Marcopolo S.A. (POMO4) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to APIMEC Brazil's 2026 meeting of Marcopolo regarding the Results of the Second Quarter of 2026. Today's presentations and remarks will be delivered by André Armaganija, CEO; Pablo Motta, CFO and Investor Relations Officer, and Eduardo Willrich, Legal and Investor Relations Manager. Representing APIMEC, we are going to have Ricardo Tadeu Martins, Executive President. Please note that simultaneous interpretation is available on this call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's investor relations website, ri.marcopolo.com.br, along with the presentation materials shared today [Operator Instructions]. Before we proceed, we would like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made during this call are based on Marcopolo's management, current beliefs and assumptions, and on information currently available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may not occur. Investors, analysts, and journalists should be aware that a number of factors related to the macroeconomic environment, the industry, and other relevant conditions could cause results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. We'll now begin the presentation, turning the floor to Mr. Eduardo Willrich. Please, you may go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. To me, it's always a deeply emotional and important time to have these APIMEC meetings. I always try to reinforce that APIMEC meetings are an independent forum. Everyone can have access to them, analysts, managers, investors, potential shareholders. So it is a meeting that is always open so that everyone has the opportunity to get to know more about the company and exchange information with all of those that are here today. This meeting specifically is very special because we are talking about 25 years relationship with Marcopolo. We from APIMEC privilege information, so the glamour places are not very important to us. The information is. Marcopolo, all these years, has really deserved and is an example for all companies that are listed in Brazil and also private companies to have this kind of event, because it is a way that we can disclose the work of investor relations areas, which is hard work. With the commitment of the entire team, not only IR, but also the shop floor, everyone really present, even in visits that Marcopolo provides to some of you. So I'm going to call André from Marcopolo to provide this recognition and celebrate our 25 years of relationship. This is the highest level of recognition that we have. Please, André, receive this recognition, and thank Marcopolo for all the hard work.

Thank you very much, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Thanks, APIMEC. A very consistent history, and we are going to continue to do so, presenting our company, talking about strategies, future of the company. It's a pleasure to have, once again, your recognition.

Good morning. It's a pleasure to once again be in APIMEC agenda presenting our results, receiving this 25 years recognition. It's very important to us. I think more than ever, information sharing data of our day-to-day is always a way for us to be able to generate this relationship of trust, hearing from investors, but also investors having the opportunity of more and more explore our businesses, our operations, so that we can really tell people and share what is our day-to-day. I'm bringing the data related to the second quarter. So here you have our information. So in terms of net income, our second quarter had consolidated net revenue of BRL 2.3 billion, growth of about 3% consolidated revenue. We are talking about Micro revenue with growth in revenue of 122%. This data is something that we are going to give a bit granularity later on, what it brings in terms of mix and profitability. And the mix led us to 42.5% being with Micros as a percentage of total volume into 2Q '26. Our market share reached 48.3% in the Brazilian operation. We went from 46% in the first quarter to 48% in the second quarter. Net income of BRL 271 million and ROIC of 23%. I think the highlights here, which we are going to see further on in our results, is the scenario of having a lighter mix in the second quarter. We see the volume of micro buses really gained momentum in our business. And here you're talking about operations, as we have said before, in the past, to school and the Ministry of Health. We had approximately 1,500 buses delivered this year with higher concentration in those products in the second quarter. This brings some impacts to us in terms of profitability. We know that these are operations that have already well-defined prices, and we did have a higher impact in the second quarter, which really ate a part of profitability in our business and consequently brought a bit the margins is likely below what we had delivered before. But I think this is an interesting snapshot of the Brazilian bus production, which makes sense for us to explore a bit more in terms of what's going on in the segment along recent years and what happened between the first quarter of '25 and the first, I'm sorry, the first half of '25 and the first half of '26. So in the first half of '25, we had about 13,830 buses that were produced. I'm sorry, in the first half '25, 13,144. In the first half of '26, 13,830. So if we look at this number in details, we saw the reflex of micro buses in our business and in the Brazilian bus production reality. We see that year against year, we have a substantial growth in micro buses, approximately 2,000 buses more in terms of micro production, micro buses productions in '26 against '25. And when we think of road, I'm sorry, coach and city buses, we see a restriction, compared to '26. In city buses, about minus 15%, and coach about