Fomento Economico (NYSE:FMX) held its second-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday. Below is the complete transcript from the call.
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Summary
Fomento Economico (FEMSA) reported a 9.3% increase in total revenues and a 7.2% growth in operating income for Q2 2026, with a significant boost from OXXO Mexico's strong performance and restructuring benefits.
OXXO Mexico saw same-store sales approach double digits, driven by strategic adjustments, the World Cup, and a renewed focus on customer-centricity, resulting in traffic growth after eight quarters of decline.
SPIN by OXXO recorded a 22% increase in monthly active users, with a strategic focus on monetization, customer engagement, and credit expansion, including a partnership with QED Investors for developing a lending platform.
The BADA discount format showed strong growth, with 112 net new store openings and double-digit same-store sales increases, driven by private label emphasis and improving unit economics.
Coca-Cola FEMSA faced a soft consumer environment in Mexico but achieved strong performance in South America, with record volumes in Brazil and Colombia.
The company expressed cautious optimism for the second half of the year, acknowledging the end of World Cup-related tailwinds and the need to sustain momentum amid a challenging consumer environment.
Capital expenditures declined by 3.6% year-over-year, focusing on investments in OXXO Mexico and growth platforms, while leverage decreased with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.15 times.
Full Transcript
Malou, Moderator
Hello and welcome to the Fomento Economico second quarter 2026 conference call. My name is Malou and I will be your moderator for today's event. Please note that this conference is being recorded for the duration of the call. All participants will be in listen only mode. You will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation. To do so, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom and we will open the line. If you experience any technical issues during the call, please use the chat function to request assistance.
I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director at Fomento Economico. Please go ahead.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Good morning everyone. Welcome to FEMSA second quarter 2026 results conference call. Today we are joined by Jose Antonio Fernandez Garza, FEMSA CEO Martin Arias, our CFO Pamela Ortiz, who is now heading the investor relations team at Coca-Cola FEMSA, and Enrique Manero, who as many of you know, has rejoined us to replace Pamela on our investor relations team. The plan is for Jose Antonio to open the conversation with some high level comments on the quarter's performance and trends, followed by Martin who will provide more granular details on the results.
Finally, we will open the call for your questions. Jose Antonio, please go ahead.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Juan. Good morning, everyone. I would like to use my time this morning to give you a strategic update, focusing on some of the main components of our portfolio and the strategic pillars that we believe are most relevant in our effort to create value and shape the future of the company. Let me begin with OXXO Mexico, which delivered a strong second quarter. Martin will elaborate on each line of the income statement in a few minutes, but I want to highlight the same-store sales performance that came very close to the double digits.
It was particularly encouraging to see traffic growing at 2%, the first positive number in eight quarters. To be sure, part of this performance was explained by the uplift from the World Cup and we faced a demanding comparison base. But this growth also reflected the strategic adjustments we started to make during the second half of last year. We estimate that at least 60% of this uplift was attributable to the World Cup, evenly split between the Panini collectibles and consumption, tied mainly to the four Mexico games played in June.
However, the improved performance, as we have discussed in previous calls, reflects that we have invested significant time and energy designing, testing, and deploying strategic adjustments across our store base. And beyond the temporary boost from the World Cup, we are seeing signs that the changes we began to roll out last year are taking hold. The core purpose of this effort is to become more consumer-centric at OXXO. Over time, we have successfully developed our commercial levers, but sometimes this has come at the expense of customer centricity, focusing on expanding our margins but steering us away from our customers and making us less competitive in certain key categories. We are embracing the strategic imperative to put our customers back at the center, and already we are starting to see that it translates into better performance and market share gains. Ultimately, we expect this renewed customer centricity to translate into stronger sustained traffic. The key is to find the right algorithm, the optimal balance of price and gross margin that will drive incremental traffic while keeping our operating margins stable, and consistently ensuring we have the right assortment in place.
The strategy rests on four pillars. First, impulse, our core, where we are sharpening price-pack architecture and promotions to achieve competitive price points, and optimizing our assortment to include lower-cost alternatives in key categories where the focus on convenience had reduced our competitiveness. Second, prepared food and coffee, where we are working to introduce better products on the food side, simplifying pricing and improving execution, including the optimal utilization of our coffee equipment.
So far, our efforts have mostly concentrated on improving in-store execution, which has already translated into healthy growth in the coffee category during the quarter. Building on this momentum, we are now piloting targeted initiatives in coffee across a few regions and the early results are very encouraging. Relative to control stores where we have not yet made any changes, in food service we're focused on developing a set of winning products, sweet as well as salty, that can strengthen our effort to enhance the overall food value proposition at OXXO, starting with breakfast as a natural complement to what we are already doing in coffee.
Over time, we will be extending this approach to other food occasions, particularly lunch. Third, daily and replenishment, a significant opportunity given our low market share in many of the categories that are relevant to this key grocery shopping mission. To capture this opportunity, we will need to work closely with our existing supplier base and potentially expand that base to restructure our assortment, including rethinking our price-pack architecture in partnership with them and evaluating the role of private label in certain categories.
Getting this right would allow us to become a more relevant destination for our customers’ everyday grocery needs, expanding OXXO’s role and unlocking a meaningful and durable avenue for growth. And fourth, what we refer to as beyond-trade or services, where OXXO and SPIN together are allowing us to digitize customers and extend our value proposition beyond the store. Speaking of SPIN, the second quarter was a solid one with continued progress across our key indicators of user growth and engagement and transaction activity.
In fact, monthly active users of SPIN by OXXO grew 22% year over year, and SPIN now ranks among the most relevant participants of the SPEI payment system in terms of processed transactions. Interestingly, we're seeing some service categories such as bill payments growing both at SPIN and OXXO, underscoring the stickiness of cash in our ecosystem, but also the growing relevance of SPIN as a digitalization tool for a broader consumer base. However, we recognize that payments could become commoditized over time, and so SPIN is already preparing for that possibility by transitioning from a phase focused on gaining scale to one increasingly centered on monetization, which will become more relevant if cash utilization gradually declines. Our monetization strategy is anchored in customer engagement, credit, and broader ecosystem opportunities. Credit in particular is becoming a very strategic focus. We have been running a very small credit pilot that is already generating valuable learnings, giving us greater confidence that the data we have on our millions of customers can produce high-quality underwriting insights.
Just as encouraging, customer reaction to the pilot has been very positive, reinforcing our conviction in the opportunity ahead. On the subject of credit, as you know, during the quarter we announced a partnership with QED Investors to help us develop our lending platform, bringing on board a very experienced partner with talent, expertise, and execution capabilities that materially improve our odds of success in what can be a high-risk, high-reward business.
