Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V. (WALMEX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] in person, and thank you very much for being here in this 2023 Walmex Day. Thank you for your interest in the company, and thanks to those joining us over the web. Many of you have been part of this [meeting] in 5 years. I see familiar faces. Most of you are familiar to us, and many of you have been following what the company has been doing. And you have been investing in the company for years, and many of you have taught us the company, the strategy and the team -- so today, I want to say thank you for your trust. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our plans for the future, a dynamic one, a future you can trust, [indiscernible] evolve, go beyond the walls of the stores. We evolve from offering the stores in the shelves to offering solutions in our ecosystem. We evolve from consumer goods to long-lasting solutions. Last years have been catalyzers of -- in so many ways. We've been moving from a solid [indiscernible] business with a [indiscernible] e-commerce business to an omnichannel model. And we'll explain more about this. We're reinventing ourselves in order to become the preferred ecosystem for all customers, an ecosystem center in customers driven by customers, a system that offers solutions to our customers, an ecosystem that accelerates [indiscernible]. So with focus on customers and by bringing the business to the next level, we have so much more to offer to our stakeholders, to the Mexican people and people from Central America. So what are the results of the platform to drive this road. So one of the results is the compliance for having met the long-term profitability rates [indiscernible] shows the consolidated numbers. In 2015, total sales were [indiscernible], we share with you our objectives of doubling the business in this year and increasing our profit faster than sales. So I'm very proud to say -- to share with you that we'll meet to this objective in less than 9 years, including this investment. Back in the past, we were [already a] big company, which sets the company we were to have MXN 380 billion in sales and more than MXN 30 billion in profit. And I still see many opportunities ahead of us, many opportunities to construct an even stronger company. Another [result] is the construction of a very sound foundation. In this 8 years, we open 766 stores. Many persons were not sure that we were able to do that. Having more than 1 million square meters, we offer low prices to the customers [indiscernible] 140 localities where we were not present. There are many localities that did not have modern distribution channels before we got there. And in this period, we opened 8 distribution centers. We built a profitable e-commerce on-demand operation, a profitable one, in 1,000 stores [indiscernible] with hundreds of stores with [the pickup ] and extended assortment kiosks. We launched a marketplace. We reached a 5.1 online sales penetration coming from less than 1% in 2015. We launched BAIT and reached 5.6 million active users. We launched Cashi and reached 5.4 million total users. And I want to stop here and give you good news. We just received authorization from the Mexican financial authorities to open a fintech that will allow us to grow Cashi. You'll get more information about this. We launched Walmart Connect that reached MXN 2.1 billion last year. Today, we have the talent, we have the financial strength, we have the discipline to execute [indiscernible] we have the loyalty of our customers to [indiscernible] forward. So let's talk about 2022. Despite the short-term challenges, we managed to deliver against our financial and strategic goals. Consolidated revenue reached MXN 819 billion. So we are now among $40 billion revenue company. In Mexico, we grew same-store sales and bps ahead of the self-services and clubs market measured by [indiscernible]. I have to confess that I have mixed feelings about [indiscernible] that even with the [indiscernible] behavior during the pandemic and the investment in prices, we [will offer the market] so I trust we'll perform better. I don't like the 10 bps. EBITDA margin was [ 7.7% ] despite higher fixed costs and [strategic] investments. You'll learn more about this. [indiscernible] grew 19%, resulting in a 340% 3-year SPAC growth. And we reached an important milestone or ambition to become the ecosystem of choice where the [indiscernible] million total users between BAIT and Cashi combined. Operating with discipline and listening to cost [indiscernible], we were able to balance the short and the long term of our business. Another one of the results, strong returns to shareholders. Despite challenges, we deliver results through economic cycles. We have demonstrated our resilience. We have proven our ability to innovate. We have low-[indiscernible] that translate into best in class margins despite aggressive price investments. We have increased our [indiscernible] by 550 bps. We reached the maximum share price [indiscernible] year since 2018. We kept a high and consistent dividend yield. All of you who trusted us and invested in Walmex shares, at the end of 2014, when we launched the strategy have a 162% return by the end of 2022, considering capital gains and dividends. And so we have achieved so much, and the best thing is that we will achieve even more in the future. This result give us the confidence to continue [indiscernible] our business and to accelerate the growth. The store is shifting to a place where people [convene] to buy their basic needs into a place where we recruit nondigital customers to become digital. We are building the ecosystem that connects customers to the benefits of the digital economy, we are building the ecosystem that offers the solutions to the main needs of our customers. So we have been in the ecosystem that provides access. Access solutions benefits that could only be done through digital. Solutions like online shopping, solutions like connectivity, solutions like financial services, solutions like health membership, solutions that will make the lives of our customers so much better in Mexico and in Central America. So what are the exponential opportunities that we have by providing solutions for customers? So let me talk about our strategic priorities. I'll focus from now in Mexico. And later today, Flavio Cotini, our CEO of Central America, will provide more details about our plans for the region. The first exponential opportunity is to [win] a discount, and I'm talking about all the stores, all the stores are based on discount. Our company was founded with the purpose of saving people money and helping them live better lives. We reached millions of customers with our value proposition. Our stores have been there for years to provide customers access to basic needs at the lowest prices. Now our stores are revolving to deliver our value proposition that goes beyond traditional retail. Yes, we have a goal, but what remains constant is our priority to win in discount. We know that to win in discount, we need to focus [indiscernible]. But the first area is price. We will continue to be the primary reference for value in an omnichannel way through a holistic customer value proposition in each [form]. The second one is our brand. We will continue to be the first omnichannel brand choice for customers and members, providing access, quality and value for money products that generate loyalty [indiscernible]. We will improve customer's perception of our perishable departments through better quality and a simple operating model. And the last one is end-to-end productivity. We'll continue to innovate and automate and optimize our inventory to maintain the lowest operations [indiscernible]. The second exponential opportunity is to lead in omnichannel. Our goal is to serve customers how to win, where they want to [be studied]. To achieve this, [we'll build] and we will continue to expand a model that will meet customer's needs, a model that's scalable and yet sustainable. In this [ 5 years], we have consolidated our on-demand operations, reaching 1,000 stores. A couple of years ago, we started to invest more aggressively in one [peak] marketplace to accelerate the [indiscernible]. We are leveraging our assets to build the greatest omnichannel platform in Mexico. We are positioning the business for long-term success. But we still have a lot to do to reach our ambition going forward. We will continue to build a digital and flexible store and distribution network by continuously updating the shopping experience for current and future customers. We will reach new customers through a winning [indiscernible] supported by analytics [and all the other] processes leveraging real-time data. We will continue to offer a simple, personalized and omnichannel shopping experience, integrating all local services in an [open] ecosystem that is low cost and convenient for our customers. The opportunity ahead of us is huge. In the next presentation, Ignacio and Dolores will detail our plans to win the discount and to live in omnichannel and then you'll be [indiscernible] to see what we're talking about. The third exponential opportunity is to become the ecosystem of choice. Our concept of ecosystem has been evolving as we scale the new businesses and listen to our customers. When we first started, we were focused on solving customers' pain points around the shopping experience, pain points as much as the lack of affordable connectivity or low financial [inclusion]. To address all these pain points, we began connecting our assets in a mutually reinforced way. We implemented technologies that offer customers for solutions to the pain points. We helped customers to go beyond [indiscernible], to become the ecosystem of choice and accelerate growth. Now that we have the main verticals in place, we are evolving from multiple synergies between the assets to multiple customer benefits. So going forward, we will continue to focus on financial services, connectivity and advertising, but we are having a new vertical, which I am personally very excited about, which is an accessible [indiscernible] membership that is in ongoing need for our customers. And [ Betty ] will talk more about it. Marcelino and [ Betty ] [indiscernible] will talk about our detailed plans to be the ecosystem of choice. So these are the opportunities that we have to accelerate our growth. And it's not about the format. It's not about the [diverse in class]. It's not about the boundaries or [indiscernible] [walls]. What makes these opportunities to become even more powerful is that we are [indiscernible] our customers. We see that 6 million customers that shop daily at our stores in Mexico and in Central America as our tremendous strength. We see our 6 million daily customers giving us [indiscernible] growth of potential. So how can increase our growth potential by providing solutions for customers? You've heard us talk about [Andrea], our customer. Now we are moving her forward to have more opportunities, opportunities like BAIT [indiscernible] internet, phone services. By offering [Andrea] a reliable and affordable connectivity service, we are granting her access to the benefits of digital economy. We're helping her to save in one of her main expenses, which is telecommunications. And we will [indiscernible] her loyalty with free data, every time she shops with us. She shops more, she shops more, she shops more, she shops more. We create a cycle that builds traffic in our business, a cycle that builds growth. 18 months after we launched BAIT, we reached 1 point million users at the end of 2021. And today, we have almost 8 million total users 2.5 years later. Just as a reference for all of you, we took the most successful [indiscernible] in the U.K. about 12 years to reach the scale that weed achieve a couple of years, one of the largest [indiscernible] in Mexico took 4 years to reach 1 million users. In this way today, we are able to offer [indiscernible] not just a mobile phone [indiscernible]. Today, we can offer [Andrea] so many solutions and so many benefits. Let's imagine [Andrea's] journey, and we'll be able to witness some [indiscernible]. So Andrea to the nearest [indiscernible] to collect the remittances [indiscernible] rather collect the United States [indiscernible]. [Similarly], based on the Andrea's story [indiscernible] and notifications with a preapproved credit in Cashi. [indiscernible] Andrea gets so excited that she starts to look for a TV in the electronics department, so she can watch her favorite TV show. And finally, [Andrea] doesn't find exactly in the stores what she's looking for. So she browses through our marketplace on the kiosks that in the store, and then Andrea realizes that she can use her Cashi credit also to shop online and that she will get the TV delivered free directly to her house. Out of 10 customers, 10 don't have a car, so under the final [Indiscernible] TV [indiscernible] to add an external [indiscernible] protector first, and while [indiscernible] for the TV, Andrea founds out that she can get [indiscernible] internet in a streaming [indiscernible] for a very low cost. And this does not stop here given that [indiscernible] has enjoyed many of the benefits we offer. She receives another notification with a preapproved credit. This time for a new mobile phone with a preloaded by line. So she can upgrade the one she has. So the cycle grows bigger. The cycle grows stronger. The cycle accelerate our growth. So last year, we started to test the new benefit for [Andrea], a health membership. We're going to like to provide the second [families] with access to a trusted first contact healthcare ecosystem. We know there is a customer paying [indiscernible]. We know there is a market need. We know we have a unique position to solve that pain point. So we are going forward, we are leveraging our assets and using technology to provide a comprehensive solution for our customers. Last year, we started a pilot project to offer a low cost health membership by partnering with a third party. This membership [indiscernible] as low as MXN 30 per month, and we offer so many discounts and benefits, and you'll see this directly in the store. The pilot project about 300,000 customers got a membership in the [indiscernible]. Now we have rolled out to every store. [Beatrice] will tell you more about our future plans with these membership. These examples demonstrate how much potential we can unlock by making the customers our [central focus] by focusing on solutions, not only [problems], by opening doors for our customers that go beyond the retail. We know that to enable our growth potential, we need to invest. So what are the investments that we are making to accelerate growth? We are investing in four enablers mainly. One of the enablers is customer centricity and data. As I said earlier, customers are our biggest [indiscernible]. Last year, we established a customer office and we hired a chief customer officer, his name is [indiscernible], and you will get to know him later in [indiscernible]. Customers centricity [indiscernible] they are helping us to get to know customers better to data and analytics. They are helping us keep customers always the center of our decisions. Another one of the enablers is technology. The ecosystem we are creating is all about connections and solutions. And technology brings [indiscernible] so we are investing behind e-commerce platforms and other customer facing initiatives such as BAIT and Cashi. We are investing in analytics capabilities to get to know customers better, to adapt faster and to be more predictive. We are investing in automations to help associate the stores and distribution centers to look at jobs easier and with greater safety. Another one enabler is our supply chain. Our omnichannel business is backed by one of the most extensive supply chains in the country. In the last 8 years, we opened eight new distribution centers, added more than 300,000 square meters to our capacity. We modernized our last-mile operations with a crowdsourcing model exchanged points and delivery stations. And what I am most proud about is that we increased the supply chain and [indiscernible] by 700 bps compared 2021, reaching an all-time high. Going forward, we will continue to add capacity to reach even more customers. We will continue to organize to make distribution centers even more flexible. We will continue to transform our network to serve customers the way they want to be served. Another one of the enablers is to have the best talent. We are a people-based business. We know that the sales of our associates is the success of our company. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to prepare them for the future. We will continue to invest behind the associated value proposition. We will continue upskill and reskill associates to prepare them for no challenges. You may remember [indiscernible] you may remember watching them moving papers from one place to another. Now [indiscernible] we will continue to empower associates to make a difference for our customers because technology is nonsense, data is nonsense if associates are not empowered. So today, you've heard our results, strategy and the investments we intend to make. But in the future, we are mindful [indiscernible] our business, we need to deliver results. So how do we sustain momentum in this challenging environment? One of the ways in which we will sustain momentum is by keeping true to our every day low price philosophy. In 2022, when we started the inflation increases, we further reinforce [indiscernible] to help our customers to navigate through difficult times. We took our long-term view on pricing, and we have invested aggressively to expand our price gap. Customers appreciated it and rewarded us with their loyalty even when our market share gain was not so [big] -- larger, but inflation evolves throughout the year, we will continue to be there for customers, deliver low prices, delivering solutions to help them afford whatever they want to buy. Another way in which we will sustain momentum is by managing expenses with discipline and fostering an [indiscernible] mentality. We know the cost of doing business in Mexico has increased a lot in the recent years, and it will continue doing so. We know it is more challenging to sell [indiscernible] strategic comments. We are confident that we will be able to adjust while providing best-in-class return. [indiscernible] Pablo [indiscernible] we will work further to get expense rate down in a sustainable way. Today, you will see so many examples of what we are doing during your visits to the stores. Above all, the way in which we'll maintain momentum is by having the best talent, the [indiscernible]. Our executive committee has evolved as we implement our strategy. And I'm very proud about the diversity and experience of our staff. Let me introduce our leadership team, the team turning challenges into opportunities, the team that is converting our strategy into reality, the team that is providing solutions for customers, to accelerate our growth. Ignacio Caride [indiscernible] in my opinion, there are too many Argentinians [indiscernible] during the recent World Cup, they [indiscernible] supply chain [indiscernible] Central America; our Paulo, our CFO; Marcelino, in charge of financial services; Beatrice [indiscernible] the compliance and ethics [indiscernible] in charge of corporate affairs;[indiscernible] in charge of strategy [indiscernible] in charge of technology; and [ Thomas ] in charge of the customer's office. So we have shared our long-term vision in our 2023 priorities. So now let me talk about how we are creating value for our stakeholders in the long and the short term. As we look at the challenges that the growth faces today such as climate change, biodiversity losses and the world economic inequality, we appreciate the impact that we have [indiscernible] even though the size of the company entails great responsibility, it also means great opportunities to use our scale for good. To help customers, to help associates, to help communities and why not to help [the planet]. We have the ambition of becoming a truly regenerative company by 2040. To achieve so, we'll focus on four pillars: opportunity, sustainability, community and ethics and integrity. You'll be able to see the progress we achieved in 2022, and our plans for each one of these pillars in our annual report 2022 that will be available today. Yes. Going forward, we see becoming a regenerative company, not just as a promise, but as a commitment. We see our stores not just as the core of our business, [for capitalists and for new services] and we see our scale not just as leverage, but as an unmatched opportunity to deliver solutions, solutions that will drive exponential growth for our stakeholders, solutions that will address the pain points of our customers, solutions that would have customers in Mexico and Central America to live better lives. [indiscernible] I was mentioning [indiscernible] were going to talk about exponential opportunity. Now it's time for you to listen from her the plans to win in discount and be leaders in omnichannel. Thank you very much.