minus 18%, 19%. So in these two segments, we see a market that's very much impacted, which is offset by the micro bus segment. So we did have a growth of 5%, but in practice, major bus renewals are not happening this year compared to what happened last year and in previous years. And within this context, we see that in practice, we always start with the scenario from 2010, 2014, where we had a scenario of large incentives. But it's always important to highlight that the historical bus demand to maintain fleet and age, was around, especially at this darker point, which is the domestic market, 23,000, 25,000 buses a year. And we see since we had the recession in Brazil, the demand is decreasing and buses are growing old. Today, the fleet is around 11.3 months. We are not seeing significant renewals a long time. In practice, we see that renewal is not enough to keep the average fleet age that we had in 2015. And in this context, we see, especially after the pandemic, that operators, especially when you're talking about city buses, started to seek renegotiations of contracts. Here we did have an effect of that, 2014, '15 with the adjustment of tariffs. But then until 2023, prices have not been adjusted. And in the city buses, we see demand growing in terms of being repressed demand. And our expectations for '24 and '25, was that city buses would start to sell more. André is going to bring a bit more detail about prospects for the future. But it's interesting to show you this historical data because in '25, interest rates are available, very much subsidized, 8% to 10% a year for the renewal of city buses. And here we start to see price adjustments with municipalities, certain breaths for operators to look into renewals, but the diesel effect, the war impact, and uncertainties in economy make operators not to take the move. So from '25 to '26, we see a decrease in the number of purchases, and consequently our production volume by about 20%. So city buses with repressed demand, coaches with a bit more renewal from '21 to '24, a slight drop in '25, and in '26 also a drop of about 12% this year, what was produced in '26 compared to what was produced in 2025. And it shows that this very relevant segments added value did have a slowdown. City buses much more related to interest rates, that somehow the expectation of going down is not happening, and therefore people delay renewals. So this shows the challenges that we face in the different years, but also shows that the repressed demand for buses in Brazil is quite significant. When you take a look at coaches, for instance, when you're talking about long, mid distances, according to ANTP data, more than 50% of the buses that are operating now are more than 6 years old. And when we break down this information, we see that approximately 30% are between 6 to 10 years and 17% above 10 years. So in a repressed demand of coaches, of city buses, and what we are working with in this context, which is shown this quarter, is the increase of micro buses, really picking momentum, especially because of the Path to School program and the Ministry of Health. In this year, more with the Ministry of Health, which helps us support flexibility and deliveries. And in terms of production, Marcopolo delivered approximately 4,100 units this quarter. We see this because of Micros in Brazil, going from 2,700 to 3,300 units produced. Exports with also a slight increase, 354 against 344. Export to Peru and Chile with high demand this quarter. André is going to bring more information about Argentina, which was also a lever of growth that is not happening this year. And in international operations, we had substantial drop in production with a huge concentration in Argentina and Mexico. And then we are going to give you more information about each one of the operations. But we see that in these two markets, the macro scenario does impact demand and consequently brings a more complex scenario in the short-term. But again, in both market, we see snapshots that are very similar to the Brazilian operation with repressed demand that is increasing since there were no major renewals in those markets. In Australia, growth of 22.5%. This is an operation that is consistently delivering value with a very long backlog, and we are going to bring you information about the operation. With that, we see how much we are having in terms of increases in the first and second quarter, and we see that the mix is lighter with the micro buses, as I mentioned. And again, the snapshot of these impacts when we look at micro buses. Last year, they accounted for approximately 8% of revenue, now 17.7% that especially looking into Brazilian operations. City buses remain more or less the same in terms of market share and coaches, the 29.4%. Last year, we had a much heavier mix in the second quarter, reaching almost 40% of our revenues. That shows a bit about this drop that we saw and we are going to see in profitability, especially when you're talking about EBITDA margins. International operations, we see the relevance of the Australian operation, an operation that was restructured and came at a very good time in terms of market demand, fleet renewal, by Australian authorities, which is bringing us a segment that in international operations accounts for us approximately 20% to 24% in our consolidated revenue, Australia representing 63% of that. So the strengths of this operation within the Group, but I think the main takeaway here is the fact that Argentina and Mexico did lose relevance because of the macro scenario that leads demand to go down, especially comparing Argentina last year. Things are not happening the same way. But effectively, this is something that we believe that in the mid- to long-term is going to be more sustainable. André is going to talk about that