Ambev S.A.

Good afternoon and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to Ambev's 2025 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Carlos Lisboa, Ambev's CEO, and Mr. Guilherme Flutti, CFO and Investor Relations Officer. As a reminder, this conference presentation is available for download on our website, ir.ambev.com.br, as well as though the webcast link. We would like to inform you that this event has been recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the company's presentation. After Ambev's remarks are completed, there will be a Q&A section, during which we kindly ask that each participant's self-side analysts ask only one question. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of a web's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depends on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Unbev and could cause results to differ maturely from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. I would also like to remind everyone that, as usual, the percentage changes that will be discussed during today's call are both organic and normalized in nature. and unless otherwise stated, presented changes refer to comparison with 2024 fourth quarter and full year results. Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of unbebbed normal activities. As normalized figures are non-gap measures, the company disclosed a consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit, and a VDA on a fully reported basis in the earnings release. Now, I'll turn the conference over to Mr. Carlos Lisboa. Mr. Lisboa, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. As we close the year, Here is the message I hope you take away today. We made meaningful progress on the mission we set from day one, even in a dynamic context that stress tested our strategy. Here is how we progressed. First, avoiding disruptions. We built on a strong foundation. and maintain execution consistency across the company. Through active listening, we protected what was working and implemented improvements without destabilizing the organization. Second, keeping momentum. Over the course of the year, we advanced quarter by quarter on different fronts, finishing the year with a better performance for 2026. Third, building a stronger company. We avoided changing directions with the context. We advanced simultaneously on the three pillars of our strategy because that is where our differentiation comes from. This is what we mean by being ambidextrous. And it is building a flying wheel that strengthens each year and sustains our performance over time. As a result, we ended 2025 stronger than we started. We strengthened our portfolio, got closer to our customers and consumers, and advanced profitability. Volumes, however, were pressured by the environment, and that matters because it frames our ambition for what comes next. To use a simple analogy, 2025 was a tough season to play. With a wet beach, cold weather, and a game that kept changing, it forced us to build muscle. resilience and adaptability, and it strengthened our collective ownership as a team. And just as important, that strengthening showed up in our people. In a demanding year, employees' confidence in our future increased, driving engagement indicators to all-time highs. back to post-pandemic peak levels and reinforcing that our culture truly stands out in challenging moments. All that means we are coming out better prepared for the next season, which in 2026 happens to be the FIFA World Cup, a big passion point in our markets. So, let me touch on another passion, beer. What we saw in 2025 reinforces our view that the headwinds were primarily cyclical and occasion-driven, not a sudden change in beer fundamentals. A strong proof point is this. The most engaged consumers, our beer lovers, got closer to the category, and the category equity strengthened over the years. In other words, beer continues to be loved, culturally relevant, and deeply connected to socialization across our markets, where it holds a high share of alcoholic beverages. And we continue to see meaningful runaway ahead. The category has had room to expand, supported by favorable demographics in Latin America, and grow through occasions development, both out of home and at home, and through a broader portfolio that addresses trends and needs recruiting new consumers. Simply put, what changed in 2025 was not whether consumers want beer, but how often the right moments happen. Now, let me connect that to our strategy. Under Pillar 1, As the category captain, our job is to bridge the gap between beer's potential and actual consumption, fostering category growth. In 2025, we led where the category expanded the most, premium, balanced choices, and non-alcohol. We elevated the core segment through innovation and investments, while building adjacencies like flavored beers. And that leads us to our pillar two, where we are using data and technology to shape our own future and stay ahead of the curve, strengthening the core business while building new growth engines. On the B2B side, our priority is to go deep with bees as an enabler to make the core business stronger, helping us win through better execution at the point of sale. Our ecosystem is built on the idea that the better our customers