Wal Mart de Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:WALMEX

Earnings Call Transcript 2020-Q4

[Operator]

Hello. Good morning, and welcome to Walmex 2021. On behalf of Wal-Mart de Mexico and Centroamerica, I would like to thank you for joining us in this event and to be interested in our company. I would like to give you some notifications. English translation available, click on the icon of the world. Rename yourself, all other participants will not be able to remain in the event. [Operator Instructions] 4Q '20 earnings materials available at walmex.com. During the presentations, we will be addressing these material.

Now I would like to ask you to read what is on your screen. These facts and the presentations will be available in our website, walmex.com.mx, at the end of the event. This is today's agenda. Our CEO, Guilherme Loureiro; and our CFO, Milton Brandt, will talk about our 4Q '20 and 2020. So we'll have a break, and then we will have the strategy of the company. After the presentations, we will have a break, and then we will have the Q&A sessions live. So I would like to pass the floor to our CEO, Gui Loureiro.

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

Good morning to all of you. I hope you and your families are safe and well. Thank you very much for joining us at our Walmex Day 2021. This year, we're going to have a slightly different event than what we've had in past years. In addition to being virtual due to the circumstances we are experiencing, we wanted to link the event with our fourth quarter report, which will probably seen earlier today. The team and I will be present the strategic plan for the future of the company. But first, I would like to talk to you about the quarter and the year 2020.

I'm going to -- I would like to start by talking about our associates. Words can't express how proud we are of each one of them. They are taking care of our customers and members during these unprecedented times, while providing an essential service and, thanks to their hard work and dedication, today, more than ever, we are fulfilling our proposal of helping people live better. On our Walmex Day 2019, we shared with you our plan to transform our way of working with 4 goals: to continue to put our customers and associates always at the center of our decisions, to work in an agile way, to use data to support decision-making and to foster an end-to-end view. This way of working was essential for us to adapt to the new circumstances and to remain productive and close to the stores, while working remotely. In face of the uncertainty, our associates keep us moving forward. Besides serving our customers, they are managing the business effectively and progressing on the execution of our strategy. Given the level of disruption we've seen in the environment since the pandemic began, we set 5 priorities to guide our decision-making, and I would like to give you an update on the progress of each one of them. The first priority is to support our associates. In addition to providing the necessary protective equipment so that they can do their work safely, to show our appreciation: more than 23,000 associates in vulnerable conditions were granted permissions to be absent with pay; we granted special bonuses in the second and fourth quarters for associates in stores, clubs and distribution centers; we changed the payment frequency of their salary from biweekly to weekly, so that the associates can have a quicker access to their earnings; we provided transportation allowances to distribution center with difficulties access; we extended a discount to all associates to buy everything they need in stores and online; and we enabled a medical phone line to support the health and well-being of our associates and their families. These measures remain in place, and we are constantly looking for ways to continue to support them, so that they can take care of themselves and our customers. The second priority is to serve our customers. We transformed our stores and the way we operate to serve our customers in the safest and most hygienic way possible. From installing protection glasses at the checkout and marking safe distance in high-traffic areas, to providing dedicated delivery and pickup slots to customers in vulnerable conditions. We have been adapting to the habits and the conditions of the environment, always following the guidelines of the authorities. We have kept our supply chain operating at full speed to be able to offer everything our customers are looking for. In addition, we are further reinforcing our everyday low prices proposition, keeping the lowest prices on more than 300 items in the Los Esenciales program. Our customers have appreciated this effort and have rewarded us with their preference. The third priority is to help each other, including: the communities we serve; our suppliers who have been our great allies; the tenants who lease space in our stores; and federal, state and local authorities. We have responded in different ways to needs of each one of them. We donated MXN 130 million to fund the COVID-19 temporary center, which provides medical care to patients in the health care system in Mexico City. In collaboration with other organizations, we supported more than 45,000 people affected by COVID-19, donating MXN 33 million through a gift card program. We also donated 250 tons of food to more than 22,800 seniors. We know it has been a difficult time for our small suppliers too, so we decided to support them: reducing payment terms to 7 days, expanding our factoring program and offering a digital training program designed for micro and small business who have been affected by contingency and who need support to understand the digital world as an alternative to address the crisis. We also waived rent for our small tenants and worked with them to hire to their employees during peak demand. The fourth priority is to manage the short-term effectively, financially and operationally. This includes our cash and inventory position. You saw our quarterly report earlier today, and Milton is going to address this point later. And the fifth, to continue to implement our strategy even amid the crisis. Everything that happened in 2020 led us to accelerate our strategic agenda. And this is why today, we're here to present to you the new chapter of our strategy. I am very proud of what we have achieved as a company in recent months, especially on how our associates have dealt with the situation. Now I leave you with Milton.

[Milton Brandt, executive]

Thank you, Gui, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us today in our Walmex Day 2021. This year, we proved our business to be resilient, to constantly innovate and to work with discipline in order to win our customers' loyalty, while delivering results. In 2020, the circumstances required us to work remotely, yet closer and more integrated than ever with our stores, clubs and distribution center associates. I am very pleased with how our associates are embracing agile as a way of working with our progress in omnichannel and with how we managed to keep our customers and associates at the center of all our decisions. Being true to our purpose of helping people save money and live better, now all our formats have an omnichannel offering that allow us to make things easier for our customers and help them stay safe during these unprecedented times. Let's review the fourth quarter and full year results. I'll start with Mexico. During the 4Q, total revenues increased 5.9% and 8% during the full year. Throughout the year, we worked with our suppliers to continue to provide the lowest prices to our customers through programs like Los Esenciales. We were able to expand our price gap by 50 basis points and to expand gross profit by 20 basis points for the full year. In terms of expenses, in the 4Q, we saw higher growth than in the rest of the year, primarily because of 3 reasons: we saw higher personnel costs, as we decided to pay another gratitude bonus to store, clubs and distribution center, and we increased the provision for performance bonus to show our appreciation for all the hard work our associates have done this challenging year; number two, we caught up with construction, remodel and maintenance work that we couldn't do earlier in this year given the restrictions; and number three, we incurred extraordinary expenses to keep our customers and associates safe. However, when we look at the full year, I am quite pleased with how the team managed to keep the operating discipline, despite the high expense environment we experienced. Excluding onetime effects, expenses as percentage of sales were quite similar to 2019 levels. All in, underlying 2020 results were positive. Operating income grew 9.5%, 150 basis points ahead of total revenue growth, and we were able to maintain our double-digit EBITDA margin of 11.4%. Now looking at the details of the quarter. We delivered broad-based growth across regions, formats and categories. During the quarter, same-store sales increased 4.9% and 6.7% for the full year, which led to an 11.1% 2-year stack. All regions had a positive performance. The North and South regions delivered the highest same-store sales growth, followed by metro and center regions. Sales in the metro region were softer during December as operating restrictions increased and selling some categories, such as toys or wines, was temporarily prohibited.

Regarding formats, Sam's Club continued to post the highest same-store sales growth, followed by Bodega, Walmart and Superama. Important to note how Bodega's sales trend improved significantly versus previous quarters' performance, as consumer are reacting to the pricing actions we've taken and our omni-proposition is starting to gain traction. Looking at the same-store sales by category. Food and Consumables and General Merchandise posted their highest growth driven by in-home consumption, El Fin Irresistible event and holiday sales. It's encouraging to see that the Apparel division resumed growth and posted a positive result after several quarters on negative territory.