We will be disciplined and cautious in how we roll this out, and the fact that we chose QED as our partner reflects precisely how seriously we take the risks inherent in credit. Our approach will be based on a low-and-grow model, allowing us to scale gradually, learn as we go, and manage our exposure responsibly. As the portfolio develops, we will continue to keep you informed of our progress. This strategy keeps us firmly on the path we laid out for SPIN: leverage the OXXO ecosystem, build credit responsibly through the right partnership, and maintain operating discipline as we unlock the platform's long-term value.
Let me now turn to BADA, which is quickly becoming one of the most exciting long-term growth opportunities in our portfolio, positioned to take advantage of the consumer evolution toward discount proximity formats across the region as the consumer increasingly seeks value in non-convenience groceries. BADA serves a distinct set of customer needs, and its recent performance is exceeding our expectations, particularly in the newly opened regions. During the second quarter we set a record for store openings, adding 112 net new stores, representing more than one new store per day, a pace that we will try to improve upon in the coming quarters.
Just as encouraging as the pace of expansion is the growth of same-store sales that continue to increase by double digits, driven by resilient demand and sustained customer appeal in a competitive environment. Private label remains central to this story and continues to be a key growth driver, reinforcing the value-oriented proposition and standing out as what we believe will be one of the most important long-term differentiators for the format. This growth is coming alongside strong financial discipline and improving unit economics, and our new store cohorts in particular are showing faster maturation curves.
Turning to OXXO in Latin America, our conviction in the region continues to grow, particularly in Colombia and Brazil. Our effort in Colombia has required patience over many years to develop and fine-tune the right value proposition, and the second quarter offered encouraging evidence that our work is paying off, with revenues up approximately 30%, driven largely by same-store sales growth. More importantly, after a year in which we chose to prioritize refinement of the model over new openings, our value proposition in Colombia is now delivering solid four-wall economics.
This gives us greater confidence that OXXO is increasingly resonating with the Colombian consumer and puts us in a stronger position to accelerate unit growth going forward. Of note, Colombia is where our prepared food offering is most developed, representing a double-digit contribution to revenues. We are confident that this operation will become a meaningful value driver for years to come. Brazil represents another relevant opportunity and one where we are equally deliberate in how we build.
We closed the quarter with close to 640 stores, and each new cohort continues to perform better than the one before, which gives us confidence that we are learning and improving as we go. At this stage, our focus remains on getting the fundamentals right, continuing to develop and refine our value proposition, adjusting operational processes to increase efficiency, and completing the organizational structure required to support accelerated expansion.
When the time comes, as in Colombia, we would rather earn the right to scale than rush the process, because we are convinced that the discipline we apply today is what will allow Brazil to become a durable, meaningful, long-term contributor to Fomento Economico. In both Brazil and Colombia, we expect to reach 700 stores by the end of the year. For its part, at Coca-Cola FEMSA, Mexico is still showing signs of a soft consumer environment and the impact of higher excise taxes, offset by World Cup tailwinds and by a strong performance in South America, with Brazil and Colombia leading the way, achieving record volumes and fueling a double-digit increase in operating income for that region. Summing up, we have good operational momentum across most of our businesses and we are working hard to continue improving our performance. However, as we look at the second half of the year, we know that some of the tailwinds we enjoyed in recent months will no longer be there. The World Cup was great, but it is over, and our comparison base will get a bit tougher as we get into the final months of the year. The consumer environment remains sluggish, particularly in our core Mexico market, and therefore sustaining our momentum will hinge on our ability to continue executing our strategy.
And with that, let me turn it over to Martin to go over the numbers in more detail.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Thank you, Jose Antonio. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Let me begin with FEMSA's consolidated financial results for the second quarter of 2026. Total revenues increased 9.3% year over year while operating income grew 7.2%, reflecting OXXO Mexico's strong performance, contributions from our international operations, and the benefits of our restructuring initiatives, partially offset by currency headwinds, the softer performance of Health in Europe, and the consolidation of losses at OXXO Racin.
Excluding the Brazil effect and on a comparable, currency-neutral basis, total revenues and operating income grew 10.1% and 11.7%, respectively, reflecting positive operating leverage. Net consolidated income amounted to 9.2 billion pesos, representing an increase of 64.9%. This increase was mainly explained by the operating income growth I just described and by lower net financing expenses, reflecting a significantly lower non-cash foreign exchange loss of 655 million pesos compared to a 4.1 billion peso loss in the comparable quarter, driven by the appreciation of the Mexican peso against our U.S. dollar–denominated cash position, reflecting a more moderate appreciation of the peso—approximately 2.2% in second quarter 2026 versus 8.4% in second quarter 2025—as well as a lower U.S. dollar cash balance versus the comparable period. It was also impacted by a positive participation in associate results of 38 million pesos compared to a loss of 756 million pesos in 2Q25, which reflected the results of our joint venture in Brazil as well as the proportional results of our stake in Brady Plus.
These two improvements that I just described were partially offset by a decrease in interest income driven by lower interest rates, a lower gain from other financial income of 163 million pesos compared to 633 million pesos in the second quarter of 2025, mainly because last year included a mark-to-market gain on the Heineken shares tied to the exchangeable bond we issued when we exited that position—shares that are no longer in our balance sheet—and finally, these improvements were partially offset by a higher income tax provision of 4.9 billion pesos compared to 4.3 billion pesos in 2Q25.
The effective income tax rate was 34.8% in 2Q26. As we have discussed in past calls, the difference between our effective tax rate and the statutory rate of 30% reflects non-deductible items at OXXO Mexico—specifically labor costs and other expenses—as well as non-creditable tax loss effects, mainly reflecting losses at SPIN. These losses decreased this quarter, and we expect them to decrease further as SPIN continues its significant efforts to reduce costs, advancing towards profitability.
Turning to our operating results, OXXO Mexico delivered total revenue growth of 11.8%, driven by same-store sales growth of 9.5%, with traffic growing 2% and average ticket increasing 7.4%. We also added 253 net new stores during the quarter. This strong performance was partially supported by the World Cup, particularly the four Mexico matches played in June, which drove a consumption uplift in some of OXXO's most relevant categories, and by World Cup–specific commercial initiatives such as the Panini collectible stickers.
Isolating these effects, we estimate traffic still grew by approximately 1% and ticket increased 6.2%. While still early, these are encouraging signs that the strategic adjustments, as Antonio described earlier, are beginning to translate into better customer engagement and healthier underlying growth. Next quarter you will see a more normalized number without most of the tailwind of the World Cup, and we are cautiously optimistic that while it may be lower than this quarter, we expect that it will continue to reflect progress from our initiatives.
Gross margin was 44.8%, contracting 70 basis points year over year, mainly reflecting the impact of selected price rationalization initiatives and a higher mix of lower price point SKUs in key categories as we begin to adjust behind the customer-centricity stance described by Jose Antonio. This was partially offset by solid growth in services and higher commercial and distribution income from key suppliers. Selling expenses grew 10.6%, below revenue growth, while administrative expenses decreased by 3.3%, reflecting our multiple initiatives to optimize expenses and drive efficiency.