perform, the better we perform. That is why we are embedding digital sell-out activation tools Powered by our data and insights, benchmarking what works across points of sale and translating it into shopper activation and portfolio recommendations. Also, this marketplace continues to scale. with full-year GMV growing 70%, driven by 3P expansion and gross margin up 3.5 percentage points versus last year, reinforcing both relevance and improving economics. On the consumer side, Z Delivery closed 2025 with all-time high performance, delivering R$4.7 billion in GMV, up 13% versus last year, 67 million orders and 27 million yearly active users, up 11% versus last year, consolidating its position as one of the major convenience platforms in Brazil. Strategically, that put us close to young adult consumers. with nearly 80% of buyers, either Gen Z or Millennials, and it accelerates both execution and our test and learn innovation loop. It is our food in the future. And this brings us to our third pillar, the muscle that makes the other two pillars scalable. In 2025, we set a clear ambition. to expand Ambev's consolidated EBITDA margin again. Despite industry softness and effects and commodity headwinds, we delivered a meaningful evolution from top to bottom line. That came from thoughtful choices on resource allocation, revenue management, productivity, and expenses governance, while sustaining brand investment. That discipline translated into delivery. At the consolidated level, we expanded organic beta margin by 50 base points, marking our third consecutive year of margin expansion, and by 110 base points in Brazil beer. And that reinforced our confidence in capital allocation. Consistent with our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders over time, we announced approximately R$ 20 billion in shareholder returns in 2025, the highest in our history, through R$ 13.2 billion in dividends, R$ 4.2 billion in interest on capital, and a new R$ 2.5 billion in share-by-back programs. and we are starting the year paying the first 1.2 billion reais tranche of the IOC declared by year-end. Now, let me give a quick overview across our footprint. In 2025, we grew EBITDA across all our business units, and we expanded the EBITDA margin in 4 out of 5. In Brazil Beer, full year volumes were in line with the soft industry, and our performance reflected two different halves. Our revenue management initiatives weighted on share in the first half. As conditions improved in the second half, market share expanded meaningfully. In Q4, as the weather sequentially recovered, so did our volumes. October was the main drag, and we returned to growth in December. For the quarter, we delivered a low single-digit market share gain in use and sell-out. We continue to lead where the category is expanding the most. premium and super premium volumes increased high teens and we closed the year as leaders in the segment reflecting stronger portfolio brand equity our balanced choices brands grew high 60s and non-alcohol grew around 30 percent as we continue to expand leadership and unlock incremental occasions In the quarter, we delivered 100% of the Brazilian beer industry's growth in premium and non-alcohol, according to our estimates and Nielsen sell-out data. In the core segment, softness was more pronounced, given its higher reliance on out-of-home socialization. we are sustaining its recovery through stronger trade activation, marketing campaigns, and continued innovation. And we started to see progress with market share gains in Q4. In BrazilNet, during 2025, the disciplined execution of our strategy and resource allocation supported EBITDA growth with margin expansion. At the same time, Guaraná Antarctica's equity improved, showcasing the strength of the brand. In the first half, volume momentum and commercial execution supported market share gains, despite margin pressure given higher costs. In the second half, the CSD industry decelerated, amid the same cyclical drivers that impacted beer. and price relativity became less favorable following our revenue management decisions, resulting in market share pressure while delivering a better profitability profile. In Argentina, the macro environment continued to improve, with lower inflation and less FX volatility. The consumption recovery, however, is taking longer than we expected, and continue to wait on results in 2025. Still, performance improved sequentially throughout the year, with a more balanced dynamic between top line and bottom line in the fourth quarter, supported by tighter execution and revenue management. Looking ahead, we remain constructive on a gradual recovery as the consumption environment improves. In the Dominican Republic, the consumption environment also improved sequentially through the year, despite a weather-related disruption in Q4. In this context, beer gained share of alcoholic beverages in full year, supported by healthier dynamics between categories, while President's brand health reached all-time highs. In Canada, we outperform both beer and beyond beer industries, supported by our beer mega-brands and continue beyond beer momentum, while maintaining disciplined cost execution and delivering EBITDA margin expansion. With that, I will now turn it over to Fleury.