While SSS growth continues to be strong and sustainable, e-commerce contribution to total sales growth is accelerating. During the year, contribution increased 5x versus 2019, reaching 260 basis points. Looking only at the 4Q, e-commerce contributed 340 basis points to total growth. E-commerce sales growth was 171%, both in the quarter and for the full year. E-commerce sales represented 5.1% of sales during quarter and 3.8% during the year, 2.5x the penetration we had on 2019. On November, we reached our monthly sales historic maximum for General Merchandise in on-demand. It's encouraging to see the potential we have on the omni space as the market evolves. We will focus on service levels and on providing the best shopping experience. We believe it is critical to continue investing to improve our omni value proposition in order to win our customers' loyalty. Ignacio and Cristian will talk about our plans going forward. We have been able to outpace the self-service and clubs market measured by ANTAD for 6 consecutive years now. In 2020, we sequentially expanded the same-store sales growth gap and -- versus ANTAD, reaching a 660 (sic) [ 160 ] basis points gap during the quarter and a 130 basis gap for the full year. Our Every Day Low Price proposition continues to gain strength. And our efforts to operate with discipline and continuously improve our service levels are allowing us to gain our customers' loyalty. Now I'll talk about the results in Central America. Top line growth continued to be softer in the region given the macro environment and the restrictions in place to contain COVID-19 pandemic. The team made a great job launching campaigns such as Tu Menudo Campeón, and reinforcing our pricing positioning to drive sales. Despite the price investments, we worked together with our suppliers and were able to maintain a 24.2% gross profit margin in the region. I have to say I am very pleased with how the team managed to keep expenses under control in such challenging times. We were able to achieve 10 basis points of expense leverage during the year, despite the additional costs incurred due to the pandemic. It is an example of our commitment to costs control and discipline. As a result, EBITDA margin expanded by 20 basis points in the year. Looking at the performance by country. We continue to face a challenging environment, yet we are managing to grow ahead of the market and to gain share in most of the countries. Nicaragua and Guatemala managed to grow sales, while in El Salvador, Costa Rica and Honduras, sales were softer, as the effect of the pandemic, with its opening restrictions and hurricanes affected those countries more severely. I'd like to highlight the omnichannel progress in the region, which allowed us to serve our customers amid these unprecedented times. It's amazing how the team stepped up to the challenge and provided essential service to customers. Flavio will speak about our plans for the region later in the session. Moving to the new store growth. We continue to invest in Mexico and in Central America despite an uncertain environment as we believe in the long-term potential of the region. We are resuming new store growth at a faster pace. Following authorities' guidelines for construction and making sure conditions are safe, we opened 37 stores in the last quarter of 2020. During the full year, we opened 82 new stores, 63 in Mexico and 19 in Central America. These included 2 new Walmart Express stores, which had amazing results on their opening month. We are very excited about the potential of this format. For the year, new stores' contribution to total sales growth was 1.5%. Last year, we were not able to implement our investment plans as we expected to, but we managed to make strategic investments to better position our business, while continuing to generate returns. We invested MXN 16.7 billion: 43% of the investment was allocated to the remodeling and maintenance of existing stores, 27% to the opening of new stores, 16% to e-commerce and technology and 14% to the logistics network redesign. As we shared with you on previous quarters, we decided to shift our investment focus to omnichannel, automation and technology projects to accelerate the implementation of our strategy. In summary, I am very pleased with what we achieved in the year. We were able to serve our customers, to take care of our associates, to give back to the community, to progress with our strategic agenda and generate returns for our shareholders, while we managed to grow the top line and maintain profitability. That will be it for the 4Q and 2020 results. Now let's talk about our plans going forward. Our financial framework will remain consistent. We will focus on 4 levers for value creation. First is quality growth. We will continue to drive broad-based, profitable and, therefore, sustainable growth across the different formats, regions and categories, leveraging the e-commerce momentum and previous investments. The second one is an Every Day Low Cost mindset. We continuously launch and search for new productivity initiatives to leverage expenses. Our capacity to save and be efficient is what gives us the flexibility to invest and continue positioning our company. The third, strategic capital management. We continue to optimize our working capital and to invest in high-return projects. Number four, these should translate into value creation for our shareholders. Talking about the Every Day Low Cost mindset. We continue to focus on productivity and expense control. In 2021, we will implement projects such as workforce management program through which we will change the way of working of our associates at store by reducing layers and friction, while we empower them and provide the necessary digital tools to make their jobs easier. Another example is smart spending, where we will review and optimize the expenses of the company line-by-line through a sustainable program. We will also step up our efforts in terms of automation and digitalization. We shared with you plenty of examples of what we are doing in our stores during the omni tour: self-scanning stations, the backroom unloader or the Fresh app. The savings that we generate will be reinvested into our customers' and Associate Value Proposition. Our financial strength becomes increasingly important at these times. Operating cash flow generation has increased annually 9.2%, and we will continue to focus on further improving our cash position by managing the business in a disciplined way, so we can continue to invest and generate returns, which leads to the next point. We are committed to delivering consistent returns to shareholders while investing for the future. Yesterday, the Walmex' Board of Directors agreed to recommend a proposal to shareholders for an ordinary dividend of MXN 0.90 per share and an extraordinary dividend of MXN 0.73 per share. Total dividends add up to MXN 1.63 per share payable in 2 installments, one in November and the other one in December 2021. We expect the proposal to be approved in the annual shareholders' meeting to be held on March 23, 2021. We are also generating returns in the form of capital gains. For the last 5 years, every year our stock price has reached a new maximum, despite the volatility in the environment. In closing, Walmex is evolving and preparing for the future. We will continue to invest and innovate. Our business is resilient. And by operating with discipline and becoming more productive, we will be able to deliver results as we transform our business. We will keep a strong cash flow generation that will allow us to invest and build a business that is even more prepared to face future challenges. I would like to say thank you to all our associates. You have stepped up to challenge, and you are making it possible for families to safely get what they need, while positioning our company to win. Thanks again for joining us today.

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

Good morning to all, and again, thank you for joining us at our Walmex Day 2021. Today, we are here to share with you our new long-term strategy. In my presentation, I will focus on Mexico; and later on, Flavio will present Central America's strategy. Last year, we had planned to hold our annual event with analysts and investors at Merida's new omnichannel distribution center. Due to the circumstances, we had prepared everything necessary to do the event virtually. But during those days, the World Health Organization declared the pandemic and we began to see a significant level of disruption in the business, so we made the decision to focus 100% on the serving of our customers and canceled the event altogether. Before we start talking about our future plans, I would like to use some of the material from last year's presentation as a context for today. In '19 -- in 2019, we delivered what we promised, and we continued to build a resilient and innovative business to delight and meet the expectations of our customers, associates, shareholders and the communities in which we operate. But this is not a surprise. Throughout our history, we have proven resilience in our business and our ability to constantly innovate to deliver results. Since Sam Walton's time, we've always put our customer at the center of our decision. Sam Walton used to say, "If we don't listen to our customers, somebody will do." And that philosophy continues to permeate through our company. Over 20 years ago, we launched the concept of Every Day Low Prices in order to help Mexican families live better. And since then, we have continued to innovate. But the world move every time more faster. In the last 5 years, we've made strategic decisions regarding our portfolio management, which have allowed us to focus our energy in our core business, which lead to an 8% of CAGR. We launched small store prototypes in all our stores in all formats, which allow us to improve capital efficiency. We've expanded our presence to over 250 (sic) [ 520 ] cities in Mexico. During this period, we opened 442 stores, which is equivalent to more than half of our main competitor's stores count. We opened 2,000 Bodega. We achieved historic growth records versus our competitors, surpassing ANTAD by almost 1,200 basis points. And we were able to keep the gains and market share.

We have improved the profitability in Central America by 200 basis points. We started the redesign of one of the most robust logistic networks in the country. We have opened and expanded over 5 distribution centers to continue growing with the quality in the country. Additionally, we have automated our existing distribution center to further improve our efficiency. We have strengthened and escalated our online platform. We have equipped the stores with over 1,000 pickup locations and around 900 kiosks. We opened Marketplace where we have over 1,300 marketers or sellers to expand and reach. We launched a payment platform prototype, which will enable us to connect and enhance our ecosystem in the future.