Good morning. Thank you for being here. Thanks for coming for today. Thank you for your interest in our company. It's great to see some familiar faces. That means that you're following us with attention. I'm Ignacio Caride, omnichannel CEO of Walmart Mexico. And with me, [ Dolores Fernandez ], CMO of Walmart Mexico. We are here together because we need an omni view of our customers, we need an omni view of the solutions. So in the presentation, you will see the alignment is powerful. And together, our teams are delivering meaningful solutions for our customers. As [we're] saying, the stores are the core of our strategy. The stores will be the core of our omnichannel [goods] delivery to our customers. The stores will be the core of customer service with more than 5 million daily customers visits. The stores will be the core of our health services. And so it will be the catalyst for our system. Our core business enable us to offer omni solutions. So today, Dolores and I, together, will share with you highlights, the proof that we are strengthening the core in our strategy. And together, we'll show you the priorities where we are focusing on to winning discount and [live] in omni. Our customers and the market are evolving very fast, and we have evolved with them into a truly omnichannel company. And now we're going beyond to be an ecosystem of choice. It is an ecosystem that starts with a strong store that serves as a point to convene for customers, an ecosystem that builds upon our brick and modern strength to offer a seamless omnichannel shopping experience. An ecosystem that goes beyond retail to accelerate growth. Becoming omnichannel was a great challenge, and it implied both decisions. But now we know it was the right call, and now we can leverage on what we have built to serve customers how, where and when they want to be served at the lowest price. As we transformed our company, we went through one of the most challenging times in our company. Remember, the pandemic also generated supply chain disruptions, at the same time, high and persistent inflation. This obviously generated rapid-changing customer habits, the way that they were buying and the type of products that they were buying. We took these challenges as an opportunity to be closer to our customers, as an opportunity to be true to our value proposition, as an opportunity to innovate and come out of this period, as an even stronger company. What highlights of the last year proved that we are on the right track to accelerate growth going forward, deal with [tells us] that we need to focus on what we can control, and that is exactly what we did last year. We knew our customers needed our help to cope with increasing prices. So we focus on developing initiatives to help them save money and afford a full basket. What were those initiatives? One of those initiatives was prices. We invested aggressively in prices, and expanded our price gap by more than 100 bps versus 2021, reaching historical levels at Bodega. Another one of the initiatives was our brands. We reinforced our brand offering, launching new items with great quality and price. Our brand share of sales increased 80 bps, and I want to highlight Sam's Club where their shares grew 260 bps. Members Mark is key to drive value to our Sam's members because they can find exclusive items as great prices. And that is one of the reasons that Sam's performance continues to be at very high levels. Another example is our brand value in which we have improved the NPS experience more than 300 bps. This proves that we are on the right track. Another one of the initiatives that we implemented was assortment. We start implementation of an optimum assortment supported by omni strategy. Let me give you a couple of examples of the things we did. During 2022, in Walmart Supercenter, we analyzed and reduced the number of SKUs, [indiscernible] reduces by 40%. With this change, we increased omni sales channels by 30%. Another example are TV screens. We reduced the number of items available at the store by 10%. We're adding 1,500 SKUs and extend assortment in the digital channel. And this strategy resulted in an increase of -- at 18% of sales outsourced and 45% increase in online sales. This combination of our different channels enable us to set the right product in the right channel while having efficiency at [sales floor], something key for our business. Another one of the initiatives was productivity and everyday low costs, [ELC]. We continued with the sale checkout rollout. Now more than 280 stores are enabled with this technology, including [6 base]. And we have more than 1,450 self-checkout stations. Currently, 40% of -- that we have implemented, 40% of transactions go through the self-checkout stations, 40%. Our strategy is growth strategy. Our stores are really evolving. We want to reach to even more customers, and we want to give them access to the best prices, access to local services and access to an ecosystem that offers benefits, so people in Mexico can live better. What were the investments that we made [indiscernible] the platform to accelerate our growth going forward? One of the investments was new stores. We opened 108 stores in our 4 formats, 6 of which integrates regenerative initiatives to give impact in our community and environment, bringing our value proposition to 17 places where we didn't have presence before. The stores are now focused access points to low prices, to connectivity, to financial services and to new and exciting opportunities. Another one of the investments was on-demand. We expanded especially in bodega, our online offering, by increasing the number of stores with on-demand services now to 1,000 stores offering the service. These services are delivering 95% of on-demand orders in 24 hours or less, powered by our outsourcing model that is now present in 366 stores. Today, more than 30% of on-demand sales are done by our program Walmart Pass users who have a frequency of 3.3x comparing to the users that are nonusers that are [indiscernible] in 2x a month. We've built an on-demand business that is scalable, sustainable and profitable by leveraging our unique positioning with all our assets and all our capacities. Another one of the investments was in assortment. During 2022, we invested in technology. One of the main technology initiatives was implementation of [Walmart] fulfillment services [WFS], which enabled us to deliver our top sellers products more efficiently to customers. In 2022, we duplicated our sales base, and we increased the number of SKUs by 72%, resulting in a 28% growth. Another one of the investments was talent. We continue to invest behind our associates' value proposition. So Walmart can be that place where associates can be -- grow and belong. Our actions improved our commitment relation of the associates improved by 600 bps. For example, one of the main initiatives was to reinforce our associates' benefits through extended maternity, for example, from 3 to 5 months. Our strategy is now resonating with customers, and they are rewarding us with the loyalty, enhancing our customer value proposition, offering the lowest prices, offering solutions to our customers' main pain points. We now were able to gain market share for the ninth consecutive year and to increase our omnichannel NPS once more.