later on. Then our numbers, it is what I mentioned in terms of net revenue growth of 3% in the Brazilian operation. In terms of revenue growth of 11.3%, exports 16.2%, and revenue from international operations, a drop of 16%. This quarter-on-quarter. When we go to the yearly picture, Brazilian operation with growth of 5.1%, exports from Brazil, 5.8%, and revenue from international operations, minus 7.2%. Gross profit, gross margin drop of 3.8 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, EBITDA of 3 percentage points, and net income 2.5 percentage points. And again, as we showed you, the effect of micro buses, the share of micro buses within the current market in our mix, especially because of the contracts that we signed, did have an inflation impact, most concentrated in the second quarter, which brought our profitability down together with EBITDA margin. Last year, it was a year with significant volumes of coach buses in Brazil and Argentina. This did not happen this year. Therefore our profit and EBITDA margin were impacted in the numbers that we showed you. So these are Marcopolo's numbers. Now I'm going to turn to André talking about performance projections, and then we are going to open for your questions.

Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here once again with you. Some familiar faces, some new people. We are going to have the opportunity of taking your questions later on. But very briefly, just for you to understand each of the three segments. Coach had an important retraction. You see that Marcopolo continues to develop new products and strengthening the segment, especially double-deckers. We are going to talk about the [ Bus ], which is an important event we are going to have next year, an event that fosters innovations, new products, the market is going down. High interest rates, Pablo talked about that for a long time, consumed credit and our operators want to renew, and this is very important to say. We have conversations about the fleet aging, maintenance cost increasing, and operators more and more with adjusted fleets want to have a product with low maintenance times, with not too much uptime. That is, vehicles have to be on the streets all the time. That's what we are focusing on in our new developments. The tighter market, we recovered a bit of share, but the fleet is aging. As Pablo showed very well, almost 20% of the fleet more than 20 years old. This is what I say all the time. These are future opportunities for fleet renewal. So this is generating future opportunities, and that's why the company continues to invest and continues to look at its main products, especially double-deckers. The highlight is the micro buses. We see sales also in the third quarter in the new programs, and now we are building the backlog for the fourth quarter. If you ask us about our backlog until the end of third quarter is already closed, and we are working with the fourth quarter, which is seasonal, but we do expect fleet renewals. City buses, Pablo also referred to that. Of course, diesel does affect the system. You know that driver costs and diesel costs are the most expensive costs for operators, so we do see the impact reflecting on the non-renewal of the fleet. We also had a problem with materials and inputs because of the war. And again, going back to what Pablo mentioned, instability, the feasibility of the current economic financial model, but new actions, new movements from the government are going on, like the public transport framework, which is bring more predictability to the system, more legal safety. So until the first quarter of next year, we will see the implementation of this program. The framework's very well-defined and brings this economic financial feasibility to the system, which will enable more safety and therefore fleet renewals. This is the bias that the company has when looking into future investments, solutions to really surf the wave of changes that we are going to have in the market. Electric city buses. We continue growing. This is a question that we always have. People ask about electric buses, and I always say the same. People do want to renew more than we see in actual numbers. But numbers are increasing quarter-on-quarter. So the fleet is growing. For us, it's a pleasure when you are in São Paulo and we see our electric buses. We just saw one on the way here. This was a market that we did not work before. We have more than 150 electric buses sold in São Paulo alone. Marcopolo did gain momentum because we work with different alternatives for electric products. So we are developing solutions to our traditional partners, then we have also developed solutions that are fully Marcopolo. So this is a market that will continue growing, and we see opportunities to continue developing solutions of low emission for this segment. And talking about Micros, Pablo did talk about micro buses. The Path to School program was very important for this quarter. We have a very large portfolio of products. And clearly, as we see, the prices do have an impact on profitability. But it's an important program to us that brings us a good volume for the company. Let's remember that in the last bid, we had substantial gains in Phase 13. We believe results will start to show in the fourth quarter. So now we are in the process of certifying those products. But they are very important for our organization, especially because they were priced before the beginning of the war, and they have prices that are in line with the market. Just showing data. In '26, we had 400 units for the Path to School and 1,200 for the Ministry of Health. International operations. This is a group that has an important representation in Marcopolo. 