We opened our first inclusive store in Mexico, both for customers and associates. We launched our Associate Value Proposition. We improved the variable compensation scheme to better reflect the performance of our associates. We have promoted 26,381 associates, 49% of which are women. We changed the dress code, implemented flexible hours and increased the maternity and paternity leave. Thanks to everyone's effort, we became the largest company in Mexico by market cap. We have built a resilient business prepared for the future. We have -- despite the circumstances, we have not stopped innovating, investing, growing and generating returns. Most importantly, we have built trust with our customers, associates, suppliers and communities where we operate. In summary, through all these years, we have proven resilience and capacity, and we have built the foundations and have prepared for the future. We were able to grow in an accelerated fashion, and our openings are more efficient. We expanded our price gap to meet our value proposition to save to live better. We also built an omnichannel business with on-demand, and we are prepared to accelerate Marketplace and 1P markets. We continue on creating shared value and building trust with our stakeholders, customers, associates, providers, communities, business partners, shareholders. It was a year without precedence in all sense. A year of stories, of challenges, of learnings. A year that certainly set the before and after of several industries, including ours. The pandemic changed the way our customers shop and interact with us. It generated structural changes in retail and acceleration of digital adoption in several areas from online shopping to payments and paperwork. We are fortunate to operate a business that allow us to be even closer to our customers and to learn from them every day. The evolution of the market and in the way our customers shop accelerated the implementation of our strategic agenda and led us to rethink our long-term plans. And I dare to say, the future of our company looks more exciting than ever. We've evolved significantly from a store-based business to an omnichannel business, and now it is time to optimize performance and create a winning omni-led ecosystem in Mexico. The new strategy can be summarized in this flywheel of mutual reinforcing capabilities and assets. But what is exactly a flywheel? I can't find the exact word in Spanish. It's a steering wheel? If we look it up in the -- its meeting in the dictionary, a flywheel is: a revolving wheel that is used to increase the machine's momentum, thereby providing greater stability to reserve power for when you need it. And that is precisely what our flywheel is trying to do. As it spins, it creates power and momentum of investment that we can put back into the business and make the whole machine even more efficient. Let's see it by parts. Our starting point is solid. We have a healthy brick-and-mortar business that has delivered broad-based, profitable and sustainable growth for many years and a double-digit EBITDA margin. Our focus will be to win in discount. The discount market in Mexico is large and offers space to continue growing, especially through the formalization of the market. We have a unique position in this segment, thanks to Bodega, our recognized and efficient vehicle that has accompanied our customers for over 60 years and nowadays is the largest retailer in Mexico. It is necessary to evolve together with our Bodega consumer and to deepen the execution of the value proposition. We will seek to further expand our price leadership together with our suppliers. In addition to significantly reinforcing the price gap, we will be much more intentional in terms of price points. We will continue to work on our assortment, and in this regard, our brands will become even more relevant as we will seek to expand its share about 300 basis points in the next year. Our brands will be key to keep our customers' preference, while balancing pricing investment and profitability. Another important aspect to win in discount is to continue to strengthen our Fresh offering, since this category is fundamental in the purchase decisions of the Bodega customer. We have progressed with the projects we have shared with you before, such as the centralization of the meat and bakery or perishables 360, but there is still a lot to do. The flexibility of Bodega's format and prototypes will help us to accelerate new store expansion. We have developed new prototypes such as Mi Bodega Urbana that, together with the redesign of our logistics network, allow us to reach places that we couldn't reach before and to bring our low price value proposition to more families. Winning primary destination in brick-and-mortar is the foundation to lead in omni. Two years ago, we shared with this -- with you in the same event our decision to compete in e-commerce from our field, leveraging our strength, leadership in groceries and our stores. Today, I can say that I am very proud of what we have achieved in this regard with the evolution of on-demand. Today, we can deliver the same day our customer place their order 52,000 groceries, consumables and general merchandise items from 586 of our stores of all formats: Walmart, Walmart Express, Sam's and Bodega in 70 cities. Thanks to our capabilities, we can deliver everything from regular weekly grocery orders to orders as complex as a combo of popcorn, microwave and an ice cream. By doing so, we have managed to win the purchase frequency and scale our business significantly, while keeping the lowest prices. In 2020, online sales grew 171%. And simultaneously, we improved NPS and profitability significantly. On-demand will continue to be a critical part of our omnichannel offering, and there is still much to do in terms of service level. Going forward, we will seek to significantly accelerate the extended assortment, primarily in general merchandise and apparel. We know that our customers are looking for a wider assortment when they shop online, and we are here to serve them. We're going to strengthen the 1P and the Marketplace operations to expand our reach to more categories and customers. We will start with the local marketplace and develop cross-border in the midterm. To become leaders in omni, we need to invest significantly in growth catalysts, among them, technology, logistics and talent. I'm talking about these going forward. Walmart and Sam's are going to play a key role in our plans. We will prioritize the omni transformation of stores and clubs. Later on, Ignacio, Dolores and Cristian will tell you in more detail about our plans. They are natural adjacencies to our omni business that will allow us to solve customer pain points. Imagine being able to create a digital connection with the more than 5 million customers who visit us every day, offer services such as connectivity or credit so that they can buy high-ticket items. And that every time they interact with us, we get to know them better and serve them better. We identified those services around the shopping experience that our customers value the most, and we are already making progress on these brands. We launched the mobile virtual network operator BAIT, to provide connectivity services for our customers. And we have now 300,000 users who can top-up their phones at 25,000 -- 2,500 stores or using Cashi. We also launched our Cashi as an MVP, and we learned from our customers' response. Now we're preparing to scale the product. We are hiring talent, building the technology and developing use cases that will expand customers' access and loyalty, developing ecosystems that will also translate into new sources of revenue. We have a big opportunity in advertising. We launched our media business in 2019, now called Walmart Connect. It's growing fast and results are encouraging. In a few minutes, Blas and Beatriz will talk to you about our plans. These new revenue streams, paired with productivity and automation projects, and the Every Day Low Cost mentality will allow us to reinvest in the business to provide a unified and engaging experience inside and outside the stores. Self-service business is the foundation of everything, and we will continue to invest in it to develop the ecosystem. To execute the long-term strategy, there are 4 enablers that we need to focus on: customer-centricity, technology and data, logistics and talent. Having customers at the center of our decision is going to be critical to achieve our ambition. Customer at the center is our North Star, and we have made several changes to our structure and way of working to reinforce it. Just over 1 year ago, we launched our Customer Experience Factory with the intention of never stop hearing the customers' voice. In addition, we have evolved our customer satisfaction indicator and we'll continue to work to make it the driver of our actions.

There is still much to do about technology and data. The good news is that we are part of a global company that has collected learnings from different markets and situations. We will seek to leverage these strengths as much as possible. Logistics is one of the enablers where we will invest the most. Our network has been characterized as a competitive advantage. And in recent years, we have invested significantly to keep this advantage. Only in 2020, we opened 3 new distribution centers, and we started the construction of 2 more. Going forward, we will continue with the network redesign, now with an even more omnichannel approach that adapts to the future needs of the business. From my perspective, the most important enabler is talent. The new shape of our business is taking requires new talent and different skills and also requires a change in the mindset of our associates. I am very proud of the team we have. I dare say that we have the best operators and merchants in Mexico. We will continue training our associates in the use of data in the agile methodology and fostering an entrepreneurial mindset. Thus, the business will increasingly focus on the needs of our customers. We want Walmart to continue to be that place where our associates can be themselves, they -- where they can learn, grow and have fun. To achieve this, we will continue to implement the Associate Value Proposition and transform our talent to further strengthen our most valuable asset. This new strategy requires us to evolve the focus of our investments to drive omnichannel growth. In 2021, we expect to invest MXN 22.2 billion in Mexico and Central America. We will allocate 40% of the investment to the remodeling and maintenance of our stores. It's critical for us to keep our stores base up to date with omnichannel capabilities to traffic -- to drive traffic and for our associates to have a safe place to work and our customers and members a safe place to shop.

Investment for new stores will increase by 18% versus last year. With this level of investment, we expect the contribution from new stores to grow to remain between 1.2% and 1.5%. Investment in logistics will represent 25% of the total. As I mentioned earlier, we have several projects on the pipeline, and there is still way to work -- to complete the redesign of our network. 10% of the funds will be allocated to e-commerce and technology. Remember that, in addition to investing directly in these concepts, we are also leveraging technology developed in other countries where Walmart operates. This certainly positions us as one of the companies in the sector that are investing the most in technology. We can see how the distribution of capital has evolved, adapting to the needs of the business. A few years ago, a large part of the investment was dedicated to opening new stores. Back then, we only had home delivery service in Superama, and we were just beginning to build our extended assortment operation at Walmart. Going forward, we're going to significantly increase investments in logistics and technology. We are also going to invest in new stores and in modernizing our existing stores to grow and accelerate omni growth and to build the foundation of the ecosystem.

In the coming years, the level of investment will be higher than in recent years. Between 2022 and 2024, investment as a percentage of sales will be close to 4%. Then it will return to current levels. The level of investment and the transformation of our business gives us confidence that we will continue to grow and generate significant returns.

As a result of our strategic choices, our growth profile will continue to evolve. In the past years, we focused on growing through new stores and building the foundation for omni business. Going forward, omni and ecosystems will be the main drivers of growth. In 2015, we shared with you our goal of doubling the business in 10 years. This new strategy will accelerate growth. And we believe that we can double the size of the business in less time. Accelerated omnichannel growth, the change to our way of working, the talent we have developed and hired and the capabilities we have built give us confidence that we can continue to evolve our business and that we will build in the near future a customer-centric ecosystem anchored in our core business.

It will certainly be challenging as the pandemic, it is not over and economic conditions are not the most favorable. But it's right now that we become even more important to our customers. We will continue to work to serve their needs, to take care of our associates and to continue to develop a resilient customer-centric business with a great capacity to innovate. This new strategy will translate into shared value creation for our customers, associates, communities, shareholders, suppliers, business partners and for the planet. As a company, we want to use our scale to help. Our goal is to become a regenerative company. To achieve this, we will contribute to Walmart's global commitment to be a net zero-emission company and to help protect, manage and restore 50 million acres of land and 1 million square miles of ocean, both 2040. We will collaborate with the Walmart Foundation globally to combat the loss of natural resources that threatens the planet.

