Dear analysts and investors, I'm glad to welcome you again, our second quarter results webcast. I'm Serkan Savaş, reporting and investor relations director. I hope you have all managed to follow the investor presentation via this Zoom webcast, and the presentation is also available in our website. Now I will I invite you to have a look at our second quarter results. Now, firstly, let's look at our highlights for the second quarter. The headlines, and we are now in page four. The top figures are for the second quarter, our top-line growth accelerated in the second quarter on the back of the increasing inflation. Our quarter net sales almost doubled year-on-year to TRY 34 billion in the second quarter.
With the contribution of higher inflation, basket size grew by 57% year-on-year, while the double-digit traffic growth continues thanks to consumers trading down and normalization in pandemic conditions in this quarter and also first half. Here, also I would like to highlight that as a proof of this trading down, I would like to highlight that our market share in total FMCG sector markets increased by 2% in the first half of the year. This is also a proof of the trading down and also general market share growth. As the sales growth trend is above our targets in the first half of the year, we have revised up our 2022 guidance for the second time this year.
We will be discussing this issue in the following pages. Rising inflation and declining purchasing power are having an impact on consumer behavior, and consumers are more open to try private label products. We also discussed this in the first quarter results call. Accordingly, we see an uptick in private label consumption. The share of the private label products in total sales jumped to 64% in second quarter versus it used to be 60% same quarter last year. This year's private label share is slightly going up. EBITDA increased by 83% year-on-year in the second quarter, while our EBITDA margin was 8.3%. We'll be also elaborating the EBITDA and EBITDA margin in the following slides.
Net income was TRY 1.7 billion, which represents 121% year-on-year growth with corresponding 4.9%. As a final of the highlights in the page four, I would like to touch on the CapEx. CapEx goes in line with our guidance, which is 3.2% of our revenues in second quarter. We have added 287 new stores across all operations in second quarter, and that brings us to around 11,000 consolidated stores by the year end. Moving on to operational performance. We are now at page six. We are starting with the like-for-like sales. Operating like-for-likes, page six. We are at page six.
Like-for-like sales increased by 80% compared to the previous year, and customer traffic increased by 14% in the quarter. Since the last quarter of the last year, we have been facing some improving trend in consumer traffic growth like, and this is the highest number, 14% in second quarter. Double-digit traffic growth continued thanks to normalization in pandemic conditions and trading down to discounters. As a result of, as I mentioned before, as a result of this trading down or increasing traffic, we have gained, we're at 2% market share in the first half of the year. In terms of baskets, like-for-like baskets increased by 57% in the second quarter, while our internal inflation was around 96% in the same period.
Basket, our basket size growth is lower than internal inflation, but I can say that basket growth is following the inflation with a lag, with a time lag. The uptick is intact. It is following the inflation with a time lag. For example, in July and August is 57%. Basket size growth is approaching to 100% levels in July and August this year. Next about expansion on the store sites. We are now at page seven. On the store sites, good pace of store opening continues in this quarter as well. We have opened 268 new stores, BİM store, BİM Turkey stores and five FİLE stores in Turkey. In Morocco, we have opened 12 stores. In Egypt, we have opened two stores.
In total, we have around 11,065 stores by the end of the second quarter, including Morocco and Egypt. BİM Mini stores in Turkey also gaining momentum, and now it's reached to around 130 BİM Mini stores in Turkey. At the end of the year, it's likely to have opened more than 1,000 stores consolidated basis. Expansion is on track. The next is about the capital expenditures. CapEx was TRY 1 billion in this quarter, corresponding to 3.2% of net sales, which is exactly in line with our guidance. In the first half of 2022, we have opened two new warehouses in Mersin and Ankara.
We have 66 warehouses just in Turkey and BİM, only BİM warehouses. The construction of the two other warehouses continues and likely to be open in the first part of the next year. Those are in Elazığ and Samsun. Two constructions are going on. Apart from the new warehouse constructions, investments on our subsidiaries premises plans continues as well. You know that we decided to actually establish a biscuit and chocolate company now. The biscuit and chocolates company plant construction recently started in Eskişehir and to be finalized in one-year periods. Secondly, our second rice and pulse packaging construction plant of our rice packaging subsidiary is also going on in Mersin.