Thanks, Ignacio. That was great. The key of our success has been the implementation of these end-to-end initiatives with an omnichannel vision that strengthens the core of our business. Ignacio just shared with you the initiatives and achievements that we implemented to winning discount. Let me tell you now what are the initiatives that will strengthen our business -- in our business in winning discounts [here]. One of those initiatives is continuing to reinforce everyday low prices. Showing consistency and stability in prices through simple communication, we generate trust with our customers. Additional to stability, we look for the -- [our brands in 2022] we had historic results, as we just saw. This 2023, we're going to keep investing. We'll look to create value for our customers. It is a perfect combination between quality and price. Another one of the initiatives is our brands. As we just shared last year, our ambition is to double share of sales by 2026. During this 2022, we have a huge acceleration paving the way to this ambition. What are we going to focus now in this 2023 to accelerate this? First, we will continue implementing our product and brand strategy to drive brand awareness. Second, we will reinforce our quality. Thanks to the provision in all the products of our assortment [technical] specifications and quality that we adjusted in this 2022. Third, we will continue developing innovation and differentiation. During this 2023, we will release more than 650 SKUs of our brands. And lastly, we will continue developing strategic relationships with vendors to ensure capacity and availability dedicated to ambition that we have through 2026. Let me tell you a little story connected to our I Brands. The last time I [indiscernible] bodega, I found a customer with our shopping cart full of our items, also impressed why only products of our brands. And I ask her why she was just buying products of our brands. And she said, these items are good. I really trust in their quality, and the prices are lower. So I can afford to buy some treats for my kids. That's what the customer said to me. That's the power of our brands. Finding these kind of stories on each of our stores confirms that our actions are aligned to our proposed -- to save money to people so they can live better. Another one of these initiatives to win a discount is Fresh. We talked about Fresh before. It is [traffic] generation area for loyalty and price perception. Therefore, investing in Fresh is a priority. We are focusing on three main points for this. First, quality. Again, we will guarantee best quality aligned to the CVP of each format. We increased the criteria in process and specifications. Secondly, we will strengthen our omnichannel process to improve the end-to-end customer journey. We have a unique competitive advantage to deliver quality and freshness with the speed depending on our customers' needs. We have a solid structure, logistics and also powered by suppliers that are strategic to deliver a best-in-class experience to -- that our customers can afford. Third one is productivity. We'll accelerate implementation of a similar operating model by centralizing processes in bakery, meat and seafood. The last initiative to win discount is our end-to-end productivity, as we were mentioning at the beginning. This will lead us to keep investing in low prices for our customers. We have mentioned that our stores are the core of our business. And together, we will continue to [indiscernible] them through what? First, investment on innovation and automation to offer a seamless experience for our associates and customers. We are going to see some of these examples at the stores when we made a visit. Today, for example, the RFID or radio frequency that will reduce inventory times or the robot for fast speaking. Also, we will continue to reinforce productivity at stores inventory base management through an optimal omni assortment, as Ignacio was saying. And finally, process simplification. You will see some examples at stores like simplification in signing, reducing the required time in the desk so our associates can have more time to serve our customers at sales floors. These are all the initiatives that will take you to a different place and win in discount. Now what are we doing to strengthen again our leadership in omni? It's amazing to see everything that we have achieved in terms of omnichannel, but it's even more encouraging to see, as we were mentioning at the beginning, the great potential going forward. As Gui said, we are recruiting new digital customers at our stores, and they deserve the best omni experience. One of the initiatives to continue leading in terms of growth versus the market in this omni strategy is the categories. This is our new way of working to really create an omni business with the best assortment available for our customers wherever and whenever they decide to purchase. We'll view that processes to [infuse] customer centricity and to foster an end-to-end [indiscernible], in order to have an integral commercial offering and not satisfying any silos by channel. With this strategy, we are also building efficiency in our sales floor by reducing SKUs while strengthening e-commerce [indiscernible]. This way of working [indiscernible] and the evolution of our missions with new capabilities and skills to lead an omnichannel business. Another initiative to win on our customers' preference and accelerate growth is the evolution and acceleration of our business models on-demand and in the assortment. If we talk about on-demand, the initiatives that we have to strengthen this business are, first, to consolidate Walmart Pass in Walmart and Walmart Express, rewarding our more loyal customers, providing them some special benefits like free delivery or early access to events. Second, we will continue accelerating the implementation of the [indiscernible]. We already mentioned the great benefits and how we're going to accelerate that in 2022. 2023, we're going to enable greater service to customers in Bodega, and we're going to invest in productivity in our stores to increase our capabilities, duplicating orders and growing sales at high double digit. We need the potential we have in on-demand with Fresh, as which is mentioned. We have the ambition to lead the experience -- the industry that we offer to our customers. We will improve internal processes and ensure freshness of these items to the door of customers. With the specialization of our pickers, we will offer -- delivering a best-in-class experience. In terms of online payments, we will enable this capability for Bodega, and we will fully integrate our Cashi vertical to all our omnibusiness experience to help customers to shop online and enjoy the benefits of being part of the ecosystem. And lastly, to accelerate the external assortment, we will accelerate our marketplace, and we will keep investing in technology to create a seamless experience for our customers. We will accelerate our marketplace, duplicating again the number of sellers. Ignacio was saying that we duplicated them into 2022. 2023, we will duplicate that number of sellers again to create a superior assortment. We will also expand through cross-border, having more than 600 international vendors. We'll continue with the tech stack modernization. For example, during 2023, we will finish the implementation of our platform, Walmart [ Glass ]. This will allow us to improve the user experience and look for capabilities that we have. Lastly, to reinforce our omni shopping experience, we will leverage our core business, and our ecosystem will provide full solutions. We need to provide the best service. We will continue enhancing our e-commerce operation, focusing on delivery times, NPS and assortment. And we will personalize our omnichannel shopping experience through an ecosystem that is convenient and low cost. We are committed to continue investing in talent, technology and our supply chain. We are committed to accelerate our external assortment growth. We are committed to serve our customers with the best service in [a transparent] and omnichannel way. The core of our business in our stores, they are going to be a catalyst for growth. And together, we will build the best ecosystem for our customers.

Thank you, Dolores. And enhancing our omnichannel operations is a key priority for us because our stores are the main entry point to our ecosystem. We have sourced [10-minutes away] of almost 90% of the population in the main cities. Our reach is a big competitive advantage that allows us to come closer to our customers. You heard Dolores about our plan. We're working together, and we are committed to all our initiatives to strengthen our core business and accelerate our growth. Our plan to win is ambitious, but stores are the core of our omnichannel business. So we can offer customers thousands of affordable products. We can offer delivery options like pick up or we can help customers to become digital through our kiosks. We can offer additional great alternatives depending on the different customer needs. And we can offer customers end-to-end solutions. So it will be catalysts for our ecosystem. And together, we will deliver meaningful solutions to let us to the full potential and accelerate our growth. We have an omnichannel view. And together, we can create a powerful future. Now I'll leave you to -- with Beatriz and Marcelino who will talk about our plans to become the ecosystem of choice. Thank you very much.

So good morning. I'm Beatriz Núñez, leader of [indiscernible]. As Gui already mentioned, we are working to become the ecosystem of choice. We are accelerating [indiscernible] mutually reinforcing benefit for our customers to live better. As we know, the core of our business is the stores. As Gui mentioned, we evolved to provide access to products in the shelves to provide access to services in the ecosystem. Every day, 5 million customers come to our stores and visit the e-commerce sites that is why they are still our catalyst for growth. And together, with the solutions provided by each vertical, we are building the ecosystem of choice for our customers. Our ecosystem is driven by our customers' needs. So we focus on them to create solutions that solves those needs through interconnected and reinforcing benefits that deliver exponential business opportunities. This journey reflects how our customers can discover our ecosystem verticals, and each of them will service an entry point providing our customers a seamless access to all the benefits, the products and the services that we provide and you will see in our stores visit later. In 2022, our ecosystem verticals delivered solid results, and we are confident on their growth potential. Let's begin walking about BAIT's growth, our MBNO connectivity vertical. [You previously] heard that the Mexico connectivity represents a basic need in finally [suspending] that continues to grow. More than 30% of Mexican families don't have access to connectivity at home. With BAIT, we keep reinforcing our customer value proposition by delivering the best connectivity at the best price and rewarding our customers with data for their purchases to help them live better. In less than 2 years, BAIT has achieved, as Gui mentioned, over 5.6 million active users and almost 7.8 million total users. We are providing connectivity solutions beyond price, including mobile phones, credit solutions, home and portable connectivity, even reinforcing benefits with the rest of our ecosystem verticals. Again, this is a virtuous circle that builds traffic and growth. In 2023, BAIT will continue to post accelerated growth. Our ecosystem is not only about B2C, but also B2B. And another example of 2022 great results in Walmart Connect, our retail advertising and media business. We are driving advertiser sales. At the same time, we improved our customers' experience by communicating product benefits and giving them the opportunity to get more value for their money. We have established relevant alliances with our commercial partners, while helping brands connect with our customers more often and more meaningfully in an omni-channel way. In 2022, we double the brands we'll work with. In 2022 about 400 big companies trusted us and ran more than 4,500 omni-channel companions. We are offering Walmart Connect services to our marketplace sellers, which has a high growth potential and is boosted by our marketplace acceleration, as Ignacio and Dolores said before. Our results have been driven by innovation, technology and high business margins. We are leveraging on the most advanced and ad tech in data solutions like market server sponsored search and our recent launch DSP, Demand Side Platform. We are evolving Plus to digital cycle of stores. We have an advertising business of more than MXN 2 billion with high margins. So Walmart Connect already is one of the biggest media companies in Mexico and growing faster than most of them. In 2023, Walmart Connect will continue to be a profit driver and enabler for sustainable growth. As Gui has mentioned, I'd like to talk about our health solution and how we are building it. It always starts with understanding our customers' needs and these are our main findings. Currently in Mexico, more than 25 million persons have a chronic condition and the population continues to age for 10 million people are diagnosed with diabetes and diabetes is the second cause of the -- in our country. Despite 93% of our population has access to public health services, unfortunately, Mexico has one of the lowest investment in public health. Finally, 85% of our population cannot consider receiving care in the private sector because of the cost. We've listened to our customers' needs and decided to launch our health membership that leverages our stores, almost 1,500 pharmacies and 500 doctors offices for only MXP 30 a month; our customers are able to access unlimited remote medical service; 24/7 nutrition services; psychology services; ambulance in case of emergency; discounts on the specialists; and last but not the least, a 5% discount at our pharmacies and get consultation at our doctors offices. We're looking to fulfill the ambition of providing access to reliable primary health solutions at the best price by leveraging our omni-channel infrastructure and proximity to our customers. In 2022, we deliver access to health solutions to more than 1 million patients excluding pharmacy customers. In 2023, we'd like to develop health as a strong vertical. It is still in very early stages but we know how relevant it is for our customers. And this is just starting. Now Marce will tell us about the opportunities we are unlocking in terms of financial services in our ecosystem.