We have robust programs to achieve our goals, such as Reciclamanía Evoluciona, that help us to promote a circular economy avoiding the generation of waste or the Gigaton Project that seeks to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in the supply chain. We will continue to focus on creating trust and shared value for our stakeholders using our strengths to help people live better and preserve the planet.

We have made significant progress on environmental, social and corporate governance matters. I would like to highlight that we are 75% ahead of our zero waste goal. More than 90% of our suppliers are small- and medium-sized companies. And last year, we promoted more than 11,500 women. There's still a lot to do. But we are on the right track to be a better company in these aspects. Before closing, please let me introduce our management team: Cristian Barrientos, COO for Mexico; Milton Brandt, our CFO; Flavio Cotini, CEO for Walmart Central America; Ignacio Caride, in charge of e-commerce; Dolores Fernández Lobbe, CMO for sales services. She just joined our team after a vast career in merchandising. Most recently, she held the CEO position of our operations in Argentina. We are very excited to have her in our team. Gastón Wainstein, in charge of real estate; Beatriz Núñez, in charge of growth and technology; Eduardo de la Garza, in charge of people; Adriana Velázquez, in charge of compliance; Alberto Sepúlveda, in charge of legal and corporate affairs. In closing, I would like to summarize the key messages. Customers appreciate our evolution and are rewarding us with their loyalty. We have 3 priorities: win in discount; lead in omni; and develop ecosystems. We will step up investments in a disciplined and thoughtful manner. Our ability to transform the business and focus on the customer gives us confidence that we are following the right path. Now I leave you with Ignacio, Cristian and Dolores, who will give you more detail of our omnichannel strategy.

[Cristian Barrientos, executive]

Thank you, Gui, and good morning for everyone. 2020 was an unprecedented year for our customers, members and associates. Before the crisis, we were already seeing an adoption of pickup and home delivery service in all our formats. And the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated this change retail industry was undergoing.

We experienced radical changes in shopping habits, which accelerated our omnichannel business. During the first month of contingency, the number of orders we received tripled, which challenged us to build capacity and to accelerate the implementation of our strategy. The investments we made in the past and the operating model we developed allowed us to respond quickly and to provide an essential service to Mexican families in this new normality.

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

Let us tell you everything we did. In order to meet the expectations and needs of our customers in on-demand, we increased by 40% the number of slots available for delivery or store pickup. We hired over 2,700 pickers and doubled the capacity of the last mile. We also adjusted our apps and website to give special attention to vulnerable people. In addition to these immediate response actions, we accelerated several projects. We launched home delivery service in 265 Sam's Club and Bodega Aurrera units and accelerated the implementation of this service in about 60 Walmart and Superama stores. Doing so, we doubled our ability to deliver thousands of items on the same day from our stores. We already have 586 units in 70 cities providing this service. Another initiative we accelerated was our crowdsourcing model for picking and delivering in nearly 30 stores. This decision helped us to serve our customers in a seamless way during the high demand generated by the contingency.

We also made great progress on extended assortment. First, in order to give access to a digital offer to a large part of the population in Mexico, we launched bodegaaurrera.com.mx website with our General Merchandise catalog and reached more than 1,100 kiosks. This has been very well received by our customers as the average ticket is almost 8x higher than in the store.

Second, we upgraded our marketplace technology. And by doing so, we were able to increase 8x the number of products available, enabled by more than 1,000 sellers.

Finally, we managed to expand the coverage of our logistics network with a new fulfillment center dedicated to e-commerce and 2 new omnichannel distribution centers. Altogether, we have 5 distribution centers from which we operate our extended assortment. With these new omnichannel solutions, we managed to maintain record service levels at the most important online events of the year, which are Hot Sale and El Fin Irresistible, despite the increase in demand.

In relation to payments, our conversion rates increased by 200 basis points, thanks to the investment in machine learning technology and a close collaboration with the country's main financial institutions. And speaking of talent, a very important milestone of which we are very proud is the incorporation of 45 associates with disabilities in our call center who work remotely from home. These associates account for 9% of the total team. Our aspiration is that at least 80% of the new hires are people with disabilities.

As you can see, we made good progress in 2020, and we managed to grow 171% online sales, which is equivalent to growing 2.5x versus 2019. E-commerce accounted for almost 4% of our total sales in Mexico, something we didn't think will happen soon. Importantly, as we accelerated growth, we also implemented several actions that enabled us to improve profitability and build a healthier business.

[Dolores Lobbe, executive]

But this is just the beginning. E-commerce share in Mexico, even after the pandemic, is 6%, way below countries with more mature operations. So much remains to be done. We need to continue listening to our customers and solving the main pain points they have during their shopping experience.

In this regard, we are leveraging the transformation that we started 2 years ago to continue working in a collaborative, agile and data-driven way through all the areas that support shopping experience: e-commerce, merchandising, operations, financial solutions and logistics, among others. Our ambition is to become the leading omnichannel retailer in Mexico. Our goal is for omni to reach a double-digit share in our business by 2024. As Gui mentioned, to achieve this ambition, we will focus on 3 pillars: strengthening our on-demand strategy; number two, accelerating extended assortment; and number three, investing aggressively in 3 of the growth catalysts: technology, logistics and talent. During the presentation, we will go into more detail for each of these 3 pillars.

[Cristian Barrientos, executive]

We will start with on-demand. As Gui mentioned, a few years ago, we decided to change the focus of our strategy to further leverage our stores and everything around them so that we could bring an appealing value proposition to our customers and members. So we created the on-demand strategy, which has been very well received by our customers and has been the vehicle to win the shopping frequency.

On-demand is a key element of our omnichannel strategy, and we will continue to strengthen this service from 4 fronts. The first one is to continue developing actions to further improve the customer experience. That's the reason why we are going to accelerate and strengthen our crowdsourcing model, leveraging our Spark technology. This model is very relevant because it gives us the flexibility to serve our customers faster without sacrificing efficiency. In 2021, we will increase the share of this service by leveraging around 150 Walmart and Walmart Express stores in the highest population density areas of the country's major cities. The second is to continue listing thousands of items to offer with same-day delivery at the lowest price, the huge variety that we already have in our stores today. Imagine being able to receive everything from pantry items to clothes, toys, a TV or a refrigerator in just a couple of hours. The third front is to expand our capacity to offer on-demand service to more Mexican families. In 2021, we will enable this service in more than 270 stores to reach a total of 860 units nationwide. These delivery points add up to our 20 distribution centers to offer thousands of items and a frictionless shopping experience for our customers throughout the republic. The fourth, last but not least, is a project that we are very excited to share with you. In line with our mission to help Mexican families save money and live better, we created Walmart Pass, a subscription program that, within a few months, will allow our Walmart and Walmart Express customers to make unlimited orders with no delivery cost for a monthly or annual fee. This initiative is beginning of several benefits that we will be adding in favor of our customers. Walmart Pass is a great step towards the connection and the bond we have with our customers in order to strengthen their trust in our services. As you can see, we have made a lot of progress in on-demand, but we still have a long way to go. It's very encouraging to see the potential of this business.

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

Now let's talk about extended assortment. When our customers shop online, they look for a wider assortment and differentiated products to meet their needs in different moments of their lives, even more frequently now in this new normality. With on-demand, we lay the foundation for winning in frequency. Through the extended assortment, we want to reach more customers with a much larger product offering.

We will accelerate, focusing on 3 key elements. The first one is to strengthen our omnichannel category strategy, which will allow us to know what merchandise our customer is looking for and what is the right channel to serve them with the right price and the level of service they expect. For example, everyday items that our customers want to receive in a matter of hours will be available from our stores. More specialized items that do not require urgent delivery will move through our own distribution model or through our Marketplace, depending on the extension of the catalog and the rotation of the items. With this strategy, we will capture various synergies and leverage of our stores and logistics network while improving the shopping experience.

The second is to expand the assortment and accelerate the seller base on our Marketplace. We will multiply the current offer 5x, leveraging both domestic and international products and strengthening the brands assortment we offer. To complement, we will build the foundation for the cross-border model. The last element that will support the accelerated growth of our extended assortment is the pickup model. You have already heard us that we have stores 10 minutes away from 85% of the population in the main cities. And this proximity to the customer is a very valuable advantage for our omnichannel strategy. We will try new things, such as the ability to operate Bodegas and Express stores as pickup points, and leverage the technology developed at Walmart International, such as our customer service tools and mobile check-in, to offer a seamless service.

