Akif Daşıran, Investor Relations and Sustainability Manager, and I'm pleased to be joined today by our CFO, Fatih Meriç. We hope you have had a chance to download our investor presentation from our website. Please note that this presentation includes both inflation adjusted and unadjusted figures to facilitate a clear quarterly comparison for our investors. Now, I would like to hand it over to Mr. Meriç, who will provide an introduction and key highlights of the quarter.
Thank you, Akif. Hello, everyone. Let's begin with the key highlights of the year. Before start giving details, please note that all the figures here in this slide are inflation adjusted. For 2025, our annual net sales reached 721 billion TL, reflecting 6% year-over-year real growth. Our nominal sales growth was 43% in 2025. Our EBITDA margin was 6% in 2025. Without inflation accounting, the margin stood at 7.7%. We are happy with the achievement in operating profitability. When we come to net income, net income was 18.6 billion TL. Profit before tax increased by seven percentage points year-over-year to 31.6 billion TL. However, high effective tax rate depressed our bottom line. Our net cash position realized as 14.2 billion TL.
In the fourth quarter, we opened 242 new stores, bringing our annual net expansion to 890 stores. This was in line with our annual plans. As a final highlight, capital expenditures accounted for 2.9% of our revenues in 2025. We will be elaborating the details in the coming slides. Now, let's review our 2025 guidance versus actual results. Excluding the impact of inflation accounting, we had anticipated 45% sales growth for 2025, with a 5% deviation buffer. The year-end result came in close to our expectation at 43%. Our EBITDA margin guidance was 7.5%, and it materialized as expected at 7.7%. Including the impact of inflation accounting, our guidance was 8% year-over-year growth with a 2% deviation buffer.
Sales grew by 6% year-over-year as we expected. Our EBITDA margin guidance was 5%, and the result was 6%, which was better than our expectation. In addition to our operational performance, inflation trends supported our EBITDA margin in 2025. Lastly, our annual CapEx guidance was from 3.5% to 4% of sales, while actual execution stood at 2.9% of sales. Due to deferred investments, particularly in the fourth quarter, our CapEx figure fell below our guidance. Moving on to our operational performance, let's take a closer look at the key metrics driving our business. Starting with the like-for-like sales slide, please note that all figures presented here excluding inflationary adjustments. Like-for-like sales grew by 32.7% in the fourth quarter.
Like-for-like basket size increased by 33.2%, while our internal inflation averaged 27% for the quarter. Our like-for-like real growth further improved in the fourth quarter, along with the decline in inflation. We observed similar strong trends in the beginning of 2026 as well. When we come to revenue breakdown slide, BIM Turkey accounted for 85% of total sales, while FİLE share in consolidated revenues remained in double digits in Q4. The remaining 5% came from our foreign operations. In Turkey, our private label share was realized as 57%.
Branded category sales was 34% of all our total sales, while the share of in and out category was realized as 9%. Our PL share rebounded in the last quarter, thanks to our actions taken in PL category. In addition, pricing dynamics eased in the core food categories and supported our PL share in total. When we come to store expansion, in the fourth quarter, we opened 183 new BIM stores and 15 new FİLE stores in Turkey, 35 new stores in Morocco, 9 new stores in Egypt. By the end of Q4, our total consolidated store count reached 14,473. Currently, BIM has the highest store opening trends in Turkey. Our plan is to open more than 800 stores in 2026 in consolidated level.
In the fourth quarter, our CapEx with inflation accounting amounted to TRY 4.5 billion, representing 2.9% of net sales. Excluding inflation accounting, quarterly CapEx was TRY 4 billion, corresponding to 2.2% of net sales. Some big-ticket investments deferred to the next quarter, hence CapEx was below the trend in the last quarter. We expect normalization in CapEx trends in the following quarters. When we come to the next slide, we provide a list of projects either we already started or initiated a pilot program for the test purpose. As you know, we already applied to the authority for an establishment license for a participation bank to be founded together with our subsidiaries, where the company will hold the majority stake.