As a result, operating income grew 12.3%, with operating margin expanding 10 basis points to 10%. In sum, this quarter is a good example of the gross margin, traffic, and profitability algorithm that Jose Antonio described earlier: selectively adjusting the value proposition to drive traffic and volume, enhancing our relevance with our customers while enhancing profitability through operating discipline and efficiency gains. The Americas and Mobility segment delivered total revenues of 28 billion pesos, increasing 7.4%, or 11.6% on a comparable and currency-neutral basis, excluding the impact of consolidating OXXO Brazil revenues.
The segment's top line benefited from a strong performance across OXXO LatAm excluding Brazil, especially in Colombia. On a currency-neutral basis, same-store sales for the retail operations ex-Brazil grew 17.6%. Gross margin for merchandise increased 40 basis points to 27.3% of revenues, while in the fuel operations it decreased 130 basis points to 10.9%, reflecting the inclusion of diesel in the maximum fuel price commitments at OXXO Gas together with higher costs for gasoline and diesel in Mexico generally.
Operating income was 80 million pesos, with an operating margin of 0.3%, representing a decrease of 29% on a comparable basis excluding currency translation effects and the operating losses from the consolidation of OXXO Brazil. The operating margin also reflects the impact from the diesel price commitments in Mexico, partially offset by narrowing losses across OXXO LatAm excluding Brazil. Our operations in Europe reported total revenues of 14.5 billion pesos, up 3.2% on a currency-neutral basis, driven by a solid Swiss retail operation, partially offset by weak German retail and food service results across most formats, reflecting soft traffic impacted by bad weather and terrain route closures. Our B2B business remained sluggish in this quarter, and we are reinforcing our commercial team's focus to reignite growth in this business. Regarding Valora's gross profit, let me remind you that last quarter we began reclassifying certain distribution expenses from SG&A to cost of sales, and that will be the case for the rest of the year. This change was made purely for accounting presentation purposes to better align the classification of distribution costs with the nature of the expense.
There is no impact on operating income because of this reclassification. However, as a mechanical effect of this change, gross margin was impacted by 230 million pesos. In the second quarter, gross profit decreased by 6.6%, with a gross margin of 40.2%. On the same accounting presentation basis, the gross margin expanded by 40 basis points, driven by higher promotional income and a positive sales mix effect. Operating income was 638 million pesos, which on a comparable basis that excludes currency headwinds was flat year on year as expense containment measures were offset by one-time expenses driven by a reorganization of Valora's management structure.
Operating margin was 4.4%, representing a contraction of 20 basis points versus the previous year. For its part, the Health division delivered total revenues of 22.3 billion pesos, growing 2.2% year over year, or 4.8% on a currency-neutral basis. Same-store sales were positive across Colombia, Ecuador, and Chile in local currency, while Mexico continued to face headwinds as was the case with Valora and Health. We also reclassified certain distribution expenses from SG&A to cost of goods sold, mechanically reducing gross margin by approximately 543 million pesos and reflecting the proportional shift of these expenses into cost of sales.
Gross profit decreased by 8.7%, with a gross margin of 26.6%, a contraction of 310 basis points. On the same accounting presentation basis, gross margin in the second quarter contracted by 60 basis points. As we discussed last quarter, as part of our strategy to reduce exposure to the institutional business in Colombia, at the beginning of April we notified EPS Sanitas, our largest counterparty in this channel by a significant margin, that we will not renew our agreement upon its expiration in September.
Given the continued uncertainty in Colombia's health care system and our need to manage potential EPS insolvency risk, we recorded a non-cash credit risk provision of approximately 408 million pesos during the quarter. We will continue to actively manage this exposure, remain disciplined in our capital allocation, and keep the market informed of any relevant developments as we continue to prioritize our retail drugstore business, which has better profitability, cash generation, and more attractive long-term returns.
Operating income reached 346 million pesos, a decline of 57.7% and 54.1% on a comparable basis, with an operating margin of 1.5%. Excluding the non-cash credit risk provision, operating income reached 754 million pesos, a 7.9% decrease versus last year, driven mainly by operations in Chile, where we saw profitability pressured by commercial initiatives to maintain our market position in a highly competitive environment, partially offset by strong growth in Colombia retail and Ecuador.
Mexico continued stabilizing its operation, reducing its losses significantly versus last year. For its part, Coca-Cola FEMSA delivered a sequential recovery that highlights the strength of its diversified market presence across its territories. Coke continued to grow volume in most markets, gain market share, and advance its digital agenda, while Mexico continued to navigate a challenging consumer environment and the effects of the excise tax increase.
Coca-Cola FEMSA's affordability strategy, segmentation, and disciplined commercial execution enabled it to further strengthen its competitive position. At the same time, South America delivered a solid quarter, Colombia and Brazil achieving record second-quarter volumes that ultimately resulted in double-digit operating income growth in those business units. As always, we encourage you to listen to the earnings call hosted yesterday on On the Fomento Economico corporate front, as you might recall, last year we launched a corporate reorganization and savings plan. We continue to advance in this effort, making good progress and in line with our expectations. This progress reflects the benefits of a leaner structure and non-headcount savings initiatives that remain underway. At the same time, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, Spin has continued to gradually narrow its losses as its own reorganization takes hold.
While it is still early, we are encouraged by the progress we are seeing and remain focused on executing the plan with discipline. Before closing, let me briefly update you on capital allocation. During the second quarter we deployed approximately 8.9 billion pesos in CapEx, representing approximately 3.8% of total revenues and a 3.6% decline compared with last year. This was primarily driven by lower CapEx at Coca-Cola FEMSA, partially offset by continued investment in OXXO Mexico and growth platforms and other growth platforms.
With respect to shareholder returns during the quarter, we concluded a $300 million buyback through an accelerated share repurchase program that was launched at the end of last year. Once we consider the ordinary and extraordinary dividends being disbursed this year, the total expected capital distributions for the cycle from March 2026 to March 2027 will reach approximately 41 billion pesos. Regarding leverage, our net debt to EBITDA ratio decreased to 1.15 times from 1.24 times in the prior quarter.
This reflected a 3.2% increase in last-12-month EBITDA excluding Coca-Cola FEMSA, as well as a reduction in Fomento Economico net debt. The latter was driven primarily by a 2% sequential decrease in gross debt, reflecting the appreciation of the Mexican peso against our U.S. dollar-denominated debt. That said, our leverage target remains unchanged. As we look ahead, we remain focused on executing against our strategy. We are pleased with the momentum we saw in the second quarter across most of our business units, but as Jose Antonio mentioned, we're very aware that the external tailwinds we enjoyed will taper off soon and we will continue to face a challenging consumer environment, particularly in Mexico. Having said that, there are many tactical and strategic levers at our disposal and early results from our recent tests and adjustments are promising. Before we open the call for your questions, a reminder to please limit yourself to one question at a time. Like we did on our previous call, we received positive feedback and would like to make that practice permanent, and with that we are ready to open the call.