25% to 30% of our revenue comes from those operations. Some were more impacted this quarter, especially Volgren. This is a very positive operation, positive results, not only in '26, but also in '25. And we are already building our backlog for '27. Remember that we have long-term contracts with the government, long-term sales, and we are already executing sales for next year. Very important position, market leader, more than 50 years in the market, leader in the City Buses segment. We had a trade show, and we celebrated that we continue to invest in new products and segments in the market. So in addition to the traditional city bus, we also have an electric solution. We celebrated the 500th bus in Australia. We have a solution for city buses, G8, which is our flagship, is being sold in the market, and we have the light coaches as well. So very strong position that we want to preserve by investing in the operation, having new products, increasing service centers, and working with our clients. This gives us sustainability not only for this year, but next year. Argentina, a very strong operation to us. Traditionally, I always talk about the importance and relevance of Marcopolo in that segment, an operation that demands lots of double-deckers, and we are leader in the segment. Renewal is not happening, that's a fact. Last year it did happen, and that's why we had a very important result. But at the same time, it did consume the credit of our operators and made it more difficult to renew this year. We see positive things. The market credit is starting to be offered, and what we haven't lost is our closeness to clients. I think there are two important points here. We did not leave our presence in the country. No matter the ups and downs, we work with local production vis-a-vis the Brazilian production. So we did not lose touch with our clients. So new bids are happening with lower volumes, but with a clear understanding that there is more to come. And we expect as of next year to increase sales once again. Again, we have a lot of discipline, and I'm going to talk about that later on, in capital allocation, and we made adjustments in the operation that were relevant to the Argentina operations. You did see the impact in our adjustments. Thinking about that, not to miss the opportunity of the future demand in the Argentina market, but making the operation healthy. We did the same in South Africa, which also suffered impact in drop of revenues, and we have been adjusting the operation. Mexico, we are telling a story for some time now, which is the most affected operation, especially because of uncertainty and trade deals with the U.S. I was in Mexico in February, talked to operators, and of all the markets we operate, the Mexican market is the most uncertain, with a more blurred view of the future. But it's time to test new products, launch the G8 new clients, relevant fleets, and possible future renewals. So we are developing new buses. Remember, G8 was exported from Brazil, and now it is being produced there, and we are, as we did in the past, looking forward and preparing for a market pickup. We are very close to our client. For you to have an idea, the market is really down, but it is, again, what [indiscernible]. Looking into investment, close to the market, and we see the fleet aging, which gives future opportunities for renewal. And Superpolo Colombia, very briefly, we continue with consistent results. We have now a public transportation tender of -- we are talking about articulated -- bi-articulated buses with very good revenue. So we already are seeing some positive results of these tenders. So you will see this operation contributing positively to Marcopolo. China, a smaller operation, as I mentioned before, a strategic, not focused on revenue, but a center of innovation, technology, new developments, and global sourcing. Now, in terms of performance and projections, Pablo talked about the mix. We clearly have a large portfolio that depends on what is more or less important in the quarter, but we do have the benefit of working with our plants that are more and more flexible, prepared labor. We can size our labor with ups and downs in the segments, and we do see that the mix did affect us substantially in terms of profitability this quarter, but it was also a protection in terms of production in the company. Seasonality, the third quarter, we said that we already have a closed backlog. The fourth quarter, we have to monitor. It is what Pablo said. We see the fleet aging, maintenance costs going up, and we continue to invest in Lat.Bus. So the company is preparing for a future of resumed sales. We are an exporting company. Of course, that affects the amount of Brazilian reals in our operation. That has an impact. We talk about the relevance of a slower Brazilian market, looking into the foreign market. Chile, Peru, as Pablo mentioned, are doing very well. Of course, that affects our results. But we continue very strong and relevant in terms of market share in the countries in which we operate outside Brazil, especially Latin America, [ Africa ] in special projects, and Australia. We continue focused on generating value, competitiveness. We are looking into clients and to the inside company competitiveness, internal discipline, and growing professionalization in several areas of the company. International operations, the Brazilian market, but also we are looking into a more complex market to our clients and how we can offer products that are more in line with market expectations. Lat.Bus is going to be next week from August 11 to 13. You are all invited. Today, it is the largest trade show in Latin America, very relevant in the market. Every player is going to be there. Chassis producers, permanent clients of several markets will attend, and you're going to see new product launches. When we talk about investments, we understand the moment of