We are also testing some projects in our stores and warehouses, either to increase traffic, improve operational efficiency, and/or support sustainable operations. Some of these projects are listed in this slide. These include piloting new fresh product concepts, implementing an enhanced warehouse management system, advancing digitalization in supply chain management, testing electric vehicles, improving energy efficiency, and piloting digital store solutions such as electronic shelf labels and self-checkout systems. These projects are for test purposes at the moment, and we are doing our feasibility assessment for now. Next, we would like to elaborate more on our sustainability efforts. As you already know, we remain committed to reducing our greenhouse gas intensity, and in 2025, we formalized this commitment under the Science Based Targets initiative in alignment with the Paris Agreement. We also declared our net zero commitment for 2050.
In line with our net zero target, we continued investing in our own solar energy, and our number of solar power plants increased to 26, 5 ground-mounted and 21 rooftop installations, with a total installed capacity of 96 MW. We also continued our efforts to improve packaging efficiency. As a result, in 2025, we successfully prevented the use of 864 tons of plastics and 842 tons of paper. Customer satisfaction remains a key metric for sustainable growth, and our Net Promoter Score was 31 in 2025. In 2025, we made 4,800 net recruitments in our Turkey operations, with 57% of new employees being women. Regarding the gender pay gap, we measured it at only 0.20%, primarily due to performance bonus.
In the Great Place to Work research, we received three recognitions highlighting our commitment to employee engagement and a positive workplace culture. Our commitment to sustainability was further reflected in our turnover, with sales from sustainable products reaching 18.4% of total turnover. Moving on to our financial performance. Let's continue with the sales progression on page 14. In the fourth quarter, our revenues increased by 10% year-over-year in real terms and 6% for the full year. Excluding inflation accounting, sales grew by 43% year-over-year in Q4, reaching TRY 184 billion. We had anticipated 45% sales growth for 2025, and the year-end result came in close to our expectation at 43%, totaling TRY 655 billion for the year, excluding inflation accounting.
Including inflation, on the gross profit slides. Okay. Including inflation accounting, our gross margin for Q4 was 19.2%, representing roughly 10 basis points improvement compared to the same quarter last year. This improvement is attributable to accounting impact stemming from relatively lower inflation figures in the last quarter. Excluding the impact of inflation accounting, our gross margin stood at 20.3%. Reflecting around 80 basis points decrease from the same quarter last year. We already pointed out such a normalization in gross margin in our previous webcast, and the outcome was totally in line with our expectation. When we come to the next slide, operating leverage. The OpEx to sales ratio decreased to 15.5% in the fourth quarter. Excluding inflation accounting, the ratio was 13.9%.
We will go into details in the next slide, and you can see the operating expenses breakdown. The graph here illustrates the change in operating expenses as a percentage of revenues by item. As shown in the graph, personal expenses as a percentage of sales increased by nine basis points year-over-year. While utility expenses continued to make a positive contribution, supported by ongoing energy efficiency projects that helped keep utility costs under control. Excluding the non-cash depreciation expense, operating expenses to sales ratio was almost stable year-over-year. As an additional remark for this slide, excluding the impact of IFRS 16 accounting, rent costs as a percentage of sales stood at around 1.5% in the fourth quarter.
When we come to EBITDA slide, including inflation accounting, EBITDA for the fourth quarter was TRY 12.8 billion, with an EBITDA margin of 6.9%. Excluding inflation accounting, EBITDA margin was 8% in the fourth quarter. As mentioned earlier, our EBITDA margin guidance for 2025 without IAS 29 was between 7% and 8%, and the result came in line with expectation of 7.7%. Let's move to the net income overview. Our net income increased by 36% year-over-year in real terms in the fourth quarter. Excluding inflation accounting, our net income increased by 89% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. The full year growth rate was 49%. This concludes my section of the presentation. Now I'll hand it over to Akif for the remaining part.
