Falabella SA

SGO:FALABELLA

Q1-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Falabella; earnings call. I'm Gigi, your coordinator for today's session. [Operator Instructions] Present with us are Alejandro Gonzalez, CEO of Falabella; Juan Pablo Harrison, CFO of Groupo Falabella; Francisco Irarrazaval, CEO of Falabella Retail; Alejandro Arze, CEO of Home Improvement; Juan Manuel Matheu, CEO of Banco Falabella.

First, Mr. Juan Pablo Harrison, CFO, will provide a summary of the consolidated results for the first quarter of 2025. Following his presentation, we'll open the floor up for questions. [Operator Instructions] Now we'll start with the conference with Mr. Juan Pablo Harrison.

[Juan Harrison, executive]

Thank you, Gigi. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Falabella's First Quarter '25 Earnings Call. Before we discuss our first quarter '25 results, please note that management may make or refer to forward-looking statements during this presentation relating to our company, its results, operations, expenses, strategy, potential restructuring and other similar matters. Such statements are based on assumptions and expectations of future events that are uncertain and contain risks. For further information on this, please refer to the disclaimer displayed on this screen.

Also, the numbers presented during the call will be according to IFRS rules expressed in U.S. dollars and rounded to millions. Therefore, certain small differences may arise with the published financial statements.

I will turn the call by going over some key operational highlights of our leading physical digital ecosystem and its capabilities. Let us begin reviewing from Slide 4 onwards. During the quarter, our retailers in the region showed strong sequential improvement, reflecting the positive momentum with year-over-year growth in local currency for all retailers across all formats and countries.

When compared to the figures presented in first quarter '24. Notably, year-over-year consolidated revenue growth reached 19% for Falabella retail, 6% for Home Improvement and 9% for Tottus. Francisco and Alejandro will later on speak about the main developments in Falabella Retail and Sodimac, respectively. Additionally, Plaza's revenue grew in 10.9% year-over-year in Chile, 3.3% in Peru and 39.9% in Colombia. Now looking at the GMV graph, the figures of the e-commerce channel demonstrated growth in all formats with a 27% increase in DNB for Home Improvement driven by the strong performance of key stand-alone sites. The 12% growth in GMV in Falabella Retail, explained by our multi-specialist value proposition and 25% growth in GMV in Tottus highlighting the excellent performance of our app in Chile. It is also worth highlighting the strong performance of our sellers who grew 33% during the period. These numbers reflect the progress of thee-commerce strategy we adopted at the beginning of 2024.

On the financial services side, the consolidated loan book grew 2% versus the comparable quarter hike -- versus the comparable quarter, highlighting the 10% year-over-year increase in the loan portfolio in Chile. Meanwhile, risk levels continue to improve at the regional level, reaching a consolidated NPL ratio of 2.9%, decreasing 18 basis points versus fourth quarter last year. Purchases with our payment methods increased 19% year-over-year, showing progress in becoming the primary bank for our customers -- our own customers. While in Chile, we continue to consolidate ourselves as the leading bank in number of current accounts and credit cards.

Juan Manuel will dive deeper into the bank results later on. Let's now take a look at our consolidated financial results. Consolidated revenues increased 9% year-over-year, in line with the previously stated top line improvement in the retailers in local currency. We had a gross profit expansion of 22% year-over-year, underscoring. The contribution of the banking business was $80 million higher than in the first quarter last year, attributed to greater net interest margin and lower levels of cost risk.

The contribution of Falabella Retail increased $66 million year-over-year due to lower promotional activity, better inventory management and improvements in the profitability of the online channel. We closed the quarter with SG&A contention, reaching an SG&A over revenue ratio of 27.3% and growing 5% year-over-year in line with the average inflation rates of our markets, reflecting the efficiency in our structures.

Considering all these factors, we achieved an EBITDA growth of 1.6x year-over-year, reaching $494 million. Finally, we closed the quarter with a net profit of $201 million, which is 3.3x larger than the comparable quarter. When analyzing profitability by business engines, the improvement is broad-based with the structural enhancement across each business unit, supported by a simple organization focused on helping our customers simplifying and better enjoy their lives.