Thank you Lisboa and hello everyone. As we entered 2025, we made it clear that this would be another year focused on long-term value creation through disciplined execution of our capital allocation framework. In a dynamic operating environment, we focused on what we can control and delivered another year of normalized EBITDA growth with margin expansion, EPS growth, resilient cash generation, and a higher capital return to our shareholders. Let me walk you through our financial performance for the year, starting with the margin improvement dynamics. We closed 2025 delivering consolidated normalized ABTDA margin expansion of 50 bps, reaching 33.4%, mainly driven by three factors. First, net revenue per hectolitre growth of 7.5%, supported by stronger brands, revenue management strategy, and continued premiumization across our portfolio, leading to net revenue per hectolitre growth across all of our business units. Second, financial discipline. Consolidated cash cogs per hectolitre performance benefited from productivity initiatives and operational efficiencies across our industrial and logistics operations. Brazil Beer is a clear proof point. Despite the cost headwinds anticipated at the beginning of the year and the operational deleveraging associated with lower volumes, our cash COGS per hectolitre excluding Non-AMBEV marketplace products increased by 6.1% in 2025, at the lowest quartile of our guidance. And third, efficient resource allocation. In SG&A, we continue to invest behind our brands, while keeping total cash SG&A growth under control. Now moving to below EBITDA lines. We closed the year with almost R$4 billion in net financial expenses, mainly explained by FX variation losses related to foreign currency, denominated assets, and the BRL appreciation, coupled with expenses related to sourcing U.S. dollars in Bolivia. In terms of income taxes, our effective tax rate for the year was 17.7%, reflecting some one-off effects, mainly from Q3, such as the Barbados divestment, the partial reversal of tax liabilities associated with the 2017 Brazilian tax amnesty program, and certain effects related to tax credits. Absent such one-offs, our consolidated effective tax rate would have been approximately 20% for the year. As a result, stated net income reached almost R$16 billion, with stated EPS increasing 8.2% year-on-year, while normalized EPS increased by 2% in the year. Now, turning to cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities remained solid, and totaled R$24.5 billion. R$1.6 billion lower than last year, mainly due to softer volumes that impacted working capital. Cash flow consumed in investing activities totaled approximately R$5 billion, mainly driven by CapEx investment, broadly in line with last year. Cash flow consumed in financing activities amounted to R$26.8 billion, driven by shareholder payouts and the completion of our 2024 share buyback program in total we returned 21.7 billion reais to shareholders on a cash basis meaning that approximately 90 percent of our operating cash flow was returned to shareholders in 2025 and reinforcing our commitment to sustainable long-term value creation, our return on invested capital continued to be meaningfully above our weighted average cost of capital and improved in 2025, driven by no bad margin. For 2026, we remain consistent towards our capital allocation priorities of, one, reinvesting in our organic growth to keep supporting the development of Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 of our strategy. Two, maintaining a disciplined approach towards M&A opportunities. And three, consistently return excess cash to shareholders over time. In terms of costs, in 2026 we expect Brazil beer cash cogs per hectolitre, excluding non-AMBEV marketplace products, to increase between 4.5% and 7.5%, driven primarily by commodity prices, aluminum in particular, and portfolio mix, with higher cost pressures anticipated in the first half of the year. At the same time, We remain focused on identifying opportunities and enhancing efficiency as we continue to pursue our ambition of expanding consolidated margin over time. And before handing it back to Lisboa, I would like to share a team update. Patrick Conrad, a seasoned finance professional, is joining our investor relations team, succeeding Guilherme Yokai-Shia. Ioka, in turn, will transition to a fully dedicated position, leading Ambev's treasury team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ioka for the outstanding work he has done leading Ambev's investor relations team over the past five years, and to wish both continued success in their new roles. Now, back to you, Lisboa.