Thank you, Fatih. Moving on to quarterly cash flow. This slide provides a more detailed view of cash flow movements in the fourth quarter, excluding inflation accounting. Including short-term financial assets, our cash position was TRY 14.1 billion in the fourth quarter, compared to TRY 19 billion in the previous quarter. Due to the seasonality in our payable days, the change in working capital was negative in the last quarter. In addition, the last installment of our dividend distribution was in the fourth quarter, and had an impact on our cash flow. On the next slide, annual cash flow bridge on annual basis. However, our net cash position increased to TRY 14.1 billion, up from TRY 8.2 billion last year, as shown here.
On the FİLE side, we opened 15 new stores in the fourth quarter, bringing the total to 344. FİLE share of consolidated sales remained at 10% in the fourth quarter, up from 8% a year ago, reflecting its strong and consistent performance. In 2025, revenues rose by 75% year-on-year, excluding inflation adjustments. Like-for-like revenue was up by around 50%, with 5.5% traffic growth. When we look at foreign operations, in Morocco, we opened 35 new stores in the fourth quarter, bringing the total number of stores to 933 in the country. In Egypt, we opened nine new stores in the fourth quarter, increasing the total number of stores to 445.
Now, I hand it over to Fatih Bey again for our 2026 guidance.
Thank you, Akif. Our 2026 guidance includes the impact of inflation accounting. Net sales for 2026 are projected to increase by around 6% year-over-year. Our 2026 EBITDA margin is expected to increase to around 6% or 6.5%, supported by lower inflation. Capital expenditures are expected to remain at approximately between 3% and 3.5% of net sales in 2026, reflecting continued investments in store expansion, new warehouses, and sustainability projects. For those interested in our underlying assumptions for the guidance, we estimate more than 800 store openings in 2026 at consolidated level, 35% year-over-year increase in total sales without inflation accounting impact. Our EBITDA margin estimate without inflation accounting is around 7.5%.
This is the end of our presentation. Now we may take your questions, if any. Please note that if you want to ask a question, you can raise the hand, and we will open the floor to you. Alternatively, you can write down your questions via Zoom. We will read and answer them accordingly. Yes. The first question comes from Ece Mandacı. Ece, the floor is yours.
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes, we can.
Hello. Thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on the good numbers. As far as I can understand, you're assuming a margin improvement in post IAS 29 financials based on the assumption of a lower cost pressure. Could you please comment more on the underlying factors behind such an improvement? Do you foresee any major change in your gross margin assumption, or is this mostly related to a potential lower OpEx over sales ratio? Could you also provide some more information regarding your working capital over sales or cash cycle progression for 2026? Will the low days payable remain for 2026? Finally, could you also provide some more numbers about your FİLE operations regarding like-for-like growth and potential new store openings? Thank you.
Thank you, Ece. Actually, during the slide, the presentation, Fatih Bey already provided the underlying assumptions, including the excluding inflation accounting in our, you know, guidance, for both sales growth and EBITDA margin. Let me repeat again. For our 2026 guidance, our assumption for excluding inflation accounting, our assumption is 35% year-over-year increase in total sales. Again, excluding the inflation accounting, our estimate, our guidance refers to 7.5% EBITDA margin. Therefore, there is no major change on the operating. We are already having the highest, you know, profitability in the sector in Turkey. Therefore, our guidance indicates that we estimate a flattish profitability for 2026. You also mentioned about the cash flow trends for 2026.
Actually, currently there are some, you know, geopolitical risks at the moment, therefore, we don't expect any material change in the working capital, you know, days in 2026 to be cautious about any risk on the supply chain. Therefore, in that front, we don't expect a material change on the cash flow side, especially on the working capital side in 2026. We also provided some information about FİLE during the slide. Let me again repeat that. Our FİLE operations have a like-for-like revenue growth of 50% in 2025, and the traffic growth was 5.5%.
Regarding the store openings, of the 800 number you have mentioned, how many stores are you planning to open in FİLE Morocco operations?