Sodimac, which includes -- which excludes the operation of Colombia and Mexico, which we do not consolidate, reached an EBITDA margin of 8.1%, showing sequential improvements with better gross margin and greater SG&A dilution. Falabella Retail reached a 5% EBITDA margin in the first quarter, whereas it showed lower losses during the first quarter of '24 due to the better top line performance of both the physical and digital channel as well as operational improvements of the online channel, the structural improvements we aim to further enhance moving forward.

Tottus posted a slight year-over-year decline in EBITDA margin, which stood at 6.9%, impacted by the calendar effect of Easter.

Mallplaza's EBITDA margin for the quarter was 79.4%, which compares to the 76.1% margin recorded in '24. This increase is mainly explained by the consolidation of the operations in Peru.

Lastly, Banco Falabella showed significant improvement in the EBITDA margin, reaching 28.6%, primarily thanks to improvement in cost of risk levels in the 3 countries as well as the net financial income and loan portfolio recovery in bank in Chile. Now looking at the consolidated results, our strategy of focusing on the customer and improving profitability has yielded results with an EBITDA reaching -- with an EBITDA margin reaching 15.1%.

Additionally, our operations continue to contribute to a stronger cash position, closing the period with $1.1 billion in cash for the nonbanking business, up 30% from March '24. The solid financial position allowed for the prepayment of $200 million of the syndicated loan maturity in February of '26 and for the repurchase of over $210 million of the outstanding principal of the international bond maturing in '27.

This operational improvement, combined with a stronger cash position has resulted in a robust improvement of our leverage ratio, which declined to 2.5x, reaching a level that that is in line with our long-term financial strategy and in line with levels of investment grade. On another note, we maintained a balanced amortization profile with proportionately more debt arising from our real estate operations in line with our financial strategy.

Now I would like to leave you with Francisco Irarrazaval, CEO of Falabella Retail.

[Francisco Irarrazaval, executive]

Thank you very much, Juan Pablo. So we are very pleased with our first quarter performance. Consolidated sales grew 19% year-over-year, with all the 3 countries delivering positive growth. So that makes us very, very happy. Same-store sales were particularly strong with Colombia surpassing 14%, Peru 6.5% and Chile exceeding 30%.

Now, it is important to say that even if we subtract all the sales done to foreigners in both last and this quarter, that it will be 12% in the Chilean stores, which is still a very solid number. On the gross margin front, all 3 markets saw a year-over-year improvement, driven by lower promotional activity due to our improvements on inventory buying cycles, which we have been able to shorten.

In Chile, for example, the average inventory age was reduced by 37% compared to the same period last year. These operational efficiencies, combined with expense growth below inflation, enabled us to deliver an EBITDA improvement of nearly $60 million year-over-year.

Importantly, all 3 countries reported positive EBITDA margins, underscoring the successful execution of our multi specialties product. From a more strategic point of view, we are seeing strong momentum in our e-commerce business. GMV on the Falabella Retail platform grew 12% year-over-year, as Juan Pablo mentioned, with third-party sellers playing an increasingly central role. In fact, the seller ecosystem grew by 33% year-over-year regionally. And in Chile, where the model is more developed, it will be more than 40%.

As you may know, we have been working very hard to accelerate our speed on the deliveries in this last quarter, including all the cities in all the countries. We delivered 70% of our e-commerce orders in less than 48 hours. Our focused approach on 5 categories, combined with industry-leading execution, continues to enhance customer experience. Customers know they can find the latest first on Falabella, [indiscernible] Falabella, a value proposition that we believe is setting us apart. .

Looking ahead, our strategic priorities remain clear: decent leadership in our core categories, fully capitalized on the e-commerce capabilities that we have built and continue integrating our ecosystem and turn. At the center of it, all is simplicity, making it easy for customers to shop, make it easy for the best brand to scale with us and make it easy for all the operations to remain agile and efficient. This strategic clarity and operational discipline position us well to deliver sustainable profitable growth over the long term.