Apart from the warehouse construction and our subsidiaries plant constructions, I would like to also say something about our solar panel investments. We also accelerate our solar panel investments on our warehouse roofs. We have already set solar panels to six of our warehouses right now. They are being operated right now. Seven more warehouses roofs to be operated till end of the year. We are now accelerating this solar panel investments. So far this year, we have invested around $4 million to solar panels in the first half of 2022. In brief, as you see, our investment appetite continues despite the higher costs. We maintain our 3.2% CapEx sales expectations for the full year.
We are exactly in line with our expectations. Moving on to look at our financial performance. Now we are at page 10, net sales and gross profits and gross margin progression. On a quarterly basis, sales almost doubled in second quarter and reached TRY 34 billion. Rising inflation and trading down supported our top line growth. Our internal inflation has continued to its upward trend and reached 96% in the second quarter, the year-on-year. This is year-on-year growth. As you see, actually, our gross margin slightly declined to 18% in the second quarter. One of the reason is, of course, we also already mentioned is a change in sales mix.
In a period of the declining purchasing power of consumers, the share of commodity type of products, which naturally have lower margins, such as, for example, vegetable oil, sugar, flour, et cetera, increases. This kind of basic commodity product sales increases. This have the lower margins in all retailers, including us. Consumers are demanding more basic commodities and private label products. By contrast, the spot items share is coming down. As you know, our spot sales, which contributed positively to our margin during the COVID periods, which used to have around 8%-9% share in sales, now declined to 6% because people are more demanding basic products, basic commodities, because of the declining purchasing power, and they are less inclined to buy spot products in this period.
Actually, I also would like to mention that now we are entering a school season. In late August, we will be selling our school articles, and we expect a very strong season for school articles. If school articles have higher margins, and this is also spot items, so we expect some kind of positive momentum in our gross margin from this kind of school articles in late August. We will be starting in late August and also in September, it will be going on. We are expecting some kind of positive contribution from these school articles and other spot items. Additionally, another second maybe reason, some kind of decline in our gross margin in terms of passing inflationary pressures on our product prices.
In some cases, we may prefer to put a time lag in some example, in some cases. This also sometimes leads to some slight decline in our gross margin. As I said, in the coming periods, we hope to a little bit slightly improve together with school season and school articles. Now we provide the breakdown of our revenues as of second quarter. We are now on page 11. In Turkey operations have the major share in total revenues, and FİLE is contributing better and reach around 4% of total sales in second quarter. BİM Egypt is also contributed positively in this quarter and the first half, as we mentioned that there's some kind of recovery, sign of recovery in Egypt right now.
Also depreciation of the Turkish lira in the last one year make the foreign operations contributed to the consolidated sales. In Turkey, regarding the product category, in Turkey, the share of the private label increased in second quarter due to trade down and higher share of basic foods. Meanwhile, the share of the spot items declined from 8.5% in the second quarter of the last year to 6.1% in second quarter of this year, as the priority of the people was the basic foods in this quarter. In the next slide, page 12, with the graph, we are actually presenting. The graph shows the change in operating expenses as a percentage of revenues by item.
As you see from the graph, actually, the personnel expenses contributed to the profit margin in the second quarter. Despite the increase of our personnel wages before the second minimum wage regulation by the government in June, what we did in terms of increase in wages, we increased the wages by 25% in June and followed by additional 10% in July. Actually, on cumulative basis, it makes around 37% an additional wage hike, June and July. Actually, we don't expect any pressures from the personnel costs during the second half since operating leverage is getting stronger due to rising sales. On the other hand, due to rapid increase in electricity and energy prices, utility expenses as a percentage of sales rose in the second quarter and also in the first half as well.
we have the less energy exposures than the other formats, due to lower refrigeration in the supermarket, the impact of the rising energy prices is relatively lower to us. Of course, these figures includes IFRS 16 impact only. Therefore, the rent expense are excluded in this chart. maybe one, you may wonder about our rent cost. The rent cost to sales ratio declined to our historic low levels, which is 1.6% right now, in second quarter. It is 50 basis points lower than the same quarter last year. as you see from OpEx management is fully under control and manageable, and operating leverage is working strongly in OpEx management. Now let's look at quarterly EBITDA and EBIT figures.