[Dolores Lobbe, executive]

The third element to achieve our ambition to be leaders in omnichannel is to continue investing heavily in technology, logistics and talent. We will continue to invest in technology that improves the shopping experience of our customers both in stores and in our digital channels. In addition, we will continue to improve our internal processes and innovating solutions, such as product scanning, transport assignment and route optimization, among others, that will allow us to simplify and speed up the way we serve our customers.

We will also integrate the ecosystem the team mentioned earlier with our different platforms so that our customers can make use of all the services in all easy and seamless. Later, Blas and Beatriz will tell you how we are connecting the verticals of our ecosystem through solutions like Cashi and BAIT. A great advantage that we have as a global company is that we can leverage and exchange the best practices from other more advanced markets in terms of technology such as the United States, China, India or Canada, which allow us to implement the best technology in less time.

[Cristian Barrientos, executive]

As Gui mentioned, in the coming years, we will significantly increase our investment in logistics to accelerate omnichannel growth. The redesign of the network is aligned with the category strategy that Ignacio talked about. And it is a key element to achieve our ambition. To give you an example of the potential we see today, moving a large item, for example, a lawnmower from the distribution center in Mexico City to Oaxaca, that is more than 450 kilometers away, costs us on average 9x less than doing so via a courier, and we can deliver it 5 days earlier. How will we achieve that? Leveraging our logistics network that visits and delivers over 3.5 million boxes every day to our stores. We will ship e-commerce orders through our own fleet at the lowest cost.

Again, this is how we transfer the benefits of our actions to our customers. We have a great challenge before us, and it requires specific skills and a growth mindset. We are training our people to deal with this new challenge.

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with the main takeaways. We have the ambition to lead in omnichannel. We will continue to strengthen on-demand while accelerating extended assortment. We will invest in growth catalysts, technology, logistics and talent, that will lead us to fulfill these ambitions. Thank you. Now I'll leave you with Blas Caraballo, who is going to introduce you to our financial solution ecosystem.

[Blas Caraballo, executive]

Good morning. My name is Blas Caraballo. Thank you for joining us in this session. I would like to talk about my background. I've been working in the e-commerce industry in Mexico for 14 years. And for the last 11 years, I've focused on fintech, specifically in digital payments. It is an honor to be able to participate in building the Walmart of the coming years, where the financial solution ecosystem is priority and strategic. In 2019, we shared with you our ambition to connect digitally with our customers so that we can get to know them better and, by doing so, be able to serve them better. With that goal in mind, we launched Cashi as a minimum viable product. And over a year, we tested different features, such as in-store merchandise payment or utility bill payments.

Despite being a simple product, we learned a lot about what our customers are looking for and what they value in these types of products. Testing Cashi confirmed our customers' need for low-cost financial services and greater flexibility. In Mexico, only about 54 million adults have access to financial products. And the percentage of men is greater than women.

We see a clear need in the industry and in our customers, and we believe our assets put us in a unique position to create a leading financial ecosystem in Mexico. We have over 2,600 stores in the country, where an average of 5 million customers visit us every day. We recently upgraded our nearly 28,000 points of sale. Now we have flexible technology that allow us to read QR codes and adapt much faster to our customers' needs. We have gained their trust. They know our brands that have accompanied them throughout their lives.

Based on the learnings from Cashi, in 2020, we focused on building the foundation that will allow us to escalate the product. We put together a team of experts with many years of experience in the development of digital payments, wallets and financial products in Mexico and other countries. We also took big steps in the implementation of technology. We hired a team of developers based at Walmart Labs in India. In addition, we built data analytics capabilities to better understand our users. We also started to combine Cashi with other verticals in the ecosystem. For example, today, our customers can top up BAIT using Cashi without having to go to the store.

Each vertical plays a specific role in the ecosystem. And the combination of these verticals anchored on the omni business is what makes the Walmart ecosystem unique. Our role is to provide digital financial solutions to help Mexican families live better. In the next 18 months, we will focus on building products that facilitate the financial inclusion of our customers.

We have some launches for 2021 that will be very well received by our users. Number one, we want our customers to enjoy a completely contactless experience when visiting our stores, allowing them to pay through Cashi, with their credit card or debit card, vouchers and even cash balance. Number two, we will also enable Cashi as an online payment method on our e-commerce platforms so that customers who do not have a financial instrument can use it to pay online. This is going to be a great enabler for omnichannel sales. Number three, we're going to launch a disbursement model for business and suppliers through which they will be able to distribute resources directly to users via Cashi. Imagine that a supplier wants to run a promotional campaign or wants to offer a discount. Through Cashi, they will be able to do it in a direct and efficient way and our customers will benefit from it.

In order to add more features and value to the product, we will soon enable an open loop through a strategic partner with a leading financial institution. This way, our customer will have access to a bank account that will allow them, among other things, to send and receive money both in Mexico and abroad and to access consumer credit. I am very excited about the opportunity ahead of us. To finalize, I would like to highlight the main key takeaways. We have the ambition to become a leading financial solutions ecosystem. Number two, our assets and capabilities position us uniquely to achieve so. Number three, we are building the foundation to move faster in the future.

[Beatriz Núñez, executive]

Good morning to you all. I am Beatriz Núñez, Chief of the growth and IT office. As Gui and Blas already mentioned, our ambition is to create a customer-centric ecosystem attached to our core business strategy, end-to-end solutions and using agility as our way of working. We are eager about the progress we have reached so far. And we are confident that this transformation will help Walmart drive its long-term aspiration and continue to improve the lives of Mexican families.

Particularly in the last year, we decided to accelerate the creation of new sources of revenue, which we'll prioritize and will be delivered in waves. The Walmart ecosystem is a network of solutions that focus on what our customer needs, which will be driven by our strength, our core business, enabling a unique advantage to solve our customers' pain points and improve their shopping experience. Today, I am proud to talk about 2 verticals of our system, advertising and connectivity, which complement each other and leverage on the vertical of financial services, which Blas already talked about. In Walmart, we have the scale of our physical stores and the purchasing data of our customers. No one knows Mexican customers better than we do. So we have defined a mission that will help us drive our corporate ambition: become the leading media platform in Mexico by helping brands connect with our customers more often and more meaningfully. During 2020, we have managed to integrate and develop and offer focus on 2 branches. Number one, our reach. By adding up our traffic in physical stores and digital channels, we become a national mass media. Number two, our knowledge about the customer, knowing what the customer buys, gives us a unique advantage over any other player. With this approach, we achieve an omnichannel advertising annual revenue growth close to double digits and we work with more than 200 brands who believed and invested in our media. We would like to share with you some of the examples we built together with our advertisers and to give you an idea of the great potential Walmart has in becoming the leading communication platform in Mexico. The first example I want to share with you is when we understood the change in behavior and habits of our customers. We addressed that our customers were cooking more at home because of COVID-19 contingency. We launched an omnichannel and innovative multi-brand and multi-format campaign. The objective we defined with our advertiser was to introduce their products with our customers in an easy and fun way.

When the customers arrive at Supercenter or Superama, first, we switch into their ears and sights with audio and screens, so they crave for a new recipe. Next, when they walk around the aisles, we send a text message to their phone or e-mail with the tips for the recipe. In addition, the ingredients had a QR code that, when scanned, directed them to our blogs, Taste and Style, where they could find more recipes. And with a single click, they could find all the ingredients ready in their walmart.com or superama.com cards. The result in sales for these products were spectacular. In Superama, they grew 196% and in Supercenter, 95% during the period of implementation.

We also invited our customers to our livestream and virtual unboxing during toy season, driven by our data understanding to offer them the perfect gifts for them and their families. We even took them virtually to the Alejandro Fernández concert sponsored by the brand. We are very motivated with the 2020 results. And we will now tell you about the plans of the future, which are fully focused on the needs of the advertisers that seek to achieve the high double-digit revenue growth in advertising, becoming their first choice in their marketing strategies. Some of the key actions of Walmart Connect for 2021 will be, number one, to expand digital capabilities, including sponsors, searches, digital content with tailored offers at the right time, digital segmentation and automation platform capacity. At the same time, we will innovate in-store advertising spaces to improve the experience of our customers.

Now I am going to talk about our other vertical, connectivity. I have the opportunity to share the progress of BAIT, our multi-format mobile and home Internet connectivity service. In Mexico, connectivity represents a basic need for Mexican spending and achieves annual revenue growth consistently. Having this in mind, we addressed that the strength of our core business enables clear advantage in terms of sales and distribution capabilities. So we have a strong opportunity to become the leading mobile virtual operator in Mexico and be a digital inclusion accelerator in the country. Our mission, aligned with our business principle, is deliver the best connectivity at the best price to help our customers live better.