[Juan Harrison, executive]

Thank you very much, Francisco. Sodimac delivered a strong first quarter in 2025 with improvements in profitability both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. We reached a consolidated EBITDA margin of 8.1%, excluding our operations in Colombia and Mexico, which translated into a $17 million increase in EBITDA compared with the first quarter of 2024. These results are particularly meaningful given the challenging environment based by the construction sector across the region. These solid financial results reflect the strength of our business model and the disciplined execution of our strategy. Over the past few years, we have built a winning regional approach based on specialization, focused on serving 3 key customer segments, Retail Pro and B2B.

And our proposal is simple. We offer the right products and services at the best prices in the quantities our customers need. All in 1 place and through an integrated omnichannel experience. In a challenging environment, we have implemented a number of initiatives aimed at the improving customer experience across our businesses. We are building a specialized e-commerce platform where GMV grew by 27% driven by a stronger overall offer and execution of the strategy that we started last year.

The growing participation of top brand sellers has played an important complementary role of our proposal, helping us to amplify the number of SKUs available on our site in Chile by 5x and further improving our value proposition. In the Professional segment, we continue to strengthen our offer of the best products at the best prices. More than 30% of the purchases of these customers are private label products, supporting a winning value position for this customer base, which shows higher average ticket and higher frequency of transactions than the retail segment. Additionally, our loyalty program, including [indiscernible] has reached 2.2 million members, and we are very pleased with that growth as it helps us build a deeper and longer-term relationship with our customers.

Finally, in Peru, we continue advancing in the transformation of Maestro stores into the Sodimac format, reaching a total of 4 stores opening in the first quarter of 2025, and the results of this transformation has been very positive.

We have been significantly increasing the sales and the margin of the transformer stores, and we expect to continue this expansion throughout the year. We expect the construction environment to remain challenging in the short term, although we see signs that a recovery will begin to take shape in the second half of the year. Regardless of the pace of that rebound, we remain fully focused on staying ahead of our customer needs across all 3 segments by offering the best product at the best prices with the flexibility and scale they require. With a solid strategy, growing capabilities and a commitment, we are confident in our ability to keep delivering strong results. I will leave now with Manuel Matheu.

[Juan Matheu Loitegui, executive]

Thank you very much, Alejandro. We are very excited about our results for the first quarter. First thing, we want to thank our teams and the 8 million customers who chose Banco Falabella across the region. This quarter, year-over-year, our profit almost doubled in Chile and was 5 and 6x higher in Colombia and Peru, respectively. As we anticipated, we continued the portfolio of growth and risk reduction trends started last year. Our loan book achieved 10% year-over-year growth in Chile and 2% across the region.

The NPA ratios decreased from 3.5% in the first quarter of 2024 to 2.5% in first quarter 2025 in Chile, with an even sharper decline in Peru and Colombia. Additionally, commercial traction remains strong across the region. We opened over 715,000 credit cards and transactional accounts. Purchases made us in our payment methods grew by 19% compared to first quarter 2024. We kept improving the digital experience of our customers. Only as an example, we launched our 100% digital saving accounts in Chile to keep on broadening the relationship with our customers. Customers are using our cards, accounts and loans. With this new product, we expect them to bring their savings to Banco Falabella. We now open 9x more accounts every month in having this digital product.

In Mexico, we are expanding our products and digital features. This quarter, we launched personal loans in our app reaching 8,000 loans so far in this channel. Benefits are a key differentiator in our value proposition. This last quarter, we launched personalized discounts from Falabella ecosystem in our app. This feature was previously available in Chile where it was highly successful.

We increased conversions by 16%. We are also excited about the future. Our value proposition has proven very attractive. Our digital offering enjoys solid customer preference, reflected in greater product usage, growing site deposits and increasing card traction. Our benefits are heavily used and valued by our customers.

