learning education for that, because we can build that in the indicators from the quality benchmarks, and when we talk about the regulatory mark, we are very, very calm and very relaxed because we understand that the large scale, the biggest players that deliver quality, so every time when they have a restriction movement, it's not going to be bigger, but it opens doors and opportunities for those who are leaders and are already delivering quality.
Vitru has been attending those public hearings actively in the work groups, and we can see and realize that what the new regulatory market brings is what we believe and what we have been working on. We have to remember that in both brands, UniCesumar as well, we have a hybrid model in many courses. We have professors attending. We have hubs that are well structured. Everything will help us understand, and we believe that we're going to bring value to those who prioritize the quality of the education. In our conversation with the Education Department, from the moment the new instruments are established, we believe that the suspension will go down.
But in relation to some hubs, new metrics will come, but this is not a problem for Vitru because we have over 2,600 hubs, and we have 500 hubs pending opening. And as we are authorized, we're going to open much more hubs.
[Foreign language] .
They're very clear, William Gabriel. Thank you.
[Foreign language] .
Let's move on to our next question. It's from Mirela Oliveira, sell-side analyst of Bank of America. Mirela, we will now activate your audio so that you can ask your question. Mirela, please go ahead.
[Foreign language]
Good morning, William and Gabriel, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. two questions. First, relating the medicine vertical. Should you change some color on the segment? Because we've been following the expansion of the seats in the latest months, so we are worried about the maintenance of the tickets long-term.
We'd like to understand your long-term perspective for the segment. The second question is regarding the transformation plan. As you said, there are opportunities for boost market share gains. Can you comment on in more detail the new opportunities for you to gain this share? That's it, thank you.
[Foreign language] , Gabriel, please feel free.
Let's start by medicine. Thanks for your question. It's good to hear from you again. As we always positioned for the market, it's important to remember because maybe some of you are here for the first time. As education, we don't have a webinar for medicine, but we have a business that is well positioned with unique advantages, with 300 seats concentrated in Maringá, and 50 seats are still maturing in the city of Corumbá.
When it comes to the future, even of our strategic planning, and when we look at medicine, we need to remember that we have well-established seats in a very productive city that is recognized as one of the best qualities of life in Brazil. We are not facing any problems in filling the seats, even having 300 seats in the same campus in Maringá. On the contrary, we have one of the highest average tickets of the market, and we have new admission processes ongoing, and we see the same level of competitiveness of the last year. Eight candidates per seat, so it's a number of applicants, the candidates very, very big. Because we have a different medicine course, recognized as one of the five best programs in Brazil with a different and unique structure.
When a parent that makes the decision alongside its kid and needs to choose a medicine program, a medicine school, they know that they need to choose a program that delivers, especially in this moment in which you can see the expansion movement through injunctions and in which some institutions that have no hospital infrastructure, they're going to struggle in filling the seats, or they're going to readjust their tickets. When we think of Vitru, everybody knows that we are focused on digital education and our advantages for keeping the leadership in digital education. We see, of course, medicine as an opportunity for maybe locally looking at the state of Paraná as a strong state, a rich state, looking for synergies since we have a course in which everybody wants to get in.
Vitru, for the following years, will maybe think about expanding in this healthcare vertical, looking at medicine, but focusing on Paraná, where we have synergy and a strong brand, and where people are looking for us. [Foreign language] . About the second question, I'm going to start, and Gabriel can complement. We did not talk about that in this earnings release, but from the next year on, we're going to bring some deeper highlights regarding the Transformation Program. Just for you to understand, we created a VP at Vitru at the beginning of this year for us to focus this transformation project along with some consultants hired. This project was born from a strategic planning that wants to understand the next five years.
Undoubtedly, when we look at over 30 initiatives being about pricing, margin, as you said, opportunities for new leverage in adjacent markets that carry bigger margins for the post-graduate courses and technical courses. There are many fronts in this work, and it's not a short-term one. It's more focused in medium and long-term. We're aiming at five years, and I'm sure that Vitru will not only grant the growth that we've been showing to the market, but double-digit it with a strong basis. We're going to open new opportunities for improving our margins.
[Foreign language] , just complementing what William has brought us, just bringing more color. What kind of core leverage when we bring to the table? We see this is a project, and it has been discussed since the beginning of the year, and it gained traction in the last six years.
I can tell you that we're six months very deeply involved. It involved all the company in a way of like building the norm and designed this diagnostic phase in our medium and long-term ambition. As everything in life, we have prioritized that. We have five new fronts of priority, and those are the big fronts that we're going to attack at the beginning of 2025. Here we're talking about the network management, the hubs management, the partnership network, because we see a lot of value being captured in working in sync with that network. Our sales machine had some significant changes in some processes regarding PDV and CRM, and we have CRM, our marketing and sales management, our client journey that is effectively in the center of the journey. Retention, that's paramount.
We have student bases that are very solid, but we have to keep the student. We have to graduate the student, and that's why we are here. And lastly, we brought that into all our go-to-markets focused on adjacent markets, lines that are non-core , like post-graduate courses, technical and professional courses. We see that this addressable market is big and has a high potential to be unlocked, put organically, and maybe with some inorganic opportunities through M&A. So those are the five fronts we're looking at now, but there are 11 big leverage that we leverage, and we're going to explore that from 2025 in a deeper way, and we're going to communicate to the market the evolution of the market, because this is a project that undoubtedly is a priority for us for the next few years at minimum.
Just to complement, as I like to say, we have to strengthen everything we are still good on, strengthen what we have as a unique competitive advantage, and we have this differentiation because we don't have some market distractions, because we are a company positioned in digital education in undergraduate courses. We have this privilege today, even if this new year with the regulatory talks brought some clouds on that, but we are sure that the regulatory benchmarks will bring opportunities. We, as a company, want to be ready first to be able to accelerate the opportunities to come since we are leaders. We have quality, structured hubs, so we have the duty of looking internally and accelerate our movement to keep the double-digit growth that Vitru has been showing for the latest years, even with a student base so big as ours.
It's very clear. Thank you, guys.
[Foreign language] , we'd like to remind you that for you to ask your questions, you would like to click on the Q&A icon at the bottom of your screen, type in your question, and join the queue. A sessão de perguntas e respostas está encerrada. Q&A session is now closed. And we'd like to pass the floor over for the company closing remarks.
[Foreign language] . Once again, we'd like to thank the participation of you all, all the questions, and we'd like to emphasize our commitment to transformative education quality, a distance learning education that is spread all over the country, making the difference in our commitment in delivering great results as we did this quarter. Once again, thank you all and have a great day.
[Foreign language] . This earnings release video call, video conference call for the Q3 2024 of Vitru Brasil is now concluded. The investor relations department remains available to address any further questions or concerns. Thank you all for participating and have a great day.