Operator, please go ahead.
OPERATOR
Okay, at this time, we are going to open it up for questions and answers. If you have a question, please click on Raise Hand for audio questions or write it down in the Q&A section for written questions. Please remember that your company's name should be visible for your question to be taken. Please limit yourself to one question at a time. And if you have a second question, please get back on the queue. We do ask that when you pose your question that you pick up your handset to provide optimum sound quality.
Please hold while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Thiago Bortolucci from Goldman Sachs. Tiago, you may proceed.
Thiago Bortolucci, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Hola, Tiago. Hola, Jose. Martin, Juan, thank you very much and congrats on the results. I'd like to explore a little bit more the Spin opportunity with you guys. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of growth avenues for Fomento Economico, but more recently, I think you have delivered and announced good developments in expanding the ecosystem. So I don't know what you can give us in terms of additional information on how you're thinking about the partnership with QED, how you're thinking about using balance sheet to expand the value proposition, and what is the roadmap for evolving the ecosystem would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Tiago. I will begin and let either Martin or Juan help me. But it's very early in the adventure with QED. We are very excited for the partnership. We had a long courtship to get to know each other and we were quite impressed by the level of detail and all the scar tissue that these guys have developed over many, many years of developing subprime credit in all parts of the world in ecosystems very similar to ours. So we really liked what they brought to the table.
We had begun already using some data and sharing some of the data with them, and they were very impressed by the quality of the correlations that they were seeing between good credit and good credit responses. And so I think the partnership is off to a good start. The level of talent that they're able to bring—Nigel Morris and many of his partners and female partners in QED are legends in their field—and so they are able to attract very impressive talent, and that was very important for us.
I would say as Spin continues to become more and more relevant in the ecosystem, we're at the point where we are enjoying the best of both worlds. Transactions and services are still growing in the physical world in OXXO. Even with a decline in top-ups or cell phone payments, we're still growing in cash-in, cash-out in the physical store. But in Spin, this is growing dramatically. I think there is a moment we're in the sweet spot where Spin and OXXO can complement each other dramatically, and I think that will continue for the next several years.
There are people, more aggressive, that think things will change in the next couple or two or three years, and there's other people that think this will remain for many, many years. So I think as Spin becomes more relevant, as Spin loyalty continues to increase number of users and we change the dynamics in which we give rewards, I think all of this is giving us a very good platform to begin monetization. We're already doing it with retail media, but now we're very excited with what could become a very interesting thing with credit.
As you know, there's a lot of people trying to give credit in Mexico. There's very good players already in the space. I think we have several things that make us unique for a level of the population that is still underserved, but still we are very conscious of the risks inherent in credit, especially in this segment. So we will proceed very slowly with a low-and-grow model. As I mentioned before, I think for now that's all I could give, unless Martin or Juan want to complement me a little bit.
Martin
Yeah, I would just complement with two things, Jose. I think you did a comprehensive job of describing all the external-looking things that are happening. Internally, as a result of the reorganization that was undertaken today, both the physical and digital payments in Fomento Economico report to one organization that is giving that team the ability to make judgments about changes in pricing and creating use cases that are very user friendly and which try to resolve some of the paradigms of having both the physical and digital payment system.
That's also happened at Spin Premia, where we created an area of customer value management where we're taking a broader, sort of more holistic, integrated view of our consumer, where obviously Spin Premia is the main contact point and one of the main ways that we collect data and provide promotions to the consumer. On the credit issue, the credit over time has to become non-recourse to Fomento Economico. It's going to start out very small, very contained and over time, to the extent that we can be successful, we'll start thinking about off-balance-sheet financings against the portfolio of credits that we're extending.
And eventually we'll have to find sources of funding, which may include obtaining a license, a banking license. We're still in early days. As we promised, we'll continue to communicate this and be very transparent, but the numbers really today don't really move the needle in any significant way from the perspective of the credit portfolio. This is great.
Thiago Bortolucci, Analyst at Goldman Sachs
Jose, Martin, thank you very much. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Rodrigo Alcantara from UBS. Please, Mr. You may proceed.
Rodrigo Alcantara, Analyst at UBS
Hello. Good morning, Jose, Martin. Congrats again. Pam, welcome back. Kike, nice to have you back. Because I'll leave the question on gross margins to my colleagues here—I'm pretty sure they're going to ask about this—so let me ask you this to you, Jose. It's been a while, right? You have taken the role of CEO of Fomento Economico Consolidated and also you brought, or well, Fomento Economico brought a very high-quality guy, right, to lead the OXXO Mexico operation, right?
Carlos. Carlos Arroyo. So my question would be on, or if you can comment on how you are shifting the responsibilities from retail to Fomento Economico Consolidated, what would be the main contributions, in your view, that Carlos has achieved so far? Anything that you may highlight that you can comment would be very, very, very helpful. Thank you very much.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Rodrigo. That's a very interesting question. So, I think obviously the shift from heading Proximity and Health to shift to running Fomento Economico is a very dramatic shift, and I'm still, I hope, in my early stages of that shift. And I would say the biggest change in my order is I now get to spend a lot of time in big strategic discussions with all of my CEOs, but particularly a lot of time with Ian, a lot of time with the chairman and the board, a lot of time with the retail guys on drafting strategy, on shaping culture, and on building and mapping talent.
That's where I spend most of my time. I would say Carlos brought—first of all, Carlos has much more experience in retail than I did. While I knew retail from living it and breathing it in my household, I don't come from the retail background. I got to meet Carlos and I actually go a little bit way back. When I was running Coca-Cola FEMSA Central America, Carlos ran Walmart in that region and we used to argue a lot. And I learned about his negotiating capacity, his real ability to fight every cent, to run a very lean, efficient machine.
And I always liked what I saw and I think what Carlos has brought beyond these things that I've already mentioned, I would say he surrounds himself with people that are smarter than him, which is a characteristic that I love about big leaders and executives. He really has surrounded himself with a stellar team. He knows the importance of a superb—I mean, top 1 percentile—supply chain capacity. I think that he comes from a good school, I will not mention which, but it's obvious in understanding that supply chain you have to, especially in the world we are entering with such competitive dynamics and where we see ourselves as underdogs, where we see ourselves that we're only beginning the race towards transforming retail in Mexico, we need a supply chain that's best in the world. And while we have a very good supply chain, we didn't have a top 1%. I think Carlos is investing a lot behind that. And it's the backbone of a food strategy, it's a backbone of a grocery strategy, it's the backbone of obviously keep winning at impulse and beer and soft drinks. There's much more to say about Carlos, but I will leave it at that for now.
I think those are the main contributions that he has brought and obviously he's delivering. We're gaining share and I like the progress we're making.