Good morning. My name is Marcelino Herrera. You know me as Marce. I'm very pleased to be here with all of you and I'd like to talk about financial services. I recently joined Walmart and I'm very excited with the opportunity of contributing to the development of this very relevant piece of our ecosystem. Let me start reconfirming our priorities in financial services. As we said last year in consistent with our strategy, we'll focus on 3 pillars to drive our ambition. First of all, Cashi, our digital wallet, and we've heard about it during the presentation. Second, remittances and third, credit solutions. During 2022, we've learned from the business we have the right talent and partners, so we are ready to grow. Despite many players participating in the financial services landscape, we continue to see pain points that we can solve for our customers. The most important one, providing access to the digital economy, which translates into further opportunities to participate in other solutions within financial services. Only 54 million adults have access to financial products representing average 65% of total adult population. Many of them are already customers and only half of adults with financial products have a formal access to credit. Additionally, 11 million people receive remittances mostly in cash, reaching 5 million households. Remittances are one of the main sources of income in the country. So what are we doing to reduce those pain points? In Cashi, we focused on enhancing the product value proposition. For remittances, the focus was increasing our collection points into simplified processes. On the other hand, in credit, we enhanced the multiproduct offering so more customers can have access. Now let me deep dive in each of these pillars. Our ambition is for Cashi to be the wallet of the customers where our customers have other financial products, just like a physical wallet. During last year, we focused on working on the new look and feel on the app, enabling it as a payment method for e-commerce, giving access for the first time to our unbanked customers to commercial events, promotions like the Fin Irresistible. Before, our customers needed a credit card to access to these promotions. So we are building a stronger integration. We're simplifying the user experience. And as Gui already mentioned, we're so happy to have received the approval just today to purchase an institution -- a financial institution. So we're so happy with this because with this, we'll be able to offer customers the option to open a digital account that they can cash their remittances on a digital basis within the app and so many more functionalities that will be created. They'll manage their money through the Walmex network to receive and send more money or withdraw it. This is subject, of course, to last arrangements and hopefully, we'll close the transaction in the upcoming weeks. But again, we're so happy to have a financial institution for electronic payments to offer more benefits and services to customers. Now let me move to the second pillar, remittances, as pointed before. Remittances are the largest currency inflow in the country. This money inflow plays a very important role for price-sensitive families in Mexico and Central America. During 2022, we focused on enabling to key elements enabling service at all points of sales in stores, so we can leverage our physical footprint and standardizing collection processes and services. So we can provide a compelling experience to our customers. What are we working on? Enabling Cashi as a collection method for remittances, so we can incorporate some of these resources into the digital economy. Now in the use of remittances as a payment method in the thousands point of sales at our stores and continuing to improve the Walmart-to-Walmart experience, which we see as a huge opportunity to grow our share, leveraging on the Walmart scale across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Finally, the third pillar, credit solutions. Credit is a very important element of our financial services offering, given the limited credit alternatives that our customers have to afford buying discretionary or high-ticket items. So our solution is focused on connecting customers to lenders by building a multi-offer platform that improves access to more competitive credit, leveraging customer knowledge reinforced throughout the data of our ecosystem. We continue at an early stage of development. However, during 2022, we enabled almost 500,000 credit throughout the different solutions. So what are we working on? Strengthening our lender base to increase our marketplace, offering customers more competitive alternatives based on the risk profile, leveraging on the different connection points we have with our customers. So we can develop a Walmart customer data model that will provide more information to the lenders so we can assist customers to build a more robust credit profile, and that's important to reduce risk and improve approval rates when it comes to credit. Finally, simplifying communication and execution of the stores would like customers to know that in a Walmart format, they are able to find credit solutions and can access them in a few minutes. These 3 pillars are just a part of the overall Walmart ecosystem. Its value is in hands by the connection within all the verticals that Betty mentioned just a moment ago. We're building solutions to provide access to the millions of customers we serve. That access unlocks a huge potential in terms of experience to the customer valuation. In summary, our main goal is to become the best financial services app in Mexico, we will continue to leverage our core assets, and we will maintain our focus 3 pillars to drive growth. I'd like to finish by saying I'm very honored in being part of the exciting opportunity we have ahead of us. Thank you for your attention. Now I leave you with Betty, who will finish our presentation.

Thank you very much, Marce. Now you can see that the real power is in the connections. In 2023, our ecosystem will continue to evolve. We have set ambitious goals for the year. We're now leveraging the core of the business, reinforcing our vertical benefits and delivering value to customers will help us to achieve the goal. We will keep you posted on the progress we make in every milestone we accomplish. As always, we will be very disciplined and will be guided by our agile way of working will launch MVPs, will iterate and improve to provide the service our customers need, want and deserve. As a Mexican, I'm very proud of the opportunities that Walmex is providing to Mexican families and the impact that we can deliver as well as in Central America. So thank you very much for being here today. It was great seeing you all in person and being able to tell you such great news about our ecosystem.

Now let's talk about Central America, and there are 2 things before I go to pass the floor to Flavio Cotini, our CEO. There are a couple of things that I want to talk about. The first one is the strategy. It's the same for Central America and Mexico. The only difference is timing. In Central America, we need to make first the job on putting our stores where they have to be fixing gross margin. We are facing prices. We have a very gross margin that's very high with a price differentiation that is very high with a very high cost. Flavio and his team made a great effort during this last years to fix this. Now the stores are totally -- I say stores, but I mean you can call business. They have progressed enough that we already started with omni. And now, Flavio will accelerate this a little bit more according to the conditions of the market is demanding in order to move the business in the stores to omni-channel and ecosystems. So we will start with a couple of things that Flavio will explain to you. I will not get rushed with that, but the strategy is the same one in Central America. The second thing that was in the plan but given the questions that you can have. I know that we have a network of espionage and I think during the lunch time, there was a lot of questions and tough questions and I think it's me to answer. And so bigger question is when you're going to sell Central America. I want to clarify that and we can save some time for those questions. What we say is that we see great potential in Central America. And we want to look for solutions, alternatives that will help us to achieve this potential. Because with everything that we're doing today with omni ecosystem, I think we have more in our plate for what we can do. What's happening is so far, we haven't find a choice that can be better than us. And that made your business that you saw the results in Central America. Last year, they were amazing. So the answer is we're always looking for strategic alternatives that allow us to have a higher return to you. We are looking for partners in ecosystem. We're looking for solutions where we want to -- we are not focused enough or never. So we're always going to keep looking at but we're never going to stop doing things that can create a benefit for all of you. Well, so far, we haven't found any alternative for this strategy that we can manage the business with Flavio and the team. Flavio questions but you will see why. So without further ado, Flavio, where are you?

I've been with the team for 35 years. I think he knows more than to me. Thank you, Gui, and good afternoon. I am Flavio Cotini, CEO of Walmart Central America. Today, I will share Central Americas results and some of the key initiatives that allowed us to achieve these results as well as an overview of our strategy moving forward. In 2022, we served more than 387 million transactions, 5% more than in 2021. Every day and every hour and every second, we are focused on serving our customers. Over 1 million customers per day will visit that we are selling in Central America. Thanks to that, we improved results. And I can say it with a lot of humbleness, we developed resource. We improved our share of market. This metric that is very important because it shows that the customer that we keep having the preference of our customers and loyalty, the self-service share has improved by 80 bps, while our total share of market increased by 50 basis points versus last year. Our revenue has increased by 14%, while operating income increased by 50 basis points in 1 year, a very strong progress. Now I would like to talk about some of the things that we are doing to keep earning our customers' preference. Central America, 74% of people are local consumers and 60% of them, their budget is spent on groceries and other basic needs. That's why we are serving customers in a better way through our Win in Discount initiative. It's our DNA. For Discount and Bodega, we focused on price gap and price perception in an assortment for price seekers and customers on tight budget, mostly in some challenging times as we are experiencing today by the inflation last year. We also increased our share of our brands -- of our private brand by 200 bps versus last year. Because the necessity of our customers during this high inflation period has led us to look for options for even lower price alternatives that can fit to the customers in their pocket. I'll give you one example that's quite interesting. One of our VPs went to a gas station to fill up his tank to a gas station and the person who was serving him, he said, sir, you're going to have Suli gas? Suli is one of our brands. I said, why Suli gas? Because it's one of our private brands. It's affordable, it's cheap. And [indiscernible] for that because we reconfirm that Suli is positioned as a reference -- as a low price and quality reference in the market, but even beyond our stores. I would like you to take a look at in some past weeks, we found a video in social media that reflects this a little bit. So please take a look. [Presentation]