Our loyalty program keeps expanding through a simpler and more direct experience. For example, puntos mas pesos that enables points redemption in all products has led to an increase in usage while reducing the cost per point.

Looking ahead to year-end, we anticipate. First, close to double-digit loan portfolio growth regionally. Second, slight control increases in risk levels in Chile where risk costs have remained well below historical levels. Then a continued strong spending in Peru and Colombia in our brand position and customer loyalty.

Finally, close to 20% ROE levels in Chile and strong improvements in Peru and Colombia. In summary, we believe our recent financial results are structural and consequence of the traction of the value proposition we offer to our customers. We are well positioned to sustain strong results going forward.

[Alejandro Dale, executive]

Thank you very much, from Manuel. This is Alejandro Gonzalez, and thank you all for joining us on this call. We've closed a strong quarter at a consolidated level. And what's most encouraging is that the performance has been consistent across our 5 growth engines, Sodimac, Falabella Retail, Tottus, Mallplaza and Banco Falabella and the various countries where we operate. This has been achieved in a macroeconomic environment that will show an improvement compared to recent years is still in a recovery phase. .

In addition to that, recent attentions are introducing additional volatility and uncertainty, something we are monitoring very closely given the potential impacts on consumer behavior and supply chain, though we do not foresee any relevant direct impact so far. What has been fundamental for this performance, certainly, a more focused and simple organization, our capability of getting even closer to our customers, leveraging on our core strength and the ability of our teams to move in a more agile way.

These are the factors that allow us to look ahead with confidence and optimism. We accelerated the development of our ecosystem, deepening synergies across our businesses and capturing new avenues for growth. Our e-commerce platform grew over 17% year-over-year with sellers expanding more than 33%, reinforcing and complementing the value proposition of our own retail brands.

Together, we are delivering a more specialized and complete experience to our customers. Our loyalty program surpassed 20.8 million participants, and we are steadily rolling out the puntos mas pesos feature, which allows customers to simultaneously redeem points and complement the rest with another mean of payment, making it easier and more accessible for our customers to benefit from the program.

Our detailed bank continues to gain traction with our loan portfolio growing 2% overall and 10% in Chile. But more importantly, we are seeing stronger customer engagement and increased primary account usage key to improving margins and diversifying revenue streams. In our shopping centers, we welcomed 104 million visitors this quarter, reflecting the ongoing strength of our urban value proposition and our role in everyday life through the communities we serve.

Of these shipments reflect the steady progress we are making in our mission to transform our customers' experience and making life simpler and more enjoyable for the more than 36 million customers we have. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic. We are a company becoming increasingly profitable, driven mainly by structural and transversal improvements across each of our 5 business engines, not just a particular one. While cyclical factors like lower risk in our digital bank, our CHOP in tourism have contributed, we believe the improvements in the whole group will support future financial performance.

Our sustained growth is in the solid capabilities we've built over the past few years. We're confident that by staying close to our customers, operating with discipline are continuing to innovate with purpose we can sustain profitable growth and continue delivering long-term value for our customers and our shareholders. Thanks a lot.

[Operator]

Our first question comes from the line of Felipe Ballevona.

[Felipe Ballevona, analyst]

Congrats for the results. I have 2 questions, Pay. The first 1 is what's the reason behind the lower margins in China department stores? -- and Colombia compared to the fourth quarter? My second question is how much did 1P grew in this quarter? I'm trying to make sense of how Chile department stores grew 27% year-over-year, with same-store sales of 32% while GMV rose 17% year-over-year with 3P increasing 33%.

And my last question is about the banking segment. EBITDA margin and margins were outstanding. So I wanted to know how sustainable these margins are, how sustainable the cost of risk is? And what was the return on equity for the quarter? And how sustainable you think this return on equity is?