Rodrigo Alcantara, Analyst at UBS
No, that was great. That was what I wanted to hear. Thank you, Jose.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Rodrigo.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Ben Thurer from Barclays, please. Mr. The floor is now yours.
Ben Thurer, Analyst at Barclays
Yeah. Good morning. Jose Antonio, Martin, Juan, thank you very much for taking. Take my question as well as congrats on those very strong 2Q results. I wanted to dig in and stay a little bit within some of the strategic pillars that you've laid out at the beginning. And one caught my attention a lot is was all about that price pack, price pack architecture as well as assortment optimization. So wanted to understand a little bit more of what you've kind of like learned from the past.
And I remember we've talked a lot about in the past about competitive pressure against the informal markets. I just wanted to understand what proactively you've been doing over the last couple of quarters and where there is still room to further drive, maybe traffic by just having more competitive pricing on certain categories and if so, which categories those are. So what have you done? Where are we going? Thank you very much.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Ben. Hola, by the way. And I think, look, we've always been very good in the big categories in making sure we have an assortment to tailor to everybody. But over time we got a little bit complacent in saying, hey, we're so big in this, for example, we're so big in the beer category that we can allow ourselves either a little bit of extra margin in a very important SKU or we are willing to not live with this value price because it will hit our bps or gross margin in a certain way.
I think that is very, it's very smart to do from time to time. But if you overdo it, especially when you have a consumer that's more value centric, et cetera, you can begin to lose very important profitable traffic. And I think that's one of the things that we've been saying in all the calls we've been adjusting price pack to allow for certain value packs, especially in tobacco, in soft drinks and everything. And then I think the other one, we were very good at selling prime real estate within the store in categories that are not so relevant in the store right now, but that they were paying premium positioning to be center stage.
While we recognize that that's a very... We continue to do a little bit of that, especially in certain categories. It is very important first of all to serve our customers and meet the customers where they want to be met. And that requires maybe simplifying the portfolio. Maybe we don't need 14 types of male deodorant or different brands because they all pay. Maybe we need to extract a little bit more value from certain suppliers, but then have a price pack architecture that serves all of our customers.
There's a type of customer that is willing to pay a two pack of a male deodorant to go to their home. But there's someone that needs a value the other one because they need to change. All these things are becoming more and more important in our price pack architecture. It's very hard for me to tell you a target of gross profit that we're going to hit. We are maximizing profit or income from operation, but now putting into the mix that we want to grow traffic profitably, we want to continue to expand our relevance in categories where we are not as big like groceries and daily replenishment.
That will take us on a path that over time will increase our profitability, it will increase our stickiness, we will continue to gain share and we will monitor share against the supermarkets, against the traditional trade, against the discounters. But obviously gross profit could ebb and flow from the percentage where we are. We're really not managing for maximizing gross profit, but maximizing operating income over a multi decade period. I don't know if that answers you.
Ben Thurer, Analyst at Barclays
It does, thank you very much.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
I would just add. Hi Ben, this is Juan. I think it's such an important segue talking about the price pack architecture and having the discussion on margins because the message I want to be clear is this was not about lowering prices. I think with very, very few exceptions, I think coffee is one where we've said we've been testing things at a lower price point, but most of it has to do with bringing in those low price point in the tobacco and beer and snacks. So again, not lowering prices, but rather changing the mix to something that is a better match for what the consumer is asking for. That was just one clarification I wanted to make.
Ben Thurer, Analyst at Barclays
Okay, thank you very much, Juan.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Ricardo Alvis from Morgan Stanley, please. Mr. The floor is now yours.
Ricardo Alvis, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
Hello, Jose Antonio, Martin, Juan. Hope you're all well. Thanks for the opportunity. I have. I think that this question is a follow to some extent a follow up to the previous one. It is, it was a quite impressive same store sales indeed. So it's great to see the turnaround there now with the 8% or near 8% ticket boost significantly above inflation. Naturally I guess that we thought the gross margin could have been higher and appreciate all the commentary that was just made around the gross margin and the strategy of the company prioritizing operating income, that makes perfect sense.
But when we look at that number, when we look at the gross margin, our first reaction was maybe the affordability measures that we've been talking about. Juan was just mentioning the change in mix, for example. All of that could explain, but when we look at your average ticket, that doesn't seem to be the answer. So beyond what we already discussed, is there something you're term, I don't know, maybe on the commercial income, not on the side of the revenue on the commercial income, but you know, discount from, from suppliers.
I think that Jose Antonio even referred to some of, you know, maybe these supplier contracts that you have, maybe commercial income is hurting a little bit more in this moment where you are adjusting this strategy. I just wanted to understand that dynamic a little bit better on the same store sales not translating necessarily right now or the average ticket into, into higher gross margin as well. Thank you very much everyone.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Without. Thank you, Ricardo. It's a, it's very good question. Obviously with all that, I think the quarter obviously has some, some things that are affecting it more, more than, than normal. First of all, you have to include that there is a shift in two of our big categories like soft drinks and cigarettes. So that could have an effect a little bit on, on the way the ticket is being affected. On the other end, you know, if, if you look, I would say the assortment helped us a lot during the quarter, given that Panini, the Panini catalog helped a little bit and probably also had an effect on the margin, but increased the bigger thing as I'm sure for many retailers across the globe throughout the World Cup. And so all of these things had an effect. While we are happy with the 2% traffic growth because it really changes, you know, eight quarters of missing traffic and we are happy that even during July, even the second, later part of July, we were still seeing a good traffic numbers even after the World Cup. So we're, we are confident that some of the levers that we pulled are being, are working to go to, to have the traffic growth numbers that we...
And I think the ticket should, should also, I mean come at the expense of or should be balanced by more, doing more value driven things like what we're doing in expanding coffee at an attractive price and more value categories in beer and cigarettes. But in general, I would say the quarter did have a few mixes that did not help the number as much as you would expect.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
So we're still fighting with improving traffic, but obviously we had a very good quarter given the World Cup. And another just to complement you, Jose. Hi, Ricardo. The inflation that you see is the headline consumer inflation number for Mexico is not necessarily the inflation number that gets passed on in the categories that we sell through the store. So you need to be a bit careful. There are categories where the cost that's being passed on by the supplier is somewhat higher than the consumer inflation that you see in the newspaper.
We follow this on a quarterly basis in our quarterly meetings where we check the cost that was passed on to us by the supplier and the cost with the exception of the categories that Jose mentioned, specifically cigarettes and soft drinks, where we were passing on the tax, which is not to anybody's benefit other than a tax collection for the government. In all of them we were either passing on only what was passed on to us or in some cases passing slightly lower than what was passed on to us.
And that could be also a fact of mix on a category by category basis. So once you take that out, you take out the World Cup, the bigger tickets from people going for readings for the parties they were having at their home, so on, and you strip that out and the benefits of that and some other mixed effects of top ups coming down and financials are very comfortable that we are improving significantly the affordability proposition for our consumers.