our clients. We want to have a fleet that's available all the time with low maintenance, comfort to passengers to bring an environment that is better and better, more appealing to our passengers. It is what we did in the pandemic. People did not want to ride buses, and we sought alternatives in biosafety, higher separation of seats, and we are doing the same work. So you're going to see new launches, some new products with this bias, really to provide better services to our operators, passengers with higher competitiveness, innovation, technology. And the company is working as the leading actor, not only in product segments, but really in fostering the segment as a whole. So in Lat.Bus, we are going to have several discussions talking about relations with financial organizations, transportation associations, tax reform, several topics to bring more solutions and really taking a leading role to make the segment move forward. Again, we have a repressed demand, and we want to unlock that as much as possible. And finally, capital allocation discipline. You saw how the company operates. You saw our results, our percentage, SG&A, other expenses. The company really did go to a new level with lots of discipline to keep there all the actions we are doing in terms of adjustments in the African operation, Argentina, Mexico, actions taken in Brazil to preserve the operation that we built, especially after the end of the pandemic. We had a fantastic turnaround that we do not want to lose. And we are working with discipline to have tight controls of expenses, and we continue to invest a very positive strategy. Remember, G8 was launched at a difficult time, but it did bring new solutions to operators and passengers, and this is the strategy of the company. And you are going to see new company solutions in Lat.Bus. And tax reform, because we are going to have the Q&A, I'm going to leave it for later. And Pablo, who is the greatest specialist on the topic, will have an opportunity to answer your questions, so no need to bring him back again. So it's a pleasure to be with you. I'm going to be open for your questions. And again, don't forget to attend Lat.Bus next week. Thank you very much. Hello.

I am going to ask you that when you ask your questions, please say your name, your institution, and let's have only two questions each person, okay?

I'm Gabriel Tinem from Santander. Thanks for taking my question, which is more related to the mix profile that we did see in the second quarter. I'd like to explore the second half as a whole. In the second quarter, we did see a concentration in Path to School, Ministry of Health, perhaps with a lower volume or non-existent because of the non-confirmation of orders. So I would like to try and understand the mix breakdown, as we are going to see with MOVE in city buses. And also labor, if you could talk about how you are adjusting in terms of efficiency gains and if the inflation pressure, as we saw last year with adjustments of metal products, is going to happen this year as well.

Okay. Let's separate things. As we mentioned, the first half, very strong with micro buses. The Path to School process is being certified. We should see a higher sale in the fourth quarter, not in the third quarter. Remember that we have the Volare buses as well, with a 17% market share, but a very strong movement because of Path to School and Ministry of Health in the first and second quarters. City buses, we did have an expectation of renewal this year. It's not happening at the speed we expected. But on the other hand, we do have relevant programs. When you talk about the public transportation framework, you start to see solutions in cities where we have similar programs with technical prices, public prices, and the system working very well, as it is the case of Goiania and São Paulo. Two very good examples, where you see the market picking up, you see the amount of passengers in the system at the same levels that we did have pre-pandemic. And so here you see alternative solutions to the system. So urban buses, electric buses, gas-driven buses, diesel-driven buses. So a more structured system with important renewals. This brings passengers back to the system and generates greater revenues. So looking at all that, we continue working and investing in alternative fuels, thinking about products, but also about passenger volume. So as the public transportation framework, such movements will generate growth, but it's going to be gradual. The renewal process is not going to be fast. For coaches, it is what I told you. The government is helping with the third quarter, but the fourth quarter is still to be seen. What is it going to be like? It will depend on each operator, the timing, and passenger volumes. We know that naturally, the fourth quarter is a quarter with more passengers. Again, operators will renew with better terms, if possible, if they can sell their previous buses, older fleet. So our line is very much focused with a backlog that is basically closed in the third quarter and fourth quarter to be seen, especially with the micro buses in the Path to School and the Ministry of Health. About our people, we are paying very much care to that. We know there is room to continue improving efficiency. We are sharing that with you. It's not fast. This is something that will also happen gradually. We have expectations of higher gains in efficiency, better results. It's always an upside for the company, but we haven't got to the levels we expect. Is that going to come fast? No. It will happen gradually. We have frequent meetings to look into predictability of demand and our number of employees. This is something that we are paying close attention to, as we do in Australia, Argentina, Mexico, South Africa. So we are very disciplined in this regard.