It's our own organic video. It was not sponsored by us. It went viral and has more than 35,000 views. Probably the guy is probably monetizing the video already. But this is a demonstration of the strength of our value proposition of how our brands like Suli are helping customers to save money and live better. Another action was to continue increasing the proximity to our customers. In 2022, we opened 18 new stores, from which 13 discounts and 5 bodegas. We expanded our store count in the specific locations where we can keep helping people to save money. For supermarkets, we focused on quality, price is very good for fresh quality and price that is on the table as creating a differentiated assortment which the customers need. For supercenters, we have created [ walls ], which is a special assortment, including family sizes for those customers looking to optimize their shopping trip, their journey, and some examples can be pet, babies, sports, beauty, and this has helped us in all the value proposition. Also simplifying communication and signage in all our formats, optimizing price gap and perception for prices, something very important we did. As Gui mentioned before, our strategy in Central America is similar, identical to the one in Mexico but in a different stage of maturity. These past years, we focused on consolidating our stores, and now we are ready to move forward in larger steps with the omni-channel and ecosystem. In Central America, over 60% of the population already has access to Internet by the smartphones, by which is why we are setting the basis for omni-channel and the ecosystem. Our goal is to serve customers when and where they need it, which is why we launched same-day deliveries. We focused on expanding our assortment in 2022. Our online assortment has been supplied. And now it has the same size to our in-store catalog. As a consequence, the NPS, the preference of our customers, increased 400 bps versus last year while we work hard to create an omni-channel seamless experience. Only 42% of Central America's population have access to financial services in a region where the main or the prevailing payment method is cash. Remittances represent 15% of the gross domestic product of the region. That's very important. That's why we have enabled 100% of our stores with remittances collection platforms, which is the baseline for the future that we have forward. Question, but how do we create the resources to keep investing in a better customer experience for our customers? Our simplification agenda aims to reduce complexity and friction for our customers and associates. Furthermore, it allows us to invest in delivering the price assortment and experience for our customers. Some examples of these initiatives in 2022. We have doubled the number of stores with self-scan and self-checkout, now representing 60% of our stores. We also digitalized store process to reduce paperwork, make our associates' lives easier, more agile and just more interesting. With an end-to-end approach, we increased assortment availability to 96%, improving store productivities by 3.5% and our supply chain was increased 10% from 121 to 133 cases per hour was a very significant progress. Now I'd like to share with you how we will continue to accelerate growth and drive omni-channel and ecosystem. Clearly, we have 3 strategic priorities, very similar to what Gui has mentioned before. First, Win in Discount. We want to serve our customers better by using our network of more than 800 stores in Central America. We will continue to reinforce our customer value proposition by putting our customers in the center of everything we do so that we can continue earning the trust, preference, loyalty and this will be translated into accelerated growth. We will be becoming an omni-channel operation, wider, improving technology and operations in all our platforms with the goal of improving customer experiences. We also have an opportunity to deliver greater value through our ecosystem, and we see financial services as a starting point and we're going to keep reducing frictions, simplifying for both customers and associates while also creating the necessary resources to keep investing in better experiences for them. Finally, I would like to close with the following messages. Every year, every day, every hour, every second, we serve 387 in Central America. It's 1 million customers by day that we serve in Central America. We will continue to be committed to earn its loyalty -- their loyalty, their preference, and we will keep being a source of growth and profitability for Walmex. And we'll continue creating value to all our stakeholders through the implementation of our strategy. Thank you very much. I will leave you with Paulo.

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I think we still have 15 minutes to 20 before we get to Q&A session. Maybe you can raise our hand. I hope you enjoyed the day so far. As you have heard today about our Walmart strategy and our mission, about how we are transforming [indiscernible] that needs to a company system is now omni driven ecosystem centered and driven by our customers. You heard us talk about 3 strategies priorities: Win in Discount, Lead in Omni, and be the ecosystem of choice. You also heard about investments we are doing to build the capabilities to win in the future. Today, you visited 3 stores, experiencing firsthand the implementation of our strategy. I hope you liked it and also the operational excellence at the sales floor. I hope you agree with me in that. And now I will talk about how all these translates into accelerated growth and value creation. Our company will continue to provide full solutions to our customers supported by our financial discipline and operational excellence. We have been leveraging the assets that we have and building the enablers we need. We'll get into detail for that. But we deliver strong results and keeping what we always call best-in-class returns to our shareholders. In 2022, we experienced high levels of inflation and macroeconomic challenging environment. However, we managed to achieve results that prove we are delivering accelerated and profitable growth in this environment. My colleagues talked about some of these results. Let me highlight some of them. One of the results I wanted to talk about was growth. Last year, we delivered 11.3% total revenue growth, driven by a double-digit same-store sales growth in both Mexico and Central America, which is going pretty good. You heard Gui talk about this. Another one of the results is profitability. So we generated an EBITDA of MXP 87.360 million [indiscernible] the one that was taking care of you about the returns. Last year, we increased the [indiscernible] per annual share around 11%. We delivered initial MXN 29.6 billion as dividends. Notably, I would like to leave this clear, we always talk about that we achieved a ROIC of 20.2% whilst reaching a historic price gap and investing behind our strategic proprieties. That's what we do what you're seeing, high ROIC and looking for providing this high returns. For 2023, we know that we'll keep facing challenges and that the microeconomic environment will be challenging. It will create some concerns in the environment. But we will focus in executing our strategy that with the correct talent, we hope it will help us to win in the future. Maybe I can talk about the results of our ecosystem. Leveraging our assets by investing in the capabilities we need, building connections that you saw, getting to know our customers better because everything results from the pain points of our customers, we will be to provide full solutions to our customers. Last year, we delivered sustainable growth across our ecosystem. Our verticals are in different stages of development of growth. Some of them are more developed, some of them not so much, they will keep evolving at different speeds. That's assuming we can expect our work is to connect to those verticals. Now I would like to elaborate on Walmart Connect. Currently at stores, you saw the campaigns that we're doing with Walmart Connect. This vertical is our main focus on monetization. We can say that Walmart Connect is small versus what it can become, but it's big enough to mark a difference in our P&L. Walmart Connect actually is a great example of the synergy we can create in our ecosystem. It leverages our biggest asset in this case now in Mexico, 5 million customers every day that we serve at our stores in Mexico, plus the visits that we have in our e-commerce sites. And actually, helping our associates to create connections that can be relevant significant with our customers, we can reinvest our assets and really create an additional source of profile and our income having very high margins. With this revenue, we can reinvest in our ecosystem, in our strategy that we have already shown. What for? To keep accelerating growth and creating value. Moving forward, we see unlimited potential, leveraging ad-tech tools and increasing the weight of digital advertising. There's a lot of space to grow and the mix of monetization that we're going to have in Walmart Connect will be changing. As my colleagues mentioned, we do have the capabilities and reach to accelerate growth. We have a unique position to build our ecosystem, to take our business beyond retail. As you can see, a lot of reasons why we are leveraging this, why we are leveraging at the end of the day, leveraging our stores, leveraging our supply chain, leveraging our brands. And with this, we'll be able to provide full solution to our 6 million daily customers in Mexico and Central America and to continue solving their pain points and accelerate growth and value, which is what we aim at the end of the day as a consequence. To reinforce our competitive advantages even further, we need to continue investing in capabilities and enablers. So one of the investments we need to do is we continue implementing our strategy and accelerate sustainable growth. Let's give you a slide I think you were all expecting. Let me explain a little bit more. In 2023, we'll invest MXN 27.1 billion in Mexico and Central America, of which 45% will be invested in remodeling our existing source, implementing new capabilities to offer the best shopping experience to our customers, and reaching our goal of becoming a regenerative company by 2040. 29% will be invested into new stores so we can get to newer customers. There's still many white space available. Bodega will continue to be our main expansion vehicle. We expect new stores will contribute between 1.2% and 1.4% of total sales growth consolidated in 2023. 14% as well of our CapEx will go to technology. Technology is about unlocking capabilities. It's about powering the present and enabling the future. And we will do it and always what we're going to do is leveraging Walmart technology to increase automization, productivity and data management which will drive our complete ecosystem. Lastly, 12% will go to supply chain. Not to say this, we're going to have the opportunity to talk about this topic in the panel, is becoming omni-channel. Therefore, we can provide service to our stores and customers and does offer a truly omni-channel experience and totally seamless. Now, probably you're making the question that was coming, despite the investments in CapEx, what's going to happen with our dividend? What we want to do is that even by the CapEx investment and given our solid generation of cash, we expect the dividends can remain inside the historic levels we've been doing. Just to make it clear, we'll continue enhancing our enablers and reinforcing our competitive advantages that I have talked about and mostly, the capabilities to build the Walmex of the future. But the truth is that if we want to invest, we have to [indiscernible] and to invest in our strategy, we have to continue [indiscernible] and searching for efficiency. And again, how are we going to increase our productivity to invest in our strategy? Yes, we already talked a couple of times with some examples, you saw a couple of examples at stores, so let me give you some 2 or 3 examples. One of the initiatives we implemented to drive savings was Smart Spending program. So far, we have saved more than MXN 2.5 billion since the program started and it will continue to bring savings in the future. Another one of the initiatives we are implementing are the self-checkout stations. As Ignacio mentioned, we have 1,450 self-checkout stations that manage 40% of the transactions at those stores. Another one of the initiatives we implemented at stores is a program called We are People in Evolution. This project, we changed how we'll manage the human resources in the stores. Before, we used to have up to 2 associates per stores that manage all personnel processes. Now, with the integration of technology, changes in certain processes and self management, one associate can oversee up to 5 stores and can provide a better service at the same time, productivity, efficiency of service. With the challenging environment we are facing as you all know, it is important that we continue to develop and implement productivity and saving initiatives. Low cost every day, as you know, that's part of our DNA. So what are the results that prove our strategy is moving our company in the right direction? First of all, our strategy is a long-term strategy. We want to make sure that we deliver results in the short term but more importantly, we want our company to create value in the long term to give our shareholders the confidence that our business will be sustainable in the future. In order to achieve our goal of doubling our business in 10 years, as Gui mentioned, in the past, we have been investing in high-return projects, with that we have obtained the ROIC, a high-class or best-in-class ROIC that has expanded 550 bps in 8 years. We have also been able to consistently generate enough cash to self-fund investments. The truth is that in Walmex, our financial strength allows us to do both, on the one hand, to invest in the company of the future and to deliver a strong return to our shareholders. Now I would like to talk about our ambition. Our ambition is to continue to accelerate growth and create value for the future. Our focus will remain in enhancing our core business and provide a relevant and full comprehensive solutions to our customers. We expect to double our business in less than 10 years, accelerating versus our previous commitment. We want to do it [indiscernible] but at the same time, we expect to increase our ROIC from our already best-in-class levels after the investment everyone are going through. How are we going to do this? It will depend on the timing of the investments as we are committed to increasing and creating value for our stakeholders. Now, let me say how our ecosystem will accelerate growth and value creation. [indiscernible] the stores today, we are creating a unique ecosystem where every vertical complements our customer value proposition for the customer and enables the possibilities to expand our share of wallet and with that to accelerate growth. Today, this morning, you have the opportunity to visit our stores. And you saw our stores are a point of access to our ecosystem. The stores are already a point of access to our ecosystem. Now our customers are able to find solutions and benefits to many of their main pain points. [ Andrea ], having access to lowest prices including a wide range of our brands. You've seen Andrea in Bodega having access to the digital economy, shopping BAIT connectivity and paying with Cashi. You've seen Maria benefiting from our easy and fast omni-channel experience with the self-checkout and on-demand express delivery stations. You saw Lucy creating a connection with the advertiser's campaigns, helping her shopping experience and enabling funds we can reinvest elsewhere. So I want you to understand today is the reasons we have kiosks for our omni-channel business, the reason we have BAIT and provide connectivity, the reason we have Cashi and provide a digital wallet, the reason we have Walmart Health, all that is because the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts, by connecting our verticals, by that we are creating a halo effect that multiplies value creation. What I want you to understand is in the past, every time you invest in Walmex, you are investing in a top e-commerce player in Mexico, with ambition. And again, every time you invest in Walmex, you are investing in one of the top players, every time you're investing in Walmex, you are investing in one of the largest telecom players in Mexico, and any time you're investing in Walmex, you're investing in advertising company with unlimited potential to accelerate growth and to create value. What I want you to understand is that Walmex will continue to generate value to our stakeholders and above all, will continue to create value for the Mexican and Central America families. And in order to finish, I would like to leave you with 3 main takeaways. One, our ecosystem will generate mutually reinforcing benefits for our customers. Number two, we are not just creating new businesses, but we are creating the ecosystem where the whole is bigger and more valuable than the sum of the parts. And the third takeaway is a message that we will continue to accelerate growth in the best-in-class returns as you always asked us. We will maintain our financial discipline, operational discipline and value creation. So thank you very much for your interest.