One final comment on that is that the excise tax effect will remain for the next couple of quarters as well. Until we cycle in next January.
Ricardo Alvis, Analyst at Morgan Stanley
That makes perfect sense. That was actually helpful. Thanks, everybody.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Next question comes from Mr. Bob Ford from Bank of America, please. Mr. Bob, you may proceed. Bob,
Bob Ford, Analyst at Bank of America
Sorry about that. Congratulations on the quarter. How do you feel about price deltas and overlapping small box values in areas where investments have been made? I think Martin was moving in that direction, but I just want to get a better sense of where you are right now and how you're thinking about elasticity. And as you expand that investment, how do you think about the Tam and grocery and the pantry segments? And you haven't really touched on Brazil, but I was very curious about same store sales in Brazil and then the path and timeline to profitability there. Thank you.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
I understood the Brazil part. Can you repeat the first one?
Bob Ford, Analyst at Bank of America
No, no. I was probably speaking too quickly, but it was really about the price deltas that you have with overlapping competitors, whether it's the informal segment, you know, competing CSDs or, sorry, convenience stores and other channels. But how are you thinking about your price gaps right now in areas where you've made investment? Do you feel that you're at an equilibrium or do you think there's a need to make some additional price investment?
How should we think about the price elasticity in those areas? And then as you expand, and I think what I'm hearing is you're going to expand that activity and opening price points and price investments selectively in other categories. Right. You mentioned grocery and pantry segments. And I was just curious how you're thinking about the addressable market in those areas as well.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
That's okay now. Very, very clear. Thank you, Bob. I would say first of all, when we look at a price point in our business, we have to look at the overall cost of going to an OXXO store and being served versus going to a supermarket chain or driving or getting on a bus to go to longer distance. But we also compete against the mom and pop and the discount store. And so we put all the, all those categories into play and we sell the coldest beer probably out there, even more than the retailers owned by the beer guys.
So we put all that into the equation. And what we want is to be able to have price architecture, the top income segment of Mexico, but also the bottom 10 and 20% income segment of Mexico. And that's very evident across our core categories. Our impulse where we make the big gross for categories, beer, soft drinks, snacks, tobacco. In those categories, we are so well known, we're so alike, that we are willing to have some price differentiation but I think we are already where we want to be like, you know, the 16 ounce Coca-Cola bottle or that six pack of beer of a leading beer brand.
I'm not suggesting any, I'm not supposing we're going to have any price contraction there other than mix. We can, we may introduce value brands at a very attractive price and I don't, but we are not seeing a big cannibalization effect in those. Where we do need to be much more aggressive is as we expand into the pantry. We are not the winners there. We are not well known. We need to—first of all, maybe we don't need a 12-pack of eggs, but we need to have a very competitive price six-pack, much better than the traditional trade, and maybe on par with some of the discounters in certain categories, as we become well known that for daily replenishment Oxo is a much better alternative than the corner store or even some of the discount stores. And we will go all in winning our space in pantry. And I know I'm not only talking to investors when I say we're going all in. In terms of Oxo Brazil, it's too early. We're getting better and better. We're improving. We had a couple of quarters that were not as you know; we have been growing double digits over the last couple of years, double-digit revenues.
We had a slow, slowish quarter where we grew mid-single-digit model. But I think Oxo Brazil, what we like is that every cohort, every new generation of stores keeps getting better and better. And so we think it's going to take us a few years, but eventually we're going to find a sweet spot where we can accelerate expansion, as we feel Colombia is ready now. Colombia now can really accelerate and hopefully we will begin to show an increasing, faster pace of growth in Colombia.
I hope that answers.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Alejandro Fuchs from Itaú BBA, please. You may proceed.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Hola, Alejandro.
Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst at Itaú BBA
Hola Martin. Juan, thank you for the question and congratulations on the results. My question is on Oxo Mexico. Wanted to maybe take you back, Jose Antonio, to the end of last year when you guys were, you know, preparing the budget for this year and seeing all of these changes that you wanted to make, right? I think that was very clear, the four pillars. Can you elaborate, maybe, Jose Antonio, which of the pillars or which of the changes are working better than you expected, and maybe which ones do you think there's opportunity, you know, to maybe even improve more when we look at these, you know, very strong semester sales and traffic performance?
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. So again, I think I'm still confident that the pillars will all work out, and I'm seeing positive signs in all of them. But obviously I will tell you on impulse, becoming excellent or, you know, best in class in something that you were already great but now you're becoming best, has become the one that most quickly turned the needle. We're gaining share like never before in beer. We're gaining share in tobacco. We're gaining share in what we are already well known for.
We are doing very well even in the first quarter and obviously continued with the second quarter, probably there for many of the ANTAD and other supermarkets. And we clearly won a lot of market share in our core categories. I think we have a few trials in convenience and daily replenishment. Both trials include execution things, assortment things, and pricing things. In convenience, especially on coffee—just getting coffee right, which is probably the easier part because we are already well known in coffee—is showing the biggest dramatic increase.
We still have a long way to go in developing what we call hero—very well known for—and use its scale to get very good quality, good pricing, and really feed millions of hungry Mexicans. I think that's still going to take a lot of time, and it requires a lot of infrastructure that we need to build in the supply chain and the supplier infrastructure side. And I think daily replenishment, in one end, is the one that you can start more quickly than to begin with pricing, even if you don't have the market ready for it.
We are doing some trials in certain parts of Mexico with promising results. But I think it's further down the line in terms of really moving the needle. It's going to take us longer. And what we call beyond trade, I'm really excited by what we are seeing in terms of the encouragement of Oxo, but just by itself it's getting a lot of momentum, and we are, you know, reducing our expenses there dramatically and still providing you an exciting product.
So I think we're off to a good start.
Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst at Itaú BBA
That was super clear.
Martin
You know, I'd just like to add, Alejandro. I mean, obviously we've just been talking about the drivers for top-line growth. But I also think, I mean, looking at the overall results, everything that happened below the gross margin, right? Because to have a small contraction at the gross, but actually a small expansion at the operating level, at the EBITDA level, there's a lot of work that's being done on the expense side, on the cost side, on the efficiency side—efficiency side that we've spoken about before in terms of these programs that are in place regarding corporate overhead and regarding all kinds of efficiencies on the labor front.
So just to highlight that it hasn't just been the top-line efforts, which obviously, you know, that comes first, but also the work that's being done kind of behind the scenes that is helping us to put out what I think is a very, very well-balanced quarter.
Alejandro Fuchs, Analyst at Itaú BBA
Absolutely.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Hector Ugarti from Scotiabank. Please, you may now proceed.