Thanks for your question, Gabriel. Just to add to that, when we talk about efficiency and labor today with the mix we have, with the flexibility we have, with the variation of mix from quarter-to-quarter, we have additional challenges. So when we prepare our assembly line for a more, I don't know, city buses segment or micro buses, you're talking about different labor, different assembly lines. So that brings additional complexity as these segments move around. So we have been dealing with that. It is what André mentioned when he talked about Argentina, Mexico, and South Africa. We have to make small adjustments of structure all the time, because when you have a mix that demands less hours, you have to make adjustments so that you can keep the production process. So we have to manage the number of people and tasks. And recently, in terms of collective bargaining, we just finished the process. The increase was 5.5% with another 0.5% in December. So that was the collective agreement in the region in line with what we were previously working with. So in this sense, we had already digested the increase in our process in line with what was being then negotiated.

I'm Luiza from Banco Safra. Market data shows a change in the sales of trucks and also farming equipment, probably connected to the MOVE demand. But buses are not following the same trend. Can you interpret that because of the lack of the Path to School program last month, and what kind of schedule do you think we should see for the future? And Pablo, you did talk about the tax reform, so I would like to know your thoughts on that.

Okay. I think that part of the data from trucks have to do with registrations. So basically, in practice, our segment was very much impacted in terms of registrations, especially those buses that are for the Ministry of Health, more than 1,500 buses, and most of them still are not registered. So when you look at registrations in the sector, we see that -- the fact that we don't have the registrations yet does make a difference. So we see city administrations buying the trucks, but not yet registering them. So there is a bit of a delay because of that. But indeed, MOVE, the amount for buses was fully consumed, BRL 2 billion. In the program, we had BRL 21 billion and another BRL 2 billion for independent drivers and BRL 17 billion for everyone. So bus financing did use part of the BRL 17 million that was for all products. So in practice, most operators did use the program. And differently from trucks that are basically ready to deliver, in buses, we have to manufacture the chassis, then send for the body to be built. So the operational cycle is much longer than for trucks. And that is the reason of part of this delay compared to trucks in addition to the registrations I mentioned before. Tax reform, what do we see in the segment? Well, we are a segment that, in our history, we have lots of incentives. Transportation per se did have a tax load that was lower than other segments. Now this neutralization that is being sought from the government led to a new balance of prices. So when you take a look at product, the tax load will increase for our buses. So at the turn of the year, we should have a PIS/COFINS that is going to be higher. Today, it's 6.02%. And we hear the government saying that when we go into CBS, we are going to have some 9% to 10%. So the gap is going to a bit increase that will reflect on our prices at the turn of the year. On the perspective of operators, operators for charter coach buses stayed at the particular regime where they should not have an increase in tax costs. So although they are paying buses more expensive, they will recover the credit, and they should have a neutral operation -- for city buses, I'm sorry. For city buses, it should be neutral as well, but we see that city buses because of some devices that are being discussed with the government associations and operators, we should see an increase in cost there. So when you talk about the public transportation framework, especially with city buses, we have a transition of the segment. We will have to rediscuss prices because there is an increase in diesel prices because taxes are going to be higher and that consequently will require a financial economic balance of new contracts. So for coaches should be neutral. For city buses, it should be an increase, and we are working with the government to mitigate the increase.