Just 2 quick ones here. On BAIT, my question is when you launch these projects, we're expecting the success that you have had on this project and now that the bar has been raised, what should we expect for BAIT in the future? I mean just looking here a track for a sell $300 per subscriber such as a valuation of nearly MXP 1 billion for you guys and BAIT. So just curious to your thoughts about that. And the other one would be on CapEx. I was talking to one of my colleagues, below our number here, so MXP 27 billion. Curious what was the driver like smart investing or cautious about 2023? Can you comment about that will be helpful.

I don't get the question.

On the CapEx, yes. I mean what drove the -- I mean 4% versus 3% looks like it was a bit lower than what the market consensus was expecting for 2023.

Got it. Let me start. The first one, I think there were 3 persons who believed in BAIT, this lady, Alberto and myself. But we are a team. We are a team. We engage a lot. We debate a lot. And I'm going to tell you, sorry, one person said, okay, go ahead with the project but let's continue with this conversation that BAIT started. Well, I don't think that not -- I mean, it's a natural thing for us to expect success from BAIT because the cost was 1/3 of what was available in the market. But at that moment, there was uncertainty and the uncertainty, for example, is what about the provider, but provider, dependent or the vendor of the service that's backing up a BAIT needed us right in order to survive.

The truth is that, as you said, the bar is high month after month as we see customers responding today, we not only have organic channels of acquisition, but inorganic. We have a network of distributors that sell BAIT in the clubs, outside of the clubs. So the answer, well, it's always exceeding our expectations with BAIT, the bar is very high. We have to protect the business. We're very disciplined when it comes to variables [indiscernible] frequency of top-ups and these are measures we look at every day because we want to have a sustainable long-term business. We need customers that will bring us more to the ecosystem.

More on the potential of BAIT last year. And remember that I don't think we have enough microphones, but anyway other than the store as a point for recruiting customers, we have the vendors as something that others don't have and vendors help us grow our vertical. So when we started this, vendors could come to me and they would tell me, look, I invested in BAIT and in Cashi, and they could tell me that as a token of loyalty, but I could tell them, no, I don't want you to do that and they could tell them. What's the connection between Nestle and remittances? Nothing. There is no connecting point, but we know that persons who has remittances in a given point well us spend 10% of remittances shopping. So that's exactly what's happening with us. So food vendors are interested in us growing the remittances business because they have in mind is the other, they will be able to sell more food and if we can then connect with Cashi, they will have more data. So [indiscernible] started with the low risk, with workshops explaining the vendors, the verticals and the results are given in the investments. And let me give you some information, but please correct me if I'm mistaken, Nestle did a promotion with BAIT last year, instead of giving away something to customer, when shopping Nestle, I think it was MXN 90, if they booked MXN 90 of Nestle products, they could get a week free of Internet service. And on the other hand, we launched a promotion, and we had a very successful campaign. So we are -- we would be asking customers to give their information and exchange of free gift. Nestle did the same. They started promoting free BAIT service with a big price of MXN 10,000. Well, my point is we have the store and vendors, and they help us grow the verticals at the lowest possible cost. So this is total. Let's talk about CapEx. Yes. So first of all, let me split the answer. Since 2022, we have been investing in the CapEx. And we've read the sense in some projects in the center area in Bajio plus Gala the design of those projects for 2022 goes beyond 2023. And the large investment projects involving automation, we've talked about that. And currently, in the current environment, they have a better payoff. That's one explanation. Another explanation in 2023, we prioritize investments. So this makes us a bit more disciplined when it comes to CapEx, and this is what and again I wanted to transmit is that we want to create value. If there are investments in which we believe will have acceleration of growth and value, no doubt, we'll do the investments. It's a difference between the desire and capacity. I would love to spend more, but I better not because it depends on our ability to grow the business. Delores tells me something, and she's a right. In everything that we touch, there's a great, a big opportunity because the number of stores and customers that we have. So the most difficult thing for us is to pick what we are not going to do. So we have to pick what we are not going to do. So put in too much CapEx in businesses will not be able to manage is too much. And I don't like it because I'm sure we can do more, for example, [ Mach-E ] got on board, and we can do more, but I don't want to waste your money. But CapEx investment is definitely going to work in the upcoming years.

Marcella Recchia from Credit Suisse. I have 2 questions on my side. The first is about e-commerce. I'm pretty much new analysts on the name. But based on last year Investor Day, you had a target of double-digit penetration in the e-commerce, and we haven't seen anything related on that. So the first question is, is still in place this target of double-digit penetration for next year? And the second question is about profitability, also in line with e-commerce. So you opened your guidance for the year. So the question is how should we think about profitability in 2023?

Let me just start and I'm going to pass the [indiscernible] to Paulo. But to make it clear, our main target in e-commerce is to become co-leader. The double-digit was a path to become co-leader. The main thing is that we know that in most of the countries, the 2 main leaders are the ones that win. So that's our main target, okay? Even if we achieve when we achieve, I'm not saying, we are not going to, it's not going to be enough to make your answer more difficult.

An important comment is that the aspiration is there, maybe that's not going to happen in 2024, maybe in 2025. What we've seen is a change with the pandemic. There was a big change in behaviors, a big shift to digital and then another big change bigger than expected to the stores. But what I like and the most important thing is that we maintain online customers. And when they change, they go to our stores with the study, those customers who would purchase online and stop doing. So 98% are shopping in one of our formats. So that's one of the advantages that other players do not have. All in all, been omnichannel makes maintain customers. So I have to say that the aspiration is there. The aspiration is there is the same. We want to be co-leaders in the short run in e-commerce, we'll invest on that. Our aspiration is to be aggressive in investments. And we are -- yes, we are going to reach the double digit. I cannot say that that's going to happen in 2, 3 or 4 years because with the increase in prices of food and such, I'm not sure. On the other hand, we are reporting this as net sales, but we are expecting growth with [ GMC ] and marketplace, but GMV, I mean that's different. But I think that we are going to start reporting differently for the rhythm biding point. Our competitors do not report like this, but I don't want to provide you with information. I don't have the right to. So your question to connected e-commerce with profitability. Let me tell you 2 or 3 things. First, the e-commerce business. And maybe that's always a question. We've always said our on-demand business is a profitable business. If you look at the on-demand and extended assortment businesses, they are all in the foreign stages of evolution. And that's a business of scale where you have -- when you have scale return starts coming. So if you connect a specific question of profitability for 2023, well, you know it already we never give a specific answer to that question. But what you can expect is one we'll continue investing in the strategy; and two, we want to maintain the returns or the levels we have today if you ask for 2023, things will not be linear. There's volatility expected. So -- but that's what you can expect from us, we'll continue investing to grow and will maintain the returns we have. And so what we have to do is to invest more and to give a return to the shareholders. Another thing, advertising business, it's growth. Do you know the profitability we got from that business a bit over $6 million. So we can expect more growth coming from the advertising business. But That's the ecosystem we're measuring that we're constructing. One thing depends on the other. So I think that looking at the ecosystem as a whole will be more and more important. I can decide I want to make more money or less money in credit or on e-commerce depending on what's more convenient. So I look at the profitability of each segment of the ecosystem. But every time is -- more and more is more difficult to understand each one so we have to understand the whole and see how we can move forward.