Hector Ugarti, Analyst at Scotiabank
Hola, Jose, Martin, Juan, Quique. Sorry, I don't know what happened there, but yes, thank you. On Oxo, I understand your strategy is different with core categories and value bags and pantry, but just wanted to know if you could give us a bit more clarity on how much further could you be willing to invest gross margin to keep gaining share by category, and with this, how do you expect your mix to maybe change, if any, in the long term considering your focus on operating income optimization?
Thank you.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Again, it's a very good question. It's one that, for me, is very hard to answer. We like our P per Q for this quarter. We are willing to give gross margin if we see profit go up and if we see our operating income continue to go up. But this is a very long-term race. We're getting into a very competitive world. We like that. We like that we continue—we enter the cycle of continuing to grow market share in our core categories, beginning to grow market share in pantry, in what we call the replenishment consumer locations, which obviously has a lot of house.
We see our gross profit as a little piece of a very big profit pie that starts with the FMCG and goes all the way to the consumer pockets. We think our gross profit is a very small part of that, because we see the enormous amount of profits that come from there. Therefore, all the big ones name Mexico as one of their top five markets, especially the ones that are big, relevant in our categories—beer, soft drink, snacks. So we see a long way to go in terms of gross profit still.
But one part of that gross profit, we want to invest it in giving more value to some consumers that we see could really benefit from Oxo serving them, you know, a half dozen eggs at a very attractive price, or other traffic drivers that could be possible. For me to give you a number—what I can tell you is that I still see the FMCG Mexico as one of the most profitable stories in the world. And I think we can get a little bit of a bigger share as we continue to grow three stores a year in Oxo, plus maybe one and a half stores a day.
So we have a lot of potential. Showing a number—but I am optimistic on that front, on the net income side.
Hector Ugarti, Analyst at Scotiabank
Super. Thank you very much, Jose.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Antonio Hernandez from Actinver. Please, the floor is now yours.
Antonio Hernandez, Analyst at Actinver
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Congrats on your results. Very, very solid ones. Just a quick one regarding coffee. Would you please share how much of a share do they account for in Oxo Mexico in terms of revenues, and if you have a specific target, and how do you see profit-wise? Thanks.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
So we're not ready to give a precise number on coffee, but we're growing double digits in revenue in coffee. It's a growth category for us, even though we reduced prices. More and more Mexicans are recognizing Oxo has very good quality coffee and a very good price point. So we like what we see. We have a long way to go. In terms of the percentage of foodservice in Oxo Mexico, it's in the mid-single digits, while in other parts of the world it’s in the mid to high mid-teens.
So we have a long way to go, and we have our ambition to get at least towards what Colombia has. I hope that answers.
Antonio Hernandez, Analyst at Actinver
Yes, thanks, that's very helpful. But from a profitability perspective, is there a big difference between how you see prepared foods here in Mexico versus Colombia and Europe? How do margins differ?
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
They are in all those places, and in Mexico they're highly accretive. Once you are able to control shrinkage, food becomes a very good profit driver for all of our operations. And from what I see—other operations I study across the world in convenience—if you do food right, it becomes highly accretive. Even for a very profitable chain like Mexico, food can become a good source of traffic, of revenue, and retained profit.
Antonio Hernandez, Analyst at Actinver
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Have a nice day.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Antonio.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Emiliano Hernandez from GBM. Please, you may now proceed.
Emiliano Hernandez, Analyst at GBM
Congrats on the results and thanks for the space for questions. Just a quick one on Proximity Europe. Results have been probably resilient, but maybe looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunities to accelerate growth over the medium term? Is it starting maybe store expansion, maybe continuing to redefine the value proposition, or something else more broadly? How should investors think about this mid-term strategy, and how do you think about this business as a growth driver in five years?
Thank you very much.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
We are very excited about what we have been able to do in Europe so far in terms of increasing promotional income and net profits dramatically, especially in retail operations in Switzerland and in Germany. In the retail side, we continue to gain significance and dominance. We've been growing especially through fuel operator agreements—Austria to operate 200 stores—and we like that asset-light model for expansion. In Europe, we're seeing opportunities to expand with other fuel operators that recognize themselves as not very good at the store and need a partner like us that are not big in fuel but can become very good operators overall.
We are obviously monitoring carefully. Right now it's our obsession to continue to expand our Mexico and South America operations, where again we see ourselves as small and underdogs compared to much larger retail players in the region. So that's our main expansion, but we will pursue opportunistically throughout Europe and even North America. But we're not close to anything right now. Appreciate the time.
Emiliano Hernandez, Analyst at GBM
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Mr. Froilon Menges at J.P. Morgan. Please, you may proceed.
Froilon Menges, Analyst at J.P. Morgan
I want to ask if you could help us frame the degree of normalization that we should expect in the second half in Oxo Mexico, both in terms of store sales and gross margin, given all the discussion that we have had. Can you help us understand second half—what should be something expected in terms of normalization, gross margin normalization—just to understand the seasonality versus the actual run rate, especially under the weak consumer environment?
Thank you.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
I will let Juan and Martin help me with guidance towards the second half. I am cautiously optimistic, but we still see a softer consumer and, obviously, the World Cup is over. So I think the most I can say is what I already said in my comments. We're working hard to make sure the hangover is not so hard and we continue to gain share. But I will let Martin and Juan.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Hey, this is Juan. Look, I think we can go, you know, forecasting, forecasting the next six months is in many ways like forecasting the next five years, right? I mean lots of things could happen. But you know, you historically, as you know, we've defaulted to, I hate to call it algorithm because it's too basic to be an algorithm, but generally our same-store sales tend to grow at inflation plus one. Right. I mean if you look at a kind of long enough, long enough time series.
Right now, we can make the case that the consumer in Mexico is perhaps a little bit softer than normal. So that would be an argument against the inflation plus one. But on the other side, and Jose mentioned this a few minutes ago, we're actually looking at pretty good numbers in the last few weeks. Right. So even post World Cup, the second half of July is looking a little bit better than we thought. So you know, I guess we have a few arguments for, a few arguments against, but at the end of the day the mid-single digit is where we tend to land on a normalized series.
So you know, if inflation is going to be close to 4, then same-store sales should be close to 5. I know that's kind of a soft answer, but you know there's enough uncertainty that I don't think we can be more granular. Yeah, I think it's important to remember that the commercial income is still there. Right. I mean the big CPGs, the relevance of OXXO for them keeps, you know, every day keeps getting bigger because we have more stores and so in many ways it's within our control. Right. And so I spoke in the remarks about this balance that we're going to go for, trying to obviously review the gross margin as little as possible, ensuring that the EBIT margin continues to hit and miss.
But you know, I think if you look at the second quarter, if you can take out the one-offs, the kind of the World Cup stuff, I think that's what it should look like. Right. And that gross margin contraction could be smaller than what we saw this quarter. I suppose there will be quarters where it could be a little bit higher, but at the end of the day, you know the levers are there and there for us to manage, which is really good to have so many of the variables within our control, effectively.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mr. Alvaro Garcia from BTG Pactual.