In FİLE and S-FİLE , we plan to open 60 stores in 2026. In Morocco, 150, and in Egypt, around 70.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Hanzade. Hanzade, the floor is yours.
Fatih Bey, Akif, thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on strong performance. I have a question about the current trends on consumption. Your peers highlighted continued strength in revenues so far on a year to date basis. Do you also experience a similar trend on your side?
Yes, Hanzade. This is also the case for us as well. We had already had a strong trend in the fourth quarter, and we see a similar, you know, strength in the initial months of the year as well.
Okay. Thank you. The second question is about free cash flow. Actually, Ece has already asked this question about the working capital. You have some limitation on free cash flow generation last year because of this fluctuation on the working capital. When we step into 2026, I see you don't also look for a significant expansion on EBITDA. I mean, this year in terms of profitability. Is there any other room to improve the free cash flow in 2026, or you expect to generate similar type of free cash flow this year as well?
Hanzade Kılıçkıran, we don't have a guidance on the cash flow, therefore, I don't want to quantify the trends for 2026 cash flow because we, you know, depending on the conditions, we sometimes react to these conditions. Currently, you know, the Iran situation and also the, you know, the cost pressure, we can, as you know, sometimes, you know, react to these, you know, conditions, throughout our, you know, balance sheet. Therefore, currently, we don't have a guidance on the cash flow, but at this, you know, environment currently, we don't expect a material, you know, change in the overall picture.
All right. Thank you very much, Akif Daşıran.
Thank you. We have also some written questions. Some of them we already, you know, answered. I'm skipping that. From Melis Pocar, there is a question, what is the reason behind significant impairment in FİLE? The FİLE valuation is done by the third party. This is mainly because of the performance of the, you know, company. Therefore, we don't have any much, you know, details on the operations, but it is mainly because of the operating performance of the company in 2025 because of the multiple-based company valuation. Again, from Melis Pocar, any plans for FİLE IPO? If yes, possibly when? No, there is no such plan at the moment.
Lastly from Melis Pocar, regarding recent war on Middle East, can you elaborate on the initial and future impact on your operations and cost, air, truck, fuel, transportation, packaging in general? The Iran situation, the war in Middle East, you know, to start with, there is no immediate impact on our operations at the moment. There is no impact on our operations at the moment. We are aware of the potential direct and indirect, you know, impact, possible impact. For instance, for the direct risks include, you know, supply chain, you know, disruptions because of the transportation of goods. Meanwhile, indirect risk include rising cost, you know, higher inflation, et cetera.
At this level, what can I share is, we are aware of the risks, and, currently we don't expect a material impact to our, you know, company, our operations. We have a strong track record on geographical, geopolitical risk, as we experienced during the Ukraine and Russia war. Therefore, we are also taking our precautionary actions at the moment as well. Currently we don't expect any material impact to our company. Another, I'm skipping the already answered, you know, questions for the written questions. One question, one written question. Thank you for the presentation. What is the main reason of the decrease in your 2026 real sales growth? Could you elaborate, please?
Yes, in the previous calls, we mentioned that the impact on the core goods categories where there are more, you know, commodity type products like, you know, edible oil, wheat, flour, sugar. These product prices are linked to the global prices, international prices in hard currency. However, the TL depreciation in Türkiye is less than CPI for a while. Therefore, the price increases in those commodity type products are much lower than the CPI in 2025. This is curbing the revenue growth in our inflation-adjusted, you know, financials, although there is a volume growth in those, you know, categories. Since we are a hard discounter with limited SKU, focusing on the basic needs of people, these are important categories for us.
Therefore, this situation limited the top line growth in 2025. Hanzade, I see that you raised your hand. Is it a follow-up or?
Sorry, I forgot to lower it.
No, no worries. I think that was the end of the Q&A session. Thank you very much for joining us today. Now I will hand over again to Fatih Bey to final remarks and closing.
Thank you. Thank you for your participation. See you in the next call.