Our second quarter EBITDA was TRY 2.8 billion, margin of 8.1%. In the six-month period, EBITDA margin was 8.2%, which is close to our low end of our EBITDA guidance range. This decline is mostly coming from gross margin decline as we explained before, but we are still in our target range. We estimate a gradual improvement in EBITDA margin in second half of the year. First, as I said, opening of the schools will positive impact on sales mix late August and also September. Operating leverage expects to continue to contribute to the profit of profitability. Actually we maintain our EBITDA margin guidance at 8.5% ±50 basis points.
Quarterly EBIT was TRY 2.2 billion and margin of 6.4%. Moving on to net income slide. Our net income was TRY 1.7 billion versus TRY 725 million in the second quarter of last year. The main reason the strong bottom line was the strong operating performance. In addition, I would like to also mention that we have also had some FX-protected deposits. So as we have incurred around TRY 125, TRY 127 million gain from the FX-protected deposit scheme in Q2. Note that we rolled over the same amount of the FX-protected deposit scheme in Q3 for three months as well.
In the next slide, we are now page 15, we provide the quarterly cash flow bridge. As usual, the main operations is the main contributor to our cash flow. Regarding net working capital, maybe most of you wonder net working capital. Free cash flow contribution from net working capital improved well since the first quarter as we reduced the advanced payments along with the ease in supply risks and maybe normalization in environments. We expect further normalization in working capital in second half of the year. Note that maybe the inventory level seems a little bit higher actually in the first quarter, but the end of June is just before the public holiday, Kurban Bayramı .
Actually we have kept inventory higher in the end of June. In July figures, inventory is coming down. Inventory level is coming down. Net working capital is contributing better cash flow to our free cash flow. As you see in second quarter, a net change in net working capital is better, much better than the first quarter. I would like to also highlight the decline in lease payments as a percentage of revenues, which declined to 1.6% from 2.1% the same period last year. Please bear in mind that the FX-protected deposits are not included in these slides, since it is stated as financial investments per IFRS rules.
If we take the short-term financial investments as cash-like assets or cash and cash-like assets remain same during the second quarter despite the dividend payment. First tranche of dividend payment around TRY 900 million. The cash flow is almost on track and under control, and net working capital starts to contribute positively in the second quarter. If you look at the foreign operations in page 16, Morocco continues to contribute to our net income. We have opened 12 new stores in the last quarter in Morocco, and total number of stores reach 604 in this country. Now in Morocco, we are working to accelerate growth in this country. But first we have to improve our infrastructure, logistics infrastructure.
That fourth warehouse now is under construction, and we plan to improve our logistics infrastructure further by opening more warehouses. Then likely to accelerate store openings in the country. My colleagues are working on it, more warehouse openings and then accelerate store openings. Owing to the modern retail share in Morocco is only 20%, maybe less than 20%, there's high growth potential for BİM in Morocco. In Egypt, we continue our operations with 202 stores, 302 stores, two of them newly added. We have started to open some stores in Egypt, maybe 10 stores at end of the year we will have opened. In the following years also we will be opening more stores because as I said, there's some kind of recovery.
Some initial actions we have taken is working right now. Next is about FİLE operations. Page 17. We have opened 5 FİLE stores in second quarter, and number of FİLE stores reached 181. There is somewhat slowdown in FİLE store openings in Q2, but this is mostly because of the Ramadan periods, and we still expect to open 50-60 stores for the full year for FİLE. Now FİLE is also expanding in the Aegean and Mid Anatolia side of Turkey. FİLE online shopping platform, which was launched last year in May, now available in 23 cities in Turkey with 49 stores. As you remember from our previous call, FİLE online sales reached around 3%-4% of FİLE total sales. I hope you all managed to experience the FİLE online.
Finally, I will touch about our guidance revisions. As you remember, we revised our top line growth guidance after first quarter due to higher inflation and recovery in certain growth. As inflation figures keep rising and our sales performance in the first half of the year exceeded our expectations, we revised our guidance once again. We increased our sales growth guidance for 2022 for the full year to 100%-110% sales growth interval. Meanwhile, we keep our EBITDA margin and CapEx guidance as it is. I would like to thank you for your attention today. Now would like to open the floor for Q&A. To ask your questions please raise your hand via Zoom platform, then I and my colleagues will be giving the floor to you. Thank you.