Alvaro Garcia, Analyst at BTG Pactual
Hey gentlemen, thanks for the space for questions. Hey Jose, how are you? I was wondering if you have a strategic question on labor in OXXO Mexico in the context of sort of solving property income growth, which you mentioned earlier. Given all the emphasis on recovering traffic and convenience and coffee, it would seem, you know, that you need better staffing or higher average staffing over the medium term. So I was wondering if you can maybe comment on, you know, how you're thinking about that third shift and how you're thinking about people in the context of more, of having more people at OXXO.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
It's a very relevant question, Alvaro, because it's obvious that as we continue to look at our value proposition, it's clear that our value proposition is very uneven at certain times of the day. Obviously the third shift, as it lost a little bit of relevance, it became like a self-fulfilling cycle that since it was becoming less relevant after COVID, we closed a lot of third shift options, or we closed them, and the consumer expects an OXXO that's open 24 hours in most places.
Not always, but most places the store should be open 24 hours with two people serving the store: one for the cleaning and taking inventory and receiving suppliers and one for servicing the customers. At least in some regions we were squeezing as much or trying to reduce our operating head in many places, and I think we overdid it. And we are going back to many, many regions and looking store by store, and many of them really deserve a very well-staffed third shift.
That will increase, at the beginning, our SG&A, but it will also increase our traffic. What we're seeing, interestingly, in the places we did a big third shift reopening in the northeast of Mexico, what we saw is that the store is very savvy at using the third shift for getting the store ready—very ready—for the first shift. And so we are going to continue to do that. The store deserves at least two people for most of the third shift. So that will increase SG&A. But overall, over time the value proposition should stand. Obviously, as cost of labor continues to increase and that labor reduction, these good things could change here and there. What our commitment should be is to invest ahead of time in processes that allow us to retain that level of service and that level of commitment without significant increases, or at least trying to mitigate the labor increased costs as much as possible. And the rest of it, obviously, try to negotiate with our suppliers to compensate with gross margin.
So I think it's a whole balance of things that we will continue to do. So the labor pressure will continue to rise with labor-intensive, with the regulations. But we feel confident that we have the level of service to tackle that as we continue to gain share. We feel confident that we will be able to cover most of it. I don't know if I answered you.
Alvaro Garcia, Analyst at BTG Pactual
Yeah, that was great. And I hate to do this, but I do want to follow up with just a clarification, which is you mentioned in your prepared remarks the 60% uplift at OXXO Mexico that was tied to the World Cup. I was just wondering if you can clarify if that's on a traffic basis or on a full-fledged same-store sales basis. That would be helpful.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
I mentioned it on a traffic basis. To be honest, it's hard to measure it very carefully. If we had not done anything—Carlos and all the management would have not moved any levers and we continued on the backslide—we probably would have lost another point of traffic. And without the World Cup happening, just a little bit of bad weather in certain parts of Mexico, it's coming secure. If you put all of that, the continuous slide or decreasing traffic in top box by not doing anything, I think we probably would have lost 1%.
We made that and another two points, mostly because the World Cup helped, mostly because Panini—which comes from the World Cup—also helped a lot, but also because we increased market share in many categories and, as you can see, we gained share across most retailers, across Nielsen, across every way you mentioned, we gained a lot of share. So I think we like what we were able to deliver after the World Cup, which I hope that we can sustain.
Alvaro Garcia, Analyst at BTG Pactual
Awesome. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Yeah, I mean, and also encouraging is we seek to track market share relative to different channels, and we continue to see that doing well for us particularly relative to the bigger formats. Curiously, traditional trade is also doing well and recovering relative to previous measurements that we've had. So that does give us confidence that the World Cup helped everybody and seemed to help us equal to or slightly better than other channels. And so that gives us some confidence that this is not just.
OPERATOR
Thank you. Our last question comes from Mr. Carlos Lavoy from HSBC. Please, Mr. You may now proceed.
Carlos Lavoy, Analyst at HSBC
Thank you for this time. Jose, I don't think there's a bottler in the last 34 years that's positively impacted the next frontier capabilities and the economic model of the Coke system more than Coca-Cola FEMSA. And as you settled into your job here, I'd like to understand a little better what's your vision and ambition for the bottler as you think out of the long term.
Jose Antonio Fernández Garza, Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Carlos. I am obviously biased, but I agree with you on the huge impact of Coca-Cola FEMSA in the Coke system and other Latin American bottlers. Obviously, I've been following Coca-Cola FEMSA since 1993 very closely, and I've never seen a more interesting future for Coca-Cola FEMSA in both the organic and the inorganic front. If you see organically, as you well know, Carlos, we have a huge opportunity for Venezuela again, and that keeps me incredibly excited, for the level of commitment for Coca-Cola FEMSA to invest behind Venezuela is incredible.
What we're doing in Colombia is—I've never seen numbers like that in decades. Maybe Guatemala for a while, but very, you know, market share gains, but also profitability plus scale plus investing. The level of alignment with the Coca-Cola system has never been there before. And the digital tools that we have in Coca-Cola FEMSA, I wish I could take some of that to OXXO. And I'm learning just by seeing how the supervisor in Coca-Cola FEMSA has become almost a microeconomic expert with the digital tools that it has at its disposal.
So Coca-Cola FEMSA is set for a very brilliant future in organic growth. And it's now becoming very clear that the Coca-Cola system, from what I sense, feels comfortable with big bottlers much more than ever before. The management in the Coca-Cola system wants to see big bottlers. This is my superstition, but I think there's been public comments from Coca executives around that. And so I think there is an upcoming future where I would love to see Coca-Cola FEMSA be a big part of the consolidation that I think could take place in Latin America.
And we will do anything that requires us to do to be part of that success. Carlos, I know you would love to hear me say something much more sensible, but that's all I can say for now. I'm very excited for its future.
Carlos Lavoy, Analyst at HSBC
That's very helpful. Thank you, Jose. And let me just clarify, because I was corrected by Juan Fonseca: OXXO Brazil sales in the double digits the last quarter—I, it was growing in the high teens and now it's growing in the low teens, but it's also still growing. Sorry for that.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
No worries, Jose. And really, I mean we have spoken in the past about how the whole period of unwinding the JV and prior to that conversations with a partner—I mean clearly the last year or so was not a typical year, but it is remarkable, and we did slow down the opening of new stores because of that. But it is remarkable that they've managed to keep the same-store sales in the double digits recently. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you everyone. This concludes the questions and answers section. At this time I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Fonseca for any closing remarks.
Juan Fonseca, Investor Relations Director
Thanks everyone for joining us today. Obviously, you know, the team is always available for follow-ups and any question that might have gone unanswered today. Other than that, have a great rest of your week.
OPERATOR
Thank you. This does conclude today's presentation. You may disconnect now and have a nice day.
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