Given the current situation and the new normality during June and July 2020, they provided 30 days of free and unlimited connectivity in order to support the community, which allowed us to be one of the main virtual operators in terms of customers' acquisition during that period of time. This new business requires a better understanding of our customer and an agile management. Today, we have reached over 300,000 users, and we offer BAIT in more than 2,500 stores and clubs in our 4 formats.

These exponential growth was driven by focusing all time on the customer, mainly on the 3 key aspects that we included in our value proposition. Number one, low prices. BAIT is our best prepaid offer in the country with unlimited connectivity service, data, voice and SMS for only MXN 50 per week or MXN 200 per month, including nationwide and international coverage. Number two, great coverage at maximum speed. We provide a 4.5 LTE experience and even reach small cities that did not have coverage. Number three, your purchases connect you. For every purchase made in our stores, our customer will be rewarded through our app, Mi BAIT, with additional megabytes to stay always connected.

Customers with limited resources have the desire and need to be connected. And we know the limitation is the price of the connectivity. True to our purpose, save people money and help them be better, we are offering connectivity at a price the customer can afford and benefits from their purchases at our stores. By enabling our customers' connectivity, we are opening a universe of possibilities to add them to Walmart's omnichannel ecosystem and solve their friction points. BAIT's focus for 2021 is the following: accelerating new users acquisition and reach a triple-digit growth; build a digital connection ecosystem by implementing new sources of revenue by enabling handsets, home Internet, value-added services and data monetization; and it allows us to provide access to connectivity bundles, such as handsets, connectivity, service and credit or electronic devices attached to home Internet and entertainment services will make BAIT a unique offer. We are very excited about BAIT. Our customers recognize this effort. We are ready to roll out and to continue gaining our customers' loyalty. Finally, I would like to highlight the following points. Number one, we have unique advertising capabilities to connect advertisers with our customers more frequently and meaningfully. Number two, connectivity opens a universe of possibilities to bring our customers into Walmart's omnichannel ecosystem and to resolve their pain points. And number three, this is just the beginning. We will be exploring new revenue streams and opportunities in our ecosystem, aligned with our strategy. It was a great pleasure to share our results with you, but even more important, how we are going to build the future and how we're going to improve the lives of Mexican families.

[Flavio Cotini, executive]

Good morning. I am Flavio Cotini, CEO of Walmart Central America. Today, I will talk to you about our operation in Central America. And I would like to divide my presentation into 2 chapters.

First, I will talk about the results we reached within the challenging context of last year. Second, I will share with you how we are preparing to serve our customers, drive sales growth, expand faster and achieve greater cost and capital efficiencies, all these supported by the simplification of our company and our mission: We save people money and help them live better. The pandemic has been like an endurance race, a marathon, in which we have to be resilient and capable of capitalizing on opportunities in the region. In this long distance race, we focus on building trust with our customers, associates, suppliers and communities in which we operate. In order to achieve so, we implemented several measures to take care of our customers and associates.

For example, before having the first cases of COVID-19 in Central America, we leveraged lessons learned from Mexico and our operations in other markets that were already being affected and implemented strict prevention protocols to look after our customers and associates, which were recognized as best practices in the sector. We also used our scale to help affected communities by donating 343 tons of water and food. The trust we managed to build as well as our broad presence in the region were key to navigate this challenging environment and to deliver our results. Within this in mind, we started from a fundamental fact, with significantly affected purchasing power, our customers are even more focused on buying essential products. We understood the needs of our customers. And as a result, we adjusted our commercial offer with focus on essential products for all categories as well as solutions to help our customers adapt to the pandemic, for example, products that enable home office or that allow them to exercise.

Always with our customers at the center of our decisions, we adjusted our commercial activities to make them last longer and allow our customers to benefit the most from each one of them, while promoting social distancing protocols.

Likewise, it became essential to accelerate productivity and efficiency initiatives to continue investing in our consumers' value proposition. One of them was the implementation of over 600 cell scan station in more than 160 stores, where up to 20% of the transactions are going through, improving productivity and customer experience and also promoting a contactless environment, which is much safer.

On the other hand, we continued to work with our suppliers to increase the number of retail-ready packaging products, generating more productivity at the point of sale and reducing product handling.

In the middle of this marathon the pandemic has symbolized, we never lost sight of the fact that many of our customers due to health restrictions needed other options to do their shopping. We turned the challenge into an opportunity and enabled on-demand and pickup to continue providing essential service now online.

Our omnichannel proposal has been well received. Just to give you an idea of the potential, e-commerce sales already represent 1% of total sales, and in some stores, the penetration has reached 20% of the sales.

Amid economic uncertainty, we continue to invest in the region and took our Every Day Low Prices proposal to more families in Central America, opening 19 new stores under strict sanitary protocols. As a result of all these initiatives, our proposal and our customers' loyalty, we managed to increase our market share in almost all the countries. At the regional level, we grew our market share by more than 200 basis points.

Despite the incremental costs associated with the pandemic, we continued our efforts to simplify and improve productivity and efficiency of our operation, promoting Every Day Low Cost that allowed us to leverage expenses by 10 basis points versus last year.

The efficiency generated in the operation has allowed us to increase our price gap, serve our customers and keep improving our profitability year-over-year. Sustainable expense leverage enable an EBITDA margin increase of 220 basis points in 5 years.

So far, we have talked about our actions and results of 2020. Now I would like to talk to you about our plans going forward. Our priority remains consistent, keep our customers and associates at the center of all our decisions. Therefore, our strategy going forward will focus on 2 pillars.

The first will be to continue to grow with Bodega and discount formats through our Every Day Low Price value proposition and new stores. We will continue to enhance our fresh offering, increase our private brands penetration and improve our price perception. The second pillar will be to continue simplifying our business to offer a simple and fast shopping experience to our customers, which is also simpler to operate for our associates, translating into cost reduction.

Thanks for joining us today. And before I leave you with Pilar to start our Q&A session, I would like to close today's presentation with these takeaways.

Our customers and associates are our priority, and we will keep them at the center of all our decisions. Going forward, we will continue to focus in the Bodega and discount format, and we will continue to simplify our business based on Every Day Low Cost proposal to keep serving our customers through our value proposition and enabling an even more profitable growth.

Now let's go back to Pilar. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Foreign Language]

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Foreign language]

[Interpreted] focus on our own platform, our own platform instead of being part of the third-party platform. And the question is, what's the advantages that we see in doing so, long-term advantages or why we have this strategic decision of stop using third-party apps? Ignacio?

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

[Interpreted] Yes. I think the important point here is key. We need to maintain connection with our customers. And as well, just working with these third-party apps, we love that connection. And what we want is to build a business for the long run. And for this, it is very important to get to know and to know what our customers are doing. On the other hand, the omni business is the center of our strategy. This allowed us just to gain frequency. We are leaders there. And while we don't have any interest in sharing base with other platforms or other services.

And we have an important aspect. We are a part of these end-to-end process from trading products, from the stores and then the distribution. With this, we're going to be able to have more efficiencies to have as well more profitability. And these may be translated to our customers. Those benefits can be translated to our customers. When third-party apps, they generate any overload or any overcharge of 30% or even charging more for the delivery because they really have to for profitability. So for us, I think that it's even more important to be the owners of the end-to-end process and to be able to translate these lower price to customers.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] The next question is asked by [ Bela Clark from Conquest ] and it's about our stores. It's in English, so it says... Do you see potential for downsizing either store price or number of stores? How flexible are you in downsizing your store base?" [Foreign Language]

[Gastón Wainstein, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, and thank you very for these questions. So part of leading heavy sales of square meter, it's about a constant revision of the productivity of our footprint. So in this aspect, the first thing that I would like to say is that, 2015, from this moment, we've only reviewed 5 downsizing in some stores that were opened a long time ago. And yes, they were a little bit long, but only -- that was done in 5 stores. I think that the pending adjustments are minor.

What is going to happen, and in fact is happening right now in an accelerated pace, it's not exactly about this size, but how these spaces are managed within their stores from all of the omnichannel business. There is a lot of things going on regarding new stores of now are born omnichannel with all of this prototype and the conversion of the spaces within the stores. A lot of things that customers see and some other things that happen in the background and is related to better efficient use of space and the allocation of the space to RC's omnichannel capacity regarding pickup, kiosks and that is order processing spaces that happened in all of these stores.

Now in relation to the spaces to grow, we still see, as in Mexico and in Central America, now there are some spaces to grow and logistic expansion as well, opens some spaces to grow and Walmart Express as well open market for us in such a way that in the terms of a space and as well in the sizing of the stores, I would say that we don't see any concerns.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Right. Thank you very much, Gastón. The next question comes from Ravi Jain from HSBC, and it's on investment. He says, "Explain [ investing ] in the business, how do you see OpEx in the balance between margins and growth for the next few years?"