[Hanzade Hanım], the floor is yours.
Serkan Savaş , thank you very much for the presentation. I just want to make a follow-up on your like-for-like revenue dynamics in July and August. You highlighted very strong basket growth around 100%. It's substantial. You have also double-digit traffic growth in the second quarter and the first quarter. I mean, is this still the same traffic momentum? Do you still experience traffic growing double digits, which then may mean that you may have very high like-for-like revenue much higher than the inflation in the second half?
Thank you [Hanzade Hanım]. Actually, sometimes the mix change, sometimes the mix is turning to basket, sometimes to traffic. Still we are maintaining strong traffic growth in July and August as well. Together with the strong basket size. Basket size is also growing. This is why actually we have revised our top line guidance for 2022. In the first half, for example, our six months period, 88% top line growth, and we guided 100%-110%. In July and August, the momentum is still strong and getting stronger day by day. In late August and also September, after the school season, and maybe people actually will come back from the vacations, we may have better sales momentum, like collect momentum.
In brief, the progression is almost the same.
Thank you very much. Finally on the employee cost side. So the total salary adjustment is close to 90%. Do you also get a reimbursement from the government? I think this was incentivized as well by the government, but is it still working as it is promised?
Sure. Yes, it's working right now. For minimum wage increase, the corporates are getting some kind of benefits from the government side. This corresponds maybe 10 basis points, something like that, 10-15 basis points sometimes. We may have some other benefits going forward. We are working on it to actually control our staff costs, control our other costs. Besides this, besides the government's benefits, actually, we are not facing any pressure because as we said, 90% wage increase, but we are targeting 110% sales growth for the full year. Yes, we are sometimes getting benefits, subsidies from government sides. It's still working.
You mean, I mean, 90% employee cost increase would mean like 80% on your side then? I mean, 75%-80% in total after the reimbursement?
Before the reimbursements, actually in the first minimum wage increase, our cost increased by 40%. In the second, July and August, we increased the wages by 37%.
Oh, okay. All right.
In total cumulative phases, it is 92% before the government's reimbursements.
With the government's reimbursement, it will come down below 80%, right?
Yeah, maybe. 10 basis points is generally speaking benefiting to our staff costs.
All right. Thank you very much, Serkan Savaş .
[ Mehmet Bodur], the floor is yours.
Yes. Thank you very much, and congrats on your quarterly results, and thanks for the presentation. Actually, I have two questions. The first one is regarding to recent developments on the state-owned cooperative stores. The recent implementation by them on discounting on select products, I'm talking about. Should we expect you and the rest of the sector to follow them accordingly to lower your sales prices in parallel to them? My second question is, could you please give us an insight on possible market gain of those cooperative stores and possible margin pressure on your operations? Thank you.
Thank you, [Mehmet Bey]. Actually, first of all, cooperative stores, yes, they initiated some kind of price reductions in the last few weeks, but they already have higher prices per our index. They already have higher prices than BİM. For example, they used to have maybe 20% higher prices than BİM. Now, they actually decreased some item, some basic commodities, and today they still have higher prices in general on average. In some cases, in some products, they decreased, they are a little bit lower than BİM discounts. Actually, in brief, for example, I can say that it doesn't have any margin pressure or sales pressure on us. In contrast, actually, first let me give you an example.
Our BİM stores closer to the cooperative stores are being affected positively in this actual periods. Why? Because in some products, the people are struggling to find enough stocks in cooperative stores. They are a little bit becoming angry. They are trying to find the same product in other global stores. Per our initial evaluations, actually, the closer stores are somewhat positively affected in terms of sales. In terms of pressure, do we follow them? We already have lower prices. Maybe some few products, they are lower. This wouldn't have any margin pressure on us. They have around 1,300 stores, and we have more than 10,000 stores right now.
We don't expect any pressure on it. Since they are still, on average, higher prices than BİM. Is it clear?
Yeah. It's crystal clear. Maybe I can ask a follow-up question regarding to general economy, regarding to this, the recent development. Is it possible to experience a relief on inflationary pressure via these, this kind of implementation, or are state-owned cooperatives too small to impact on inflation overall?