Okay. So Joseph, Giordano, JPMorgan. Congrats on the event. It's working. Okay. So a couple of questions here. So the first one goes into the financial services, right? So the company put a lot of emphasis on this like kind of open loop environment. But I mean like in the end of the day, the idea is to have a kind of closed loop inside of Walmex. So my question to you is on this credit marketplace. So the APIs or the development of your data lake. So what's the stage there? So that like your credit partners stake, let's say, nearly face value the information you provide so that you can have like the most affordable credit to your customers, so increased the approval rate? And then I have like 2 other questions. So like we talked a lot about efficiencies on the store, automation and et cetera. My question goes into working capital, right? So if there is -- there are any opportunities on how the ecosystem to unlock some extra days? And last but not least, you just mentioned on the marketplace as a major growth avenue. So my question to you is on the fulfillment kind of strategy, how to lock in the seller? So you mentioned ads, but you have several other services, including credit on a site platform that you could be extending to them? So those are my questions.

Yes, so difficult, but they're going to answer all of them. But before Paulo does, let me give you my [indiscernible], correct?

I'm getting confused with both languages and both of me -- I don't speak them correctly. For example, working capital the image that we have for working capital because we have a wide opportunity for that to do more credit through factory. And we did with very good results. But then Paulo says that by [indiscernible] working capital were growing. I mean it was also was in the financial area. So I have to be careful not losing opportunities that are good for business to have a good image for capital, so you can have a new valuation. So we have to be careful. There are correct things that we can do in that we're not American, don't worry. What I have to care with all these measures is every time more complex to look on the size and that's why I want say. I'm resilient, but we're not from America.

Regarding the platform technology, APIs, data lecture, we are building what possibly we will be otherwise to acquire. We are not purchasing technology. So we already have something that is working currently. We're going to start building things for the future. Regarding what you were saying about credit. It's something that it's working. Right now, we have a marketplace for credit. We having with a third-party idea is would be to keep developing that in our own sector, and to make it grow within this data model for the customers that we have in Walmart for all our next steps starting from this acquisition that we're expecting to do in the following weeks. I wonder if that answers your question completely. The other question was about fulfillment, right? And the marketplace. What we are doing is something very important is when you build a marketplace is try to control the experience with final customer in the best way possible. That involves shipping, merchandise, advertisement already covering the product in the market place. We're not leaving that experience in hands of hundreds of thousands of vendors that have different levels. So what we are doing is leveraging our infrastructure in the 22 distribution centers or in our backrooms is to create a Walmart center fulfillment services. So we can do repeating and delivery of those products with our own standards for compliance, velocity and delivery. And all the services evident, we are building an ecosystem as when we connect Cashi or the credit everything that we're building as we are feeling more confident in what we have, we start extending those benefits to the vendors. For example, we have vendors for cellphones that they put the cellphone and we put the buy chip, and we sell them in package. Or we have vendors purchasing advertising through Walmart Connect, so they can improve their positioning or their advertisement in size. And that's how we are keep doing things. Some of those we're in early stages, some of them we are -- we have more progress with the ideas to build that the ecosystem can feed not only customers, but our partners. I remember some of those of the benefits that we not always see in the ecosystems because now we are television, we can buy something better from what we see in stores. In the past, we used to buy as a retailer that sales focus now we buy as a telecom selling cellphones so the price is different. So we have benefits in multiple things. But the results from BAIT as we saw it, it doesn't have disadvantage that we only start having because we're telecom. So it's every time more difficult to sell every vertical by itself.

Obviously, we have worked with efficiency in what we're saying. We're always looking for ways to optimize. We're focused a lot on days on hand, like having the correct assortment or the correct allocation like last year, we mentioned this a little bit. And the large part is that I mean the counsel to pay the vendors where this was going the importance in large companies, we are -- what we want is not always one just to look for more efficiency in terms. But when they are smaller and with the value proposal that already we want to give access to this earlier. And that's when we need to give that factor to access to them so they can have that kind of sooner payment. They have access to their money earlier in change of interest rate rates like an income for us. But it's important because vendors are part of your ecosystem, and that's where we do not want to leverage more and use our strength, so to speak.

Can you talk a little bit about the key KPIs for the C-suite managers this year in terms of variable comp and how those are weighted? And then how are you thinking about inflation this year as well, both in terms of revenue as well as your cost structure?

Inflation. The only thing I know is that I don't know [indiscernible] scenarios. But we are working on that. So we are working on think. We have passed years of crisis in inflation from Argentina, Brazil. He doesn't know what inflation is. Mexican, Argentina, Mexican, there are other Argentina and, Chilean thought they don't know about inflation, now learning. So we have trained everyone in the world how to manage inflation. And now we are training them on how to talk about the reduction in inflation. I think I'm not sure how to say when we made the plan for this year, we wanted the inflation was reduced a little bit faster this year. Normally, our people are living through 30 years inflation. So if you make a growth plan of 5%, 6%, 7%. They made an inflation plan 5%, 6%, 7%, something and people put a linear in your plan because that's how they group. And if it's going to be decreased, you have to start in the first quarter with a wide growth because you're going to have a smaller one over here. And the other one is as the cost of doing business, it's growing. So you have to go through a line where your growth will decrease mathematically by inflation and your cost will increase because the cost of recovering the inflation to your partners. So we are not planned for that. But as much as you plan, I mean, you will not be perfect quarter-by-quarter. What it's going right now is that inflation is -- it's a little bit loose. So next quarter is going to be a little bit more complicated because this year we have this curve that we're having it be quite a high inflation in the first Q versus the first Q last year. We don't know what's going to happen the next one. I mean, what can we do with the cost increasing and inflation much lower. But we are always looking for different -- for some quarters ahead and taking actions to guarantee that we are having our delivery. But it's very difficult to force in quarter-by-quarter. That's why we need to have what we call dynamics, the dynamic forecasting, which is very important. We work with that. And something also to have the information that we have to be able to sit down with our vendors and discuss. I mean fortunately for them for our -- I was a vendor once, Paulo was a vendor once and some other people here were vendors. And we can sit down with them and say exactly what they're doing when dollar goes down, when it goes up, then they can here on change prices when they go down, they just keep quiet. And what happens with the money that they still have, they spend on promotions that will contribute no pricing. So we have the information. We have people for the commercial area trained to troll with this and to bring better benefits to our customers. But inflation is still very high. Also, I would like to mention something that's important to protect volumes, look at the units because sometimes you look at growth of the top line, but you have to be careful with the units, we know that we are serving a customer, and that's very important to monitor that. In [ Central America ] volume and units. Sometimes we have low value. But in units, we are earning more. And inflation goes down, and we're just there with more volume. So it's difficult to manage this environment now with the model doing what it has to do, what the model has to do. But I'm sure that we have 300 years of experience in these issues, and we're on our way. Maybe she would be jealous of, come over here.

Basically, if you look at the bottom for the e-performance in short term by the executives of this company is divided to mostly profit and sales. But there are some scopes with the benefits long term incentives as we call them. And that's one part is the objectives in the short term with sales and profitability, but it has a strategic objective as well. Some of the verticals in the business of the e-com business, it's basically how it's divided. You have the short-term part and the long-term part is divided between the things you have to achieve with sales and profit and then strategic objectives. So just that. NPS is not there. But it will be. I mean, we have around 40:60 in short term. That is the fixed payment plus variable and the compensation by strokes, but the measurement that Paulo was seeing is we're considering a premium, in particular in a compensation to 3 years where the core is probably next year in the short term for the year, shares long term. And there's also a possibility to have a change for more or less given your own individual performance like NPS, et cetera, will take into mean. They can generate more or less.

Two questions from [indiscernible]. The first one is you have talked about Cashi for a couple of years. So what would be the difference now that what has changed inside the strategy that has improved with active customers and also outside what they mentioned that they're receiving this license, excluding this, what inside Cashi is, what has changed regarding previous years where you have talked about it? That's the first question. The second one is about if you can give information on percentages about how much there is in e-commerce or how much is allocated in distribution centers or store pickup, things like that?

For Cashi, I can tell you, and [ Maxi ] will complement. The best news in Cashi is [ Maxi ] and [ Maxi's ] team because there are some things that we cover in each of the verticals when you have expert people that knows what they're doing because they're not that good. Now we have the talent. And hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we will have the license and the complement for that response and the responsibility that I'm giving to you, right? Our product level, I think we have a product that is more stable. It's more thinking about the user experience. With more functionalities, but always limited of having a closed ecosystem. The fact of having a license in a couple of weeks, hopefully, will help us to change the game totally in providing the customer more control of their money, knowing how much they have transferred, more withdrawal pay, whatever they need. And I think the biggest benefit that the ecosystem has in cash leveraged by the -- all the financial services and the rest of the Walmart system is the savings for the customer. Now with Cashi, you can pay in Walmart, where now you can save. And in Cashi, you can have more benefits. You can even have more promotions with our vendors who have access to best prices when you pay. Second, we have the possibility to start entering remittances directly to Cashi. Those remittances get to Walmart, and they have to collect it and with adjuvant do some shopping or if you do it outside Walmart like you saying you have not the possibility to use it here with the remittances inside Cashi that you start doing all that synergy. Do you shop with remittances and you say you pay your electric electricity bill and you save money. You make some data research and you're also seeing. So I think the benefits leveraged in the rest of the ecosystem and the possibilities to add more of these to the platform to give more flexibility to the use of that money for the customer. The question I always forget the second question.

About e-commerce data, how much percentage is to pickup or how much is distribution centers, et cetera?

We don't make exclosure of that level of detail. But mean, we have 1,000 stores doing shipping and pickup. Of those 1,000 stores, there is 25% of the orders delivered in 2 to 4 hours or less. Approximately from that 95%, 80% are delivered on the same day. And extended assortment, mostly it's in Performance Center and market centers from different places. Woman fulfillment, 30% were remissioned. The rest are vendors selling directly. Pickup, I mean, we cannot give a number, but it's the smallest number, and it depends on the format.

Yes. I had a couple of follow-up questions. On the CapEx plan, when we think beyond 2023, sort of where are we in the CapEx cycle? Is it sort of coming down and obviously, without giving specific numbers, but do you see it sort of staying high in 2024? Are we in a multiple year CapEx cycle? Or is really the bulk in 2023? And then after that, it should fade down much quickly. And then I'm quite intrigued by that ecosystem sort of the interlocking benefits of the mutually sort of reinforcing benefits, as you said. I'm curious, how did you incentivize your teams to work not as silos, but like to be more -- because I imagine there's different teams, there's a team at Cashi, there's a team at BAIT? And how did you incentivize them to basically create incentives that then benefit ultimately the other whether a specific change in incentive structure or how the teams are working? And...