[Interpreted] I think that's a question for Milton.

[Milton Brandt, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for this question. So we've been investing significantly in the last years in our omnichannel capabilities. And we were able to do this maintaining our margin through a lot of operational discipline and different productivity actions while we continue growing our business. And that's what we would like to continue for the next years or in an favorable way with the implementation of productivity actions and as well improving our processes and with the finalization of technology to digitalize and to automate our stores, clubs and DCs.

Additionally, as it was mentioned by Gui, we have the benefit of being part of a global company and to have access to best practices in technology that countries with highest prices have developed. We're going to reinforce technology practices according to the need to maintain our operational cost low. In the long term, our strategy of investment is going to continue promoting sales and position our company for the future success that would allow us to maintain our leading growth in the market.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. The next question is from Alan Alanis from Santander. And he asks, "The reach of your strategy is huge and it's outstanding. If I understood correctly, everything is addressed to the product. So my question is, how do you think in any strategic way on how to offer services? And what could be the reach of the services that you're going to be offering in the future?"

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Interpreted] Alan, thank you very much for your question. We see these very carefully all of the opportunities that we have in services and product. And each opportunity, they are called as verticals. That's how we create our strategy. And we have huge possibilities in products and in services, but we have to establish priorities. We cannot do everything. And of course, it's -- we have -- in order to have a strategy, I have to define what I'm going to be able to do, what I'm not going to be able to do and I'm going to be doing later.

So first of all, we take into consideration the first pain points of our customers, and the skill that we had is the skills to offer an efficient and a competitive solution in this pain point. Additionally, we started looking at the connection of one vertical to the other vertical or trying as well just to have these linked or connected verticals as Cashi and BAIT, they are connected. So we have a list of priorities that we're going to be implementing.

Today, we decided to establish what we are doing about Cashi and BAIT, but there are similar other possibilities. And as well, we are benefited from some other business units of Walmart, and in particular, Walmart U.S., and as well in some other places that they are doing similar things. And we are learning and will be benefited from their learnings and their technology. There are so many things to come. Unfortunately, today, I'm not going to be able to tell you these other opportunities. And it's going to be about products and services.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Perfect. Thank you very much, Gui. We have another one from HSBC about wallet, and it says, "Do you [ plan to ] partner with a bank or banks to offer financial products in 2021? What is the plan to extend the use of Cashi to stores other than Walmart?" [Interpreted] Blas, can you help us answering this question, please?

[Blas Caraballo, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Ravi, for your question. And there are several functionalities in a smart close loop that we are thinking about, and we would like to enable and would add a lot of value to our customers. For example, we're going to enable Cashi just to make an online payment maker in our place. And besides all of these use cases, we want to provide some other features and functionalities that are relevant for our customers with an open loop model. We are doing these. And we are launching these for the midterm. And as well to add to these functionality and value to the product, we are working in a strategic alliance with a financial institution that, well, we are going to be telling you these once we have all of this defined.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Blas. Next question is about BAIT. We have a couple of questions. For example, [ Guadalupe ] from Crédit Suisse asks, "Are you are partnered with a telephony company to provide BAIT?" And [ Noe ] asks, "If BAIT has a service in the U.S.? And is the case, what would be the network that it's using?"

[Beatriz Núñez, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, [ Guadalupe and Noe ]. Yes, we partner with Altan Redes, that operates a shared network. They provide the infrastructure network on some of their businesses. Our partner has the experience of their technology in this aspects. As in roaming, the package that we offer in Mexico includes the roaming for the U.S. and Canada. And we operate with the agreements that our partners have to provide these services.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Perfect. Thank you very much, Betty (sic) [ Beatriz ]. And we have another question from HSBC, about Walmart Pass. "Pricing, expected date of launch. What are the benefits with the subscription program have in addition to free delivery?

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

[Interpreted] Okay. I want to tell you a little bit more about this. Walmart Pass is a subscription program through which customers, they may have these unlimited deliveries for free or home delivery for free, just paying an annual payment or a monthly payment. Now as per the pricing, at this moment, we're trying with different sizes of baskets and different prices to define the best option for our customers when it's launching. And we're going to inform about these prices once we finish these steps that we are doing with friends and family. But we are finishing those values.

Now as per the catalog, right now, clients may be able to receive all of their products of groceries and general merchandises that are available in the on-demand from their houses from Superama or Walmart or in the midterm, Walmart Express. After that, we're going to be adding some other formats with Bodega and Sam's. But in this moment, they are not included. And initially, we want to enable this for on-demand. And the extended assortment is going to be done in the next traction that is going to be planned for the future.

And lastly, regarding benefits, initially, we start with a subscription for these free delivery. And as we launch this program, we're going to be adding even more benefit. But up to this moment, everything is going to be planned for a second stage.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. Now we continue with this omnichannel business. We have a question from Bank of America. What do you think about the experience, the user experience in the store as we have an increase in on-demand e-commerce? Are you going to continue leveraging the stores for deliveries, or we have a dark stores role in high-density areas?

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

[Interpreted] I think that we have 2 questions in one. The experience of customers at the stores, what we want to do with omnichannel business is to have a great experience. It doesn't matter if they do that in the store or in our apps, we want our customers to have the best experience. If they decide to go to the pickup point or if they decide to go to the store or receive that at their homes. And that's what we want to do, to build the best experience for them.

In Mexico, we have more than 2,600 stores. So up to this moment, we want to leverage from those stores to build all of the distribution network. Right now, we have more than 587 stores offering home delivery. This year, we're going to increase up to 200 stores more to reach a little bit more of 800 stores. I think that it's very important. Now with this, I don't want to say that we're not thinking about the possibility to wield dark stores in the future. But we don't think that it's a necessity because, right now, these stores, they are distributed throughout the country. So we're going to be 10 minutes away of, 85% of the population, in the major cities.

What we are doing is, in those stores, in these larger stores, we are building a house system, where they are going to provide service to a higher area. And from larger stores, we are going to be servicing some areas where we have smaller stores, but it's a little bit more complicated to operate due to the volume and the size that we have. And I think that it's now even clearer. In the short term, we don't think that we're going to be opening dark stores unless it's necessary in some areas.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. We have another question from Álvaro García from BTG Pactual. He says, the question is for Gui, and it's about his perspective of a long-term growth or the growth algorithm as it says in English. It seemed that it was yesterday when I was in 2016 when you presented a 3.3.1. So what's your growth for the future?

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Interpreted] Álvaro, thank you very much for your question. I agree with this. It seems that it was yesterday, but as well, we've been working very hard during these last years for this delivery. What has happened in the last years is that we have an acceleration of the future that we think that it was going happened, in particular since last year when we had an acceleration.

If we think about our 3.3.1. strategy and the evolution, during 6 years, we started with brick-and-mortar. And for 6 years, we've been growing in those stores more than in cap. 6 years in a row, quarter-by-quarter, we've been growing more. And we believe that we're going to be able, with all the things that we invest in our stores, add investment in our assortment, in prices and with these differentiating prices, we think that we're going to be able to continue growing above the market in the future. And well, it partially compensates the success that the growth economy as a whole has been smaller than the growth that we consider with this strategy 3.3.1.

If we migrate to new stores, we've been able to achieve -- we always say that it was about growth. And then to have this indication of a market that we are going to have space to grow with new stores and to continue investing with this. And that's what happened. But the new stores, they are different than the previous stores. They are more omnichannel, modern, with -- just to be adapted to what customers require, and this is going to continue today. And moving forward, we need to make decisions. And we made a decision that continue investing to the existing stores and continue adapting it.

In regards of our omnichannel, it was more relevant to accelerate even more the creation of new stores. We're going to continue investing in new stores. But I don't think that we're not continue growing at 3% with new stores. And this is more that it's going to be compensated with the best performance we have been having in comps and as well what we are being able to achieve in omnichannel and e-commerce. So we are going to have a difference there, and we're going to continue growing.

We have a huge opportunity in Mexico in informal market and to grow there. And that's why our strategy is the growth priority that we have in new stores is going to be in Bodega, in the Bodega format, that is going to continue growing. They need new stores just to continue gaining market share in the informal market. So we're going to continue investing there.

On the other hand, in the previous strategy, we didn't have ecosystem. And ecosystem has played an important role, and not only in growth but as well in profit. And it's going to compensate with any mix that we have with this, just to move to e-commerce. So I think that the strategy is an evolution of a previous strategy. And it's a strategy that in order to have a strong omnichannel business, we need to have a strong brick-and-mortar business. If we don't have a strong brick-and-mortar business, we're not going to have a strong omnichannel business.