[Francisco Irarrazaval, executive]

Thanks, Felipe. This is Francisco. I think I'm going to answer both 2 first questions. In terms of -- if I understand this -- if I understood you correctly, the lower margins on the first quarter compared to the last full quarter of last year. That is usually the case in our business because usually the fourth quarter will be a full margin quarter due to Christmas and the full summer season being sold, whereas the first quarter usually more in terms of sales period. So that's very standard. But if you compare the quarter for the first quarter last year, we had a -- we have 2 to 3 points or margin and less markdown. So we believe that the strategy of reducing buying cycle is really working pretty well. On your second question, if I understood it correctly, let me go through the numbers in a more broader way.

First, Chile. They grew 30%. We believe that is, of course, due to the Argentinas, okay? So in the first quarter, foreign customers accounted for 17% of sales in our physical stores in Chile, whereas this figure is typically around 3%. So, however, we expect a greater decline in tourist participation moving forward to assume caution. We are planning for a day-by-day decrease with expectations that this will eventually return to historic levels. As of now, our projections suggest that only a further procurement level of tourists will be maintained by the end of Q4 at the -- at the beginning of 2026. If the current level persists, we are confident that we can react accordingly.

That said, and more to your question, Chilean stores achieved a 30% same-store sales growth in the last quarter. But if we exclude the sales from foreign customers in Chile in physical stores, sales would have been around 12%, which is still a very strong performance. Stores for tourists usually don't go shopping like Plaza Vespucio, [indiscernible] among others. In that -- in those stores, the figures are also near 14%. So overall, I would say that we believe that the 1P operation in store is growing between 12% to 14% ex Argentina, in Chile, okay? And to your last -- I think you also mentioned the numbers for the e-commerce. We do believe that the -- so -- just to be precise with you. The 1P operation is growing harder in the categories where we want to be specialists, which are apparel, beauty, footwear and technology. And the 3P is growing at least twice or 3x faster than that. So we are very, very confident that this strategy is getting traction.

[Juan Matheu Loitegui, executive]

Okay. Felipe, thank you for your question, Juan Manuel here. The short answer would be that we feel that, we think that the bank's profitability in Chile is sustainable. The bank in Chile has undergone a very successful digital transformation that has positioned it as a market leader in credit cards and also checking accounts, thanks to a successful digital transformation that has simplified usage for customers and a successful value proposition. From a revenue standpoint, we expect the net interest margin to increase given the growth in the loan book by double digit in 2025. Additionally, higher transactional activity is contributing to solid growth in fee-based income as clients make greater use of our digital products and services.

On the cost side, we built a lean and agile operation model. As a result, we expect expenses to remain stable in real terms, supporting operational leverage and contributing to improved profitability over time. We view these trends as predominantly structural. They enhance our competitive position and put us in a strong place to continue growing market share in key segments. In terms of risk, current credit metrics remain below historical averages. As our portfolio continues to grow, we anticipate a gradual normalization in the cost of risk in line with our risk appetite and long-term expectations. In summary, we expect ROE levels in Chile to remain stable going forward this year in the 20% range.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Irma Sgarz from Goldman Sachs.

[Irma Sgarz, analyst]

I was just wondering for the operation that you have in the bank in Peru and Colombia, I'm not sure if I caught here your earlier comments correctly, but if you -- I think I have it clear in my mind what you expect in terms of outlook for the Chilean operation, but for Peru and Colombia, where you've obviously undergone some successful derisking. I was just curious sort of how we should think about growth and efficiency ratios or profitability going forward. It looks like you feel like your ROE has improved or you've posted improvements in ROE there. But just hoping for a little bit more color on, again, for the banking operation in Peru and Colombia.

And then in Home Improvement, again, it does sound like you're striking quite a constructive tone. I'm just wondering if, I mean, if I'm really sort of like specific, in the first quarter, the growth rate was a little bit softer than in the fourth quarter, maybe a matter of comp or other factors. But I was just curious like sort of how you think about Home Improvement for the rest of the year. It does feel like there should be more gas in the tank in terms of recovery of sales, but would just love to hear how you're thinking about that.