I'm [ Keifer ] from Citigroup. I have 2 questions. The first is to explore profitability. The second quarter was marked by higher sales of Micro buses, almost 42% of the total, a decrease in EBITDA margins. So the company is becoming more complex with more products, more programs. The question is, what should we expect of the cycle? Do you think that we are now at the lowest point of the cycle? In other words, given this higher volume of Micro buses, should we have an expectation of a range for the next period, considering what happened this quarter? Just wanted to understand what's going to happen to profitability. Argentina is my second question. We know it's a promising region, lots of adjustments going on with losses in the quarter when we think of your profit. You talked about the operations cost structure. You talked about adjustments of expenses. But I would like to understand if the adjustment of labor is what led to losses in this quarter because it seems to me that the cost structure for Argentina is heavier than other operations. So I would like to hear you on that, if we could expect also a resumption of profit for this operation, again, given its relevance for the company.

Thanks for your question. We are going to start talking about consolidated gross margin. In the quarter, when we look at consolidated numbers, the drop that happened was in the Brazilian operation because of a higher share of micro buses, the inflation effect, these prices were agreed before and were not adjusted. And that did eat part of the profitability of the second quarter. What we see in terms of outlook in the third quarter, as we have mentioned, in this very challenging context of relevant operations like Argentina and Mexico, because Mexico and Argentina did affect the consolidated results. Not having the volume of deals in '25 consequently makes our indicators to be hurt. So what we see whether this is an inflection point or not has to do a lot with what we said. We are still building the fourth quarter. The third quarter, of course, there are businesses that we have more visibility because of MOVE. But in international operations, scenario is not very clear in terms of recovering demand. So in this context, what we see is that effectively, first quarter, we still have some challenges to address in the Brazilian operation for the fourth quarter and international operations in the third quarter itself. So that puts us in a situation when we look at our profitability indicators showing that we still depend on several variables. So we cannot say that the second quarter was the worst. But what we can see and the upside is that the third quarter, we have a bit more of a heavy buses mix, which also helps with our operational leverage. When we talk about markets like the Argentinian market, the Argentinian market, if you're going to analyze in terms of generation of new businesses, it depends a lot on credit. So we see that the adjustment started by Milei in '23, it start to give a bit more sustainability in terms of FX and a bit more of monetary control, but credit is still not available at the volumes needed for business to happen. Today, it is about 10% to 15% of GDP in terms of credit volume. We know it's very low volume. And we see that clients are coming to us. They are talking to us to try and understand about new products. We are building solutions. We see also banks coming closer to this -- a bit more stable macroeconomic scenario in Argentina. So expectations are very good. This is a market that, since 2018, when you talk about coaches, has not had any renewals. This was a market that renewed 600, 700 buses a year. So repressed demand, volume passengers using transportation in Argentina at stable levels. So we do see, as the credit environment becomes more favorable, a very strong recovery going back to what we saw last year. So expectations are good about Argentina, but for us, it is a matter of timing. The scenario is getting better day by day. Clients are more comfortable. They are talking about renewals.

I'm Lucas Laghi from XP. I have 2. The first, thinking about profitability, but not necessarily about margins. But what -- results margin. We think that Marcopolo is almost a short delta asset of inflation. You price the project thinking about the production time. If inflation is faster, you lose margin. If not, you gain margin. So given that you already closed the backlog for the third quarter and you're working the fourth quarter, in the inflation context that we see because of wars, pressures of inputs, in negotiations with clients, what is the clients' appetite to bet on inflation and therefore, have a pass-through of inflation costs? So how do you see the capacity of clients absorbing this pressure, especially for the fourth quarter? So where are we in the asymmetry of inflation and profitability for the coming quarters, obviously, taking into consideration the segment of the industry you work with? And the second question is about China, the competition of Chinese products. In Brazil, we do not see fierce competition. They are more partners than competitors. But you do know the Chinese business model. André has been in China, has talked to players. So thinking about the business model of the Chinese, do you think they are going to be your competitors at some point in time? Are they more like partners? So trying to understand the dynamics because China exports deflation globally and is more and more outside China in production chains.