Actually, of course, this is the cooperative store owned by the government, and they are of course trying to actually increase the purchasing power of the people. Of course, there is some kind of different dynamics. For example, in last week, maybe you have experienced the news. There are lots of rush to the cooperative stores, for example, a few products. Maybe most of them are the other traditional stores. They just buy in a good price and then sell in their stores. There's kind of price dynamics in the sectors. It's not fair actually to break these dynamics in the retail sector. Otherwise, actually this is it means that wholesale.
Yes, actually, I don't think this will have any very material impact on inflation side. Maybe the government actually is trying to improve the purchasing power of the people, but maybe for temporary. It will be actually temporary. Otherwise, the general inflationary environment, there's no change unfortunately in inflationary environment. First, maybe we have to break the real reasons, then actually, we have to actually play with the prices. The costs are still rising, unfortunately. I don't think this will have any material impact on inflation and price environments.
Got it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
You're welcome. [Cemal Demirtaş], the floor is yours.
Thank you for the presentation, Serkan Bey, and congratulations for very good results. My question is about the seasonality. You mentioned that September is a school season. Could we expect some increase in the profitability sides in the third quarter considering your inventory levels and all the other factors? I know that the growth might be accelerating, but like what are the initial signals from the profitability after the second quarter's 8.1% EBITDA margin? The other question is about the effective tax rates. In first quarter, we had around 18%, and in the second quarter we see 21% based on you know the recorded figures. How should we assume for the rest of the year? Thank you.
Thank you, [Cemal Demirtaş]. Actually, seasonality, yes, school season is starting right now, and we expect a strong school season because last year it was the COVID year. There wasn't any clarity last year. The sales a little bit, actually school articles sales is a little bit weak last year. This year we expect, and we also believe our price is very rational prices, very low prices, but higher margin as well. We expect strong school season in this quarter. Profitability, so far, post Q2, the gross margin environment is actually going similar with the second quarter. Gross margin is a little similar. As I said before, school articles is likely to contribute something to our profitability gross margin side.
In the last 45-day periods, the general profitability, gross margin figures are almost similar with the second quarter, I can say that. In the school season and maybe in September, we may have some positive contribution from the operating leverage as well. Effective tax rates, yes, you are right. In the first quarter it was 17%, now 21%. Because in the first quarter we have benefit from some of the one-off tax benefits, some kind of different tax benefits we have. In second quarter there's not. You can take the same 21%, 23%, 22% effective tax rates in the coming periods. We don't expect any other one-off tax benefits for the time being.
Serkan Savaş , I see that you also record some gain from net other income sides. Could we assume this trend will continue in the second half of the year?
Do you mean net financial income or net other income?
Yes, financial income and, you know, some items under the net other income.
Yes. In terms of financial incomes, we incurred around TRY 127 million gain from the FX-protected deposits. We rolled over. It's around $38 million. We rolled it over for three-month periods. Of course, it depends on the FX depreciation of the Turkish lira. We don't, of course, prefer it, but we just want to actually protect ourselves. It depends on the FX revaluations. In other income, we have some. Yes, there is positive momentum. We have scrap sales, actually, better momentum. We are now started to sell our scraps, boxes, something like this, and agreed some agreed parties. Yes, likely to continue going forward, this kind of net income.
For financial FX-protected gain from the FX-protected deposits, it depends on, of course, depreciation in Turkish lira.
Another question, Serkan Bey, about the market share side. We don't have the full markets, but at least we have the numbers for the listed companies. In first quarter, your market share compared to other peers was more, you know, like most, stronger. Maybe I don't, you know, it's like, quarterly. I'm just looking at the quarterly, and there are some international revenues inside. Is this quarter a little bit lower, although you had the highest growth? Compared to first quarter, I'm just saying, you know, in first quarter you had outstanding comparison. In second quarter, the others also had some growth, not as much as you are, but closer. Did you know, see any base effect on that?
How do you compare your market share with the limited information first quarter versus second quarter? Thank you.
Thank you, [Cemal Demirtaş]. Actually, in the first quarter, there's a big rush for some basic commodities, and people are rushing to general basic commodities to protect their declining purchasing power. Actually, we also, for example, in the first six-month periods, per our data, some kind of FMCG market data, we have gained 2% market shares. The others also may be gaining market shares, but not as much as 2%. In the first quarter, there's a big rush to BİM, and then we protected. Actually, we protect our sales. Note that our base is very high.