I'm going to stop you there. 2 questions so that [indiscernible] can answer it. Actually going forward should be only one person for each. Yes, the CapEx quickly, very quickly, the CapEx. Yes. So actually, what you can expect actually the next years, slightly or somewhat above the 3%. What will happen differently in the next years versus actually this year is actually that we'll probably see a bigger weight of logistics in our actually CapEx investment for what I was actually saying related to particularly the big automatization projects. And from there on, after then you'll probably see a stabilization around the levels that we've seen before.

Let me explain about the ecosystem. The first thing about the ecosystem that will work if we can spread it to the rest of the organization, the idea that our work, our job is really to improve customers' lives. So when people understand that our customers' lives are better and they understand to think that we are this company giving a product, and now we are a company that offers solutions. Not only people of the store will understand that they will sell more when people receive a solution. But the people from the commercial area, I want that the panel of Electronics know that it's very important to provide credits to work on this. So I told you about this story about what we're doing workshops, workshops, workshops with the people so they can understand. All the transformation that we made was made based on 3 objectives. We have 3 tests first week. They had to send transformation. They had to like this transformation. They have to know how to do this transformation. And that's where all of us are here, the people from the purchasing area and from operations, they have to understand the transformation. I think they do understand that they have to like it. The ones who don't like it are no longer here. And now we're in the part of the phase where we need more people so they can meet the transformation. The first one was me because the fact about thinking about the solution, not necessarily our automatically, it means that I'm prepared. I have to take less control, not of this in work. So we're preparing ourselves more and more. But I'm sure that today, our people helps and they can think that they're just words. But actually, in our company, I mean, if you can take any conclusions that you like, we believe that if we make the management of the ecosystem well, we will be able to collaborate a little bit more to improve lives of our customers. And as 90% of the population that are here are Mexican, it's to share our idea. Our people are passionate for that idea that our company can really help Mexican's lives if we create those solutions. So that's the thing. And I think people at stores have understood that they are part of the strategy. When we started this, it was just Berry and me asking, please for the people to sell BAIT or sell to other stores, it was like a headache for them. And now that you understand that the BAIT consumer buys more at stores and it's circular. So I will explain once again, I think it's good. I mean, we were -- people were on my table doing launch break because I already mentioned this. Sorry, I talked about Andrea. So think about Andrea receiving remittances from the United States to Mexico receiving more pesos for fair dollars. This same Andrea because we know which she receives credit. Then she goes to the store and she has access to the products in the store and access to the online products. We deliver at home with cheaper internet, we can sell streaming. We do all this. This is the -- it's a value chain. So where were we 6 years ago in the part about the smaller objective that was selling the TV who has more intimacy with the customer. It's us -- so my customer takes a credit to buy the TV with me, the credit guy was earning more money than us and was selling too extensive that credit. The person that was selling Internet to use it on my phone was earning more money than us, and we're selling very expensive to my customer. So we take back the control of the value chain. And we have the power to help our customers on each of these things and decide where it's time to make profit when it's time to reduce your price for my customer. So at the moment that we explained this at the level of store and now they understand this value chain and they understand the importance that they have because the store is point of sale of all the ecosystem. That's very clear for them. And now it's executed. So now that they understand it now. They want to be part of this, and we need to train them very fast and they're well trained, and we're still missing a couple of things for them to do it well. Now imagine the power that we will have to improve their lives and to earn money and earn sales, here we're not only for improving lives, it's going to be both. And it's very powerful from my point of view, the thing that we're creating.

Only one question. I think we haven't asked about the cost of doing business because it came out a couple of times, and it's very relevant in the dynamics for labor that we know they are very good. So what are you feeling in Mexico? And we want to know if these are structural changes or not?

Definitely, we are focused on redoing our business model. So we are reinventing and one of the productivity project for this and the upcoming 2 years is transforming the business in the traditional retail transition into omnichannel. We're launching something called multifunctionals. This multifunctionals project includes technology, of course, training. [ Gui ] was talking about it, skills, upgrading the skills of the staff in the stores to date, we have 408 stores already converted into this concept. This will bring us advance of 3%. But yes, I totally agree this has to be constant. And this is just one of the many projects we have. More on labor costs. So we have 4 current factors affecting or impacting the labor cost, inflation. It impacts us and our competitors. The cost of doing business in the Mexico. So who has just said that wages should not go up? Well, they should. It's fair. But it's a coast. Who has just said that number of holidays from 6 to 12 days is wrong. I do not, I support that. It doesn't matter if we say that we want to improve the lives of our staff and go against those policies. No it's a useless saying that maternity leave should include more days and then go against that. So there's a cost of inflation, the structural cost. But the problem is that all these things have arrived at the same time, but it's difficult for all competitors, the cost of investments we are making. But the model we have is a platform connecting customers who need what we are offering and vendor. So customers need everything and vendors of services that are part of the ecosystem put the CapEx and the OpEx, but they have 2 big problems. One problem is that the cost of acquisition of customers is high. The second problem is that in order to sell low prices, while they need to sell millions of units. So the investment is important, but it's an investment without CapEx and just a bit of OpEx inflation, the cost of doing businesses, investments and [indiscernible] says, improving the value proposition for our associates. We're improving the conditions there, but the turnover went from 70 to 30, but please help me out in doing the calculations and it costs a lot. And I'm talking about uniforms, training, customer service training. So yes, there are a bunch of costs. Some quarters, I have to come to you and explain why the margin went down 30 basis points, but let's see the growth rate that we get in exchange of the cost. And please take a look at what Paulo says, at the end of the curve, the ROIC will be higher. So yes, it's difficult just it's hard work, but I consider that we have more capacity to deal with the increasing cost better than our competitors. So there is no shortcut. No, we need more productivity, of course. Otherwise, that means I would need to open the door for hard discounts. And that's not an option.

My question is what's the range of percentage when it comes growth in terms of square meters? I'm referring to the 29% in omnichannel for the new stores?

Gaston, would you like to say something here. Gaston is here. He prepared himself a lot to be part of the panel, and he has not had the opportunity to talk to you. So he's going to take 30 minutes to address everything keep prepared.

Well, now you distract me, I don't know what the question was. No stores will represent between 1.2% to 1.4% of sales, that means that the first year of growth in meters is happening in the sales floor. Last year, we ended up with about 150,000 square meters plus 100,000 or 150,000 square meters in logistics areas. And that's brought out. Every year, we have so many more meters. Last year, we had a record number in meters, the record, absolute record since 2014. So there's a disparity between the meters and the contribution of those meters and new stores sell more. All stores are selling more. And the deals are great. We have discipline in the growth and will maintain growth. The last question. If we answer all questions Pilar will not have a job to do here.

Thank you very much for your presentations and your valuable time. I have a question, what else can Walmex to face the external challenges for being in Mexico and to address the challenges posed by the government of Mexico? I refer to energy, to power, to education of -- the population that may help us attract more educated talent what about health-related services?

I see a great opportunity. But I'll leave Gaston to talk about energy related affairs.

[Interpreted] The verticals we have created come from service that we run with customers to detect their needs and guess what the answer is health, education, credit, banking services, transportation. And these are things that should come from the country. Government investments were there. I mean we cannot accelerate them, but we can contribute. And the way we can assist is through digital, not in the physical world because in the physical world, there's not enough money, there's not enough money not in the physical world. In the digital banking service, for example, ES Digital Health Services are a solution. So this is why the Internet services are the door of entry to health services and other services needed by customers. But everything will happen in the speed we can afford. But yes, we can contribute in each of the services you mentioned. When it comes to energy, 62% of energy consumption of Walmex comes from renewables. It's a high figure versus the world benchmark and the second aspect. All stores since 2 years ago are [ warrant ] with solar panels. Renovations include solar panels and new technologies in the stores today, an average store and new store consumes 27% less per square meter than 10 years ago, so we have new technologies in the stores, and we're helping there. It's not just generation but consumption. Something else, education. In the last visit -- your last visit to the stores, people were moving around with print out. Now they carry a tablet. Staff now are trained to just technology. And if they leave this company, they leave the company with a training with an education on technology. So a fundamental role of ours is to educate, to train. And let me give you one example. [indiscernible] ask me something. He asked me the date you will leave? And I don't know if he wants me to leave, but he asked what's your main contribution so far Gui. And I say, well, accident reduction. A few years ago we decided to set a 0 accident culture. But in the city, like in any other city, there are accidents, but we have reduced by 65%, the number of accidents of associates, our customers and we're not happy yet in the number of accidents, but we grew 700 stores. And the other day, I was happy to learn from an associate. And once he says thank you because what you mentioned about using the safety belt and non-driving and texting save me and my family. And this is contributing as well because we have an impact on a lot of persons when we educate them. When we teach them how to use technology, we are well aware of our reach, and we'll continue educating. We have a lot -- there are other so many things that we are doing on that, but we need to do more. It's not enough. A quick example, our associates use this batch, and there is a picture of their family. And it says, I work safely. My family is waiting for me, and there is a statement here, and it describes hazardous situations. In the past, people were told your first majority is to sell. Now they understand that their main priority is to stay safe for themselves, for the family and for the company. And it's not miracle why people are not living because everything is so important, and this is helping the country as well. Hard data , 5 million men hour are invested in training, but this the education level in Mexico and Central America is low, even in associates. So we give them an option to study high school and preparatory school. So 924 persons have graduated from school and we want to double the number one to data that reflects in our engagement results. And that's something Ignacio shares, so we did a survey to 230,000 staff and we ask them how committed do you felt at the company? So 86% of them said that they felt committed. It's long hours, but the promise we offered to the staff is real and it's congruent. Last week, we celebrated -- last week we had the special ceremony in which we recognized some staff, 135 staff who have been working in the company 35 years and 40 years of working here. 30 years. The committee was there. We danced a bit, Paulo dance a lot, but don't worry he's not going to dance here and so Pilar says that I have to go home.

Thank you very much for being here. Any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. I hope you have enjoyed the conference. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Pilar. Mario, thank you very much for everything that you prepare. Please a round of applause for her. Thanks to everyone to the staff helping backstage. Thank you very much.