[Juan Matheu Loitegui, executive]

Thank you, Irma, for your question here. It's Juan Manuel. Regarding Peru, we expect the portfolios to grow sequentially during the second quarter and to close the year in a high single-digit growth of the loan book. In terms of the cost of risk, we expect it to continue to improve versus last year. In the case of Colombia, we expect to close the year with a similar rate growth in the loan book while remaining highly selective in our portfolio expansion.

In Peru and Colombia, both, we are keeping our structural operational costs stable and under control, while we are investing on marketing and loyalty expenses in order to strengthen the brand positioning and foster our growth and customer primacy. So in a summary, we expect the loan portfolio to grow in the high single digits. We expect risk to keep on improving. And in terms of the spending that you asked, or the leverage, we think that they are very much under control with increased spending this year in marketing and the loyalty.

[Alejandro Arze Safian, executive]

Irma, this is Alejandro. In terms of Home Improvement, the growth of the first quarter is slightly lower than the fourth quarter '24. There is a couple of things. February has 1 day less and Easter was in a different month. So -- but in general, we expect the growth to keep in the same line for the period to come, and that's part of what we are seeing in our operations now.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Riva from Bank of America.

[Nicolas Riva, analyst]

I have 2 questions. The first one, if you can comment maybe on your discussions with the rating agencies? And what do you see is missing really for the company to be upgraded back to IG? Net leverage now is in the low 3s. There's been a lot of improvement in the top line in margins across the different formats. So yes, if you can maybe talk about to the extent you can about what you think is missing to get back IG ratings from the rating agencies?

And then second question, so this past quarter, you bought back most of the 27s. You still have the 32s outstanding. If you can give us some thoughts also regarding your plans to issue debt in the global markets and if you would rather wait to be upgraded back to IG before doing that?

[Juan Harrison, executive]

Nicolas, thank you for your question. Juan Pablo is here. First of all, regarding the rating agencies, I can tell you that we are continuing having a very, very close relationship with them. We met with them frequently. We let them know how the operation is going and how the company is advancing. For example, our last meeting was a couple of weeks ago. But as you know, the rating agencies are 100% sovereign in their decisions. They typically avoid from giving specific time lines or targets. But I can assure you that they are closely monitoring the trajectory of our credit risk, credit metrics as well as the measures that we committed with them during the last couple of semesters.

In that sense, we are today fully focused on doing everything within our control to support a positive credit profile and recover the investment grade status, which is, for us, a key element in our strategy. But what is missing from our side, I would say nothing.

Regarding your second question, yes, during the first quarter of this year, we paid -- first, we paid the maturity in January of the international bond of '25 for $200 million. And then we advanced payments -- we did 2 advanced payments. First, $200 million of the remaining portion of the syndicated loan and then the $210 million from the tender of the 27 international bonds. Regarding the future payments, first, we are going to continue evaluating the best strategy and the situation of the market and the alternatives that we have. Regarding any option of going to the market in the future, today, our cash position is pretty comfortable.

We feel pretty comfortable with that. It's according with the financial strategy that we defined last year. So as of today, we are not seeing Falabella going to the market in the short term. But this is something that could change depending on what is happening in the future. But today, I would say we feel pretty comfortable with the amount of cash that we have, and we don't need any additional debt.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Gustavo Fratini from Bank of America.

[Gustavo Fratini, analyst]

Just a quick question on the strong recovery that we saw for the Home Improvement business, especially in Chile. It has been particularly strong online, right? So could you tell us a bit more what were the drivers for this very strong performance of the online portion of the Home Improvement business? And how has been the competition there?

[Juan Harrison, executive]

I would say that overall, the results are largely driven by our efforts and value proposition rather than macroeconomic improvements. The construction sector is still sluggish, but we are expecting a slow recovery towards the second semester. And specifically on the e-commerce question that you had, yes, we achieved a 27% growth in the -- on the online GMV and that's basically the result of the strong performance of our e-commerce.

Since we -- if you recall last year, we relaunched the -- in June last year, we relaunched the Sodimac stand-alone platform, and we have been increasing the 3P SKUs in about 5x. So it's the result of our strategy and how the customers are going to our specialty store. So I think that's basically what it is.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Nicolas Larrain from JPMorgan.