Actually, in the quarterly basis, we have more than TRY 30 billion sales, and the others are lower. If we have incremental TRY 1 billion sales, more sales of it, depend it's actually in. The others increased their market shares better than BİM. Generally speaking, in the first six months, we grabbed our 2% market share in FMCG markets. Yes, in the first quarter, there is much more contribution than it's almost stable in the second quarter. We can, I can say that we protect. Actually, we kept our sales dynamics. We don't actually face any actually trade up or trade down from others. We are still in July and August, we are still getting market share from the markets.
We will see the August and September results, you know, to what extent we will be getting market shares. Yes, you are right. It's a little bit slowed down in the second quarter, but we still kept some slight market share.
Thank you. One last question about the store opening pace. Maybe it might be early, but could you say something for the following year, how penetration is in the retail markets? Thank you.
Thank you, [Cemal Demirtaş]. It's a little bit early to speak about it because we are doing our budgets. Our regions are doing their budgets in November or December. Generally, dynamics in the market, in the retail markets is. There's still room to go for everybody, for retailers. We are more than 10,000 stores. The others are also approaching 10,000, and they're one. The others may be more than 10,000 stores. Per our experience, we are not facing any cannibalism, internal or external cannibalism. Yes, we are actually living in different environment, very tough environment. First COVID, then actually other high inflation environments, maybe because of this. In the last few years, we are not facing any material internal or external cannibalism.
In general speaking, I can say that the opening pace is likely to continue, but I cannot definitely say anything about the next year's plan. It's likely to be finalized in the late this year.
Thank you. Thank you, Serkan Bey.
[Mr. Rajat], you still have some questions? Does he have still the questions? Please raise your hand. Now, [Görkem Bey], the floor is yours.
Thank you, Serkan Bey. My question is about gross margin front. You already talked about the increasing stake of private label sales. Is it possible that you provide us, roughly speaking, what percentage of the erosion is attributable to private label sales? And are they going at the same pace in July, August? Should we expect a change on that front? And my second question was about the same-store sales. You already mentioned, but I was wondering whether it has something to do with your higher number of closures. Is there something like that? Or, I mean, it's still negligible, very few, but is it a sign for any other development? I just try to understand. Thank you.
[Görkem Bey], the last question, scrap sales is not a material sale. This is a boxes, actually, a product box, cartridge boxes sales, some kind of package sales. It's recycling sales, something like that, recycling. It's not about the closures of store, any material sales, something like that, if you mean that. Actually, it is something different from last year. Last year, we were not able to sell those kind of recycling products, recycling boxes, packages. We cannot actually convert to cash. But now actually legislation changed. Now we are actually able to. The companies are able to agree with the some kind of recycling companies and then you can convert to cash. This is the main issue. It's not coming from the store closures or other than that.
It's just scrap sales is the cardboard boxes or recycling packages coming from like the tobacco use to some extent. 1% is actually coming from the private label. Private label sales increased by 4%. Of course there is some kind of difference. There's some kind of margin difference from private labels and branded products. Because for private labels, we are mostly selling the basic commodities, basic products, just we are saying this. Basic products have naturally lower margins in retail environment. Our private labels have lower margins than branded products. I can say it's material. Yes, it's not so material, I can say. Maybe 20 or 30 basis points is coming from this private label mix change.
The other is coming because people are more tending to both private labels and branded products in basic commodities. Basic commodity branded products have also lower gross margins. Just non-food side, maybe cosmetics, detergents have higher margins. In this environment, people are mostly focusing on basic food commodities. Maybe 20-30 basis points is coming from the private label switch. Private label share is. What's the trend in this post Q2? It's almost stable. We are not facing any uptrend, much more uptrend. It's almost stabilized right now.
Just for clarification, you said for July and August, the internal inflation is above 100%. Did I get it right? Right?
Internal inflation? Yes, more than 100. 110%. We have internal inflation. You are right.
Okay. Great. Thank you very much.
You're welcome. If you have any questions, please raise your hands. I think there is no further questions. I would like to thank you for joining our second quarter with us, and hope to see you again in our next quarter's webcast, hopefully. Thank you very much. If you have any follow-up questions, you can reach me and my colleagues, Akif and Şennur, for your follow-ups. Thank you.