Thank you, Flory. As I reflect about 2025, it was another year marked by a very dynamic operating environment, and that strengthened our ability to read and adapt to market changes. 2026 will certainly bring its own dynamics, but it is also shaping up to be a promising year for socialization. And those moments have already started. Carnival is underway, not only in Brazil, but across several of our Latin American markets. From there, we begin to warm up for the FIFA World Cup, the biggest additional record in favorable time zones for our footprint, creating another interesting backdrop for people to come together. On top of that, In Brazil, a holiday-rich calendar adds several long weekends throughout the year, creating additional occasions for socialization. In this context, I want to leave you with three reminders. First, beer is a loved category in Latin America, with strong fundamentals, and that strength comes with headroom for growth. giving its versatility to address consumers' strengths and needs. Second, we as a company are advancing simultaneously on our three strategic pillars, strengthening a flywheel we can compound year after year. And third, we enter 2026 as a stronger company, with momentum carryover, And how we navigated 2025 was another proof point that our culture stands out in times like this. And none of this happens without our people. I want to close by thanking our teams across all markets for their ownership, adaptability and execution through a very demanding year. and for the energy they are bringing into 2026. With that, let me hand it over to the operator.

We will now begin the Q&A section. To ask a question, we kindly ask cell site analysts to click on the raise hand button at the bottom of the screen. To remove a question from the queue or after a question has been addressed, please click the lower hand button. We kindly enforce our request that each participant ask only a single question.

Our first question comes from Nadine Sarvat from Bernstein. Please, Mrs. Sarvat, your microphone is open.

Yes, hello, everybody. I'd like to double-click on Brazil. So, firstly, you know, great seeing that commentary about December beer volumes being in growth. Can you unpack that a little bit, the magnitude factors behind that? Was it all weather or were there any other favorable shifts? And are you able to comment any trends in January? Following up to that, secondly, Brazil NAB, I know you guys called out your revenue management strategy as a reason behind the volume decline. Can you add some color as to what the exact decisions were that resulted in that decline? And then what can we expect for volumes in 26th? Thank you.

Hey, Nadine. Nice to talk to you again. Lisboa here. Look, I'm going to follow the protocol, right? I'm going to get the first answer. Regarding Brazil beer, to your point about what are the drivers, right? So, quickly reminder, what happened last year made 2025 like an outlier year for the beer industry in Brazil. You know, prior to that, Ten years' time, five years' time, three years' time, you know, there was consistent growth and pretty much driven by, you know, favorable demographics, right, and disposable income increase. Last year, and we mentioned that during the, you know, the result announcements, right, What we saw was, you know, unseasonable weather impacting mostly the wintertime and, you know, boosted by the La Nina, right, phenomenon that somehow made the winter go deeper and longer in the second half. And that, you know, created unfavorable type of situation for beer because it impacted the most. an occasion and out-of-home occasions that are, you know, where the beer category volume, you know, resides, right? So that's the reason why we saw the impact. Obviously, it was not an easy situation for us to manage, right? As I said before, it was the first time that we saw such a, you know, a strong impact in our industry, but I think the team, you know, put all the emphasis behind things that we could control. And by doing so, we kept evolving quarter by quarter. And when the weather changed, right, during the last quarter of last year, we were ready, right, to ride together with the more favorable weather impacting the demand again. And this is exactly... how the situation went through. In October, pretty much the month represented the vast majority of our decline in the quarter view of the year. We got to a better position in November, and then in December, when you combine the better weather with the market share gain that we got in the final round, the final quarter of the year, which represents around a low single digit in sell-out data growth, That explains, you know, the positive territory that we landed. I won't go into the details about, you know, the first quarter of this year, but what I can say, Nadine, is the following. Actually, that weather, right, pretty much, you know, came into the first round of this year, the first month of this year. What puts, you know, in a year-over-year comparison the weather impact as neutral, which is important for us.

Thank you.

and even improving profitability in 2025. You ended up doing that. There was an impressive performance on the SG&A, especially distribution costs. I would just like to get your thoughts about how you are thinking about this going into 2026, right, when you think about the hedging that you have for Brazil Beer, as well as the room for additional efficiencies, how you see all of that