[Nicolas Larrain, analyst]

I wanted to focus a bit on the retail portion in Peru, pretty strong recovery, I would say, across the discretionary formats. I wanted to pick your brains or if you could give us a sense on how we should see these formats performing throughout the year. I think on the banking side, it is pretty clear, but like department stores had a pretty interesting recovery in EBITDA margin. The same thing with Home Improvement. Interesting to see what are you guys seeing on the ground there?

[Francisco Irarrazaval, executive]

Nicolas, thanks for your question, Francisco here. The improvement in EBITDA margin in Peru, it's mainly primarily due to the increase in the gross margin, leveraged by lower levels of promotional activities in categories such as apparel and home decor. We believe that is the result from the strategy of being able to buy shorter and buying later the merchandise, which is something, as you may recall, we have been working very hard on.

So continuing with the trend of the last 2 quarters, expenses also went down, improved by the -- improving a lot of the sales efficiency, mainly to the action plans implemented in compensation and salaries and the merger with the e-commerce team that we used to have separated. So yes, we think this is the result of the implementation of the plan. We project to maintain current margin levels in Peru and the expenses efficiencies already captured will be maintained going forward. So we're optimistic about Peruvian future.

[Juan Harrison, executive]

Yes. In terms of Home Improvement, I will say that basically the growth has been explained by the retail and the professional segment. The B2B has been more slow than those 2 segments. And basically, because of the transformation of the Force Maestro stores to Sodimac. Given that, we expect that, that growth will continue during the year.

[Nicolas Larrain, analyst]

Perfect. Understood. So just to wrap on the department store side, I would say this is mostly due to internal efficiencies than particularly strong top line. This is correct?

[Francisco Irarrazaval, executive]

Well, the top line is 6.5%, which is not really stunning, but the margins are much higher than that because the gross margin went up. So yes, it's a lot in efficiencies, but it's also a lot in the margin. For instance, markdowns on garments are 4 points less than last year. Good markdowns in home decor is also 4 points less than last year. So those are big numbers in the first line that will increase the profit contribution as well. E-commerce also is performing better also, the 3P particularly.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Alexandre Namioka from Morgan Stanley.

[Alexandre Namioka, analyst]

Congrats on the results. Just wanted to dig a little bit deeper on the guidance, on the margin guidance that you guys have put out in Investor Day last year, you are obviously already operating above that range. Of course, in the first quarter, we obviously see, as you guys have flagged in the release, the tourist flow, as you mentioned, in the Chile department stores. But just curious to hear from you if you see any additional website to revise this number upwards.

[Juan Harrison, executive]

Alexandre, Juan Pablo is here. Thank you for your question. First of all, at this point, we are moving today when you see the last 12 months, we are moving today within the range of the guidance. As I mentioned, the EBITDA margin for the last 12 months reached 13.1%. Having said that, we are, for sure, with the numbers of the first quarter, we are currently trending toward the upper end of the range, although we think that we consider that it's prudent to wait for having greater visibility before considering any formal adjustments to our guidance.

Besides that, as Alejandro noted on his initial remarks, we saw during the quarter both structural drivers and some cyclical factors in action. with some additional macroeconomic uncertainty added related mostly to the trade tensions that we are seeing today. Because all of that, we think that this is justified for a degree of caution in we are seeing for the future. Despite that, we view this first quarter results, first quarter trend as very positive due to main reasons. First, it has been driven by strong operational performance across all of our 5 growth engines. And second, it showed a consistent and encouraging execution of our strategy, which, for sure, reinforce our confidence in the positive trajectory that we are seeing today.

[Operator]

Sir, we will now turn it to Raimundo Monge for closing remarks.

[Raimundo Monge, executive]

We would like to thank everyone for joining us in Falabella's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. As always, our Investor Relations team will be available to address any follow-up questions you may have. Thank you, and have a nice day.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the presentation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.