And in order to have an strong ecosystem business, we need to have an strong omnichannel business because the ecosystem is centric in our omnichannel business. It's going to be using all of the benefits that we're going to be having on omnichannel, and the number of customers and the relationship of trust that our customers have with our brand. So this is a new opportunity. And it's going to bring this possibility of having profits to compensate, because, of course, we know that this omnichannel growth costs money. And we are very happy. We are very passionate of doing what we have in our strategy. And we are sure that this is going to work and it's going to provide positive results for our business.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Perfect. Thank you very much, Gui. Okay? So we have another question about Central America for Flavio, that he is connected from Costa Rica. It's from Barclays. And the question is could you provide more detail about the initiatives for Central America to recover the level of sales?

[Flavio Cotini, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for this question. As I said before, we're going to maintain -- here, we're going to maintain customers at the center of our decisions. We're going to continue growing with the Bodega and discount format, promoting our Every Day Low Price proposal, and we're going to continue strengthening the fresh offering and growing as well with our private brands, and to continue improving the perception of prices.

This year, as I show during the presentation, we gained 200 basis points in the total regional market. As different countries, they just stopped with these restrictions of the COVID and the economy to start accelerating, and in particular key rate -- key sector for the region as tourism and employment. And to have a reactivation of employment and to strengthen the purchasing power of consumers, I think that we are going to experience a faster recovery. Thank you very much, Pilar.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Flavio. So now we have one regarding e-commerce from Rodrigo Echagaray from Scotiabank. Rodrigo asks, "What is the [indiscernible]

click and collect versus on-demand? And also, can you expand on the card servicing delivery strategy?" Ignacio?

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

[Interpreted] The percentage bar is among the formats for Walmart and Superama, approximately 80% of the orders are on demand with a home delivery service and 20% is click and collect, our people using our pickup system for Bodega Aurrera as we launched the service late last year. This is like 80% of the orders are picking up in the picking up locations and only 20% is delivery. So the format is changing and opening. For sales, it's a little bit 50-50 with delivery versus pickup.

Now regarding crowdsourcing. Right now, we have the model in 28 stores, between 28 and 30 stores of new stores. And the idea is to expand into our 150 stores with the -- on 2021. And we are trying 3 different models: it's picking, delivery and one end-to-end, which is picking plus delivery, which is the crowdsourcing is going to be doing the end-to-end process. So this is what we feel on working on what is the best way to operate. And maybe we are operating the 3 models at the same time depending on the store.

So what crowdsourcing allow us is we'll offer different types of services, for instance, deliveries in less than 90 minutes, that we are currently not offering, but it allow us to be more efficient. But we are very, very happy with everything that we have done so far. And that's why we will start doing the rollout in those stores that make sense.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

Thank you. Now we have questions -- a question regarding Bodega by [ Tiendo ].

[indiscernible], what specific actions did you take recently [ to account for it ] in the last quarter?

[Cristian Barrientos, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Pilar. Thank you very much. During 2020, in the format of Bodega, one of the big priorities was to reinforce the Bodega value model, which is the proposal of the business. So this has brought a lot of good benefits, especially in the fourth -- 4Q because the format grew faster than the first 2 quarters. So this year is also increasing amount. So we have had 4 good quarters, products from the different investments, the value proposal. And so we were able to have a considerable leap there.

Now those processes that we are focusing on is 3 of them. The first one has to do with the competition, the price perception and the price gap. That's where we are still on warding off these gap before our consumers and improving -- these improved considerably during 2020. Also, we have the price campaign of the [ Mi Moralla ]. It is the #1 campaign in Mexico. And then also, regarding the competitiveness, it has to do with our own brands, our -- which are rolling versus the commercial brands. And this gives us the perception of economy. And it -- this is very valuable by our consumers.

Then we have the omnichannel where we are developing omnichannel solutions for all our customers, aiming to provide a more complete purchasing experience, frictionless and access with a wider assortment with -- at the lowest prices. So then the strategy, as you know, as kiosks has been well received by our customers, we will continue on expanding our assortment. And we will also open some Bodega Express stores to be used as the hub. And then the on-demand that we didn't have at the beginning of the pandemic, we currently have 100 stores that are -- that have this service. In 2021, we will go from 100 to 270 additional stores so we can serve the picking services.

Then the third focus that -- in Bodega has to do with expense control. You know these flywheel. This expense control for a business like the one with Bodega is essential. And transformation has been also a key element that has allowed us to reinvest our savings in a better competitive position. Digital tools such as the Fresh apps, as we mentioned before, with transformational products of the process, all this transformation help us, and it's going to allow us to have significant savings in the future to continue on investing in this format. Thank you.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Cristian. We have other regarding ecosystem. We have been asked if we can provide a little bit more detail on how we are connecting BAIT with Cashi and how this is going to work to digitalize our customer.

[Beatriz Núñez, executive]

[Interpreted] So Gui is going to start, and then I will pass the floor. So they are making me work this time.

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Interpreted] So when we put together our strategy, the bottom of this strategy is to know our consumer in more detail, understand what are the consumers' pain points and to fix them. So we made the decision to understand what is actually happening with this customer and how can they evolve for the omnichannel business. So Enrique, for instance, he deals with the reinforcing the pricing strategy and to understand what is what we can help our customer with.

So we have a lot of information, but we haven't used it as we could. So we'll start with the business of understanding our business better. And we are investing in data, which is another vertical that we did not get into too much detail. But it is very valuable to understand the behavior of our customer. We also created the tribes. And our suppliers mirror these tribes in their structure. And we are capable to receive the information that our suppliers have from the -- from our customers and to understand them better.

So we knew that e-commerce grew not as much as it did during the pandemic. So the customer didn't have Internet, for instance. The customer had smartphones, but they were not connected. They didn't have any payment methods. So we were saying, okay, if we have -- if we want to serve our customer better and we can and we are able to address these 2 items, we can create BAIT -- BAIT and Cashi. So verticals have to stick to each other, very interestingly.

So throughout the transformation, we were -- we got to know our customers better in the physical stores through Cashi. With BAIT or BAIT, It provides a lot of information regarding the behavior of the consumer. With BAIT, it's not only that we are addressing a pain point from the consumer to avoid using e-commerce, but it's also -- we're providing him with some benefits. He didn't do that before, but now we will also get some -- get to know them better. So we have a better structure of the customer and we know them better because we know their telephone and internet data.

And with Cashi, also, we get to know their data better. We also sorted out the issue of not having a payment method, but while knowing them better, and to understand what is what they buy in the physical stores, what is what they buy in e-commerce, how they pay for these, where or what do they use to pay for these things and with -- and also telephoning. So this is the flywheel that we used before, these ecosystems, and having the flywheel. With this, we will be able to find out about more pain points and to create a trust for the customer to trust that we understand what they are living for and for them to live better.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you, Gui and Betty. I believe we still have time for another question. We have Irma from Goldman Sachs.

Your logistics assets are first also for the marketplace business. And if you have already started [ doing this in Europe we have been noticing. ] How are you thinking about [ the retail opportunity in Europe and retail ] e-commerce [indiscernible] third-party?

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

[Interpreted] Let's address the first one. We are always thinking about everything that we built and use for the marketplace suppliers as well. But the sequence -- the launching sequence is first being used by us. And then once we feel comfortable how it's working, that's when we start opening it. One example of this are the pickup locations. The pickup locations is we get items from our distribution centers to be delivered to our customers. And that is also enable for the suppliers at marketplace.

If the customer decides to pick it up at a store and this is coming from marketplace, the suppliers send this directly to the store and we deliver it to the suppliers, so -- with the seller, with the logistics that we will put in place to send the merchandise more in a more economic fashion. As presented before, this is the same flow that will be enabled for the marketplace sellers at the right time. And our fulfillment services as well, at one point, we will be starting offering fulfillment by Walmart. This is planned to be developed in the following years.

Now regarding profitability, this is a balance. We are in a growing momentum, especially growing our extended assortment. But we are also trying to balance the margins in order to do these the best way as possible. So we do have a path to profitability with a lot of actions that we are -- that is becoming -- that is helping us to become more efficient. We mentioned before using our own logistic networks, starting -- rolling out different omnichannel distribution centers, using our stores. All these allow us to operate in a more efficient fashion. And it continues to keep on accelerating while we care of the bottom line of our store.

[Pilar de la Garza, executive]

[Interpreted] So we are reaching the final part of our event. So thank you very much for joining us. Gui?

[Guilherme Loureiro, executive]

[Interpreted] Thank you very much for being interested in our company and the presence that we have in such a hard time because of all these technology issues that we still have. We're trying to do it the best way as possible. Take care of you and your families in these difficult times. So thank you. Thank you very much.

[Portions of this transcript that are marked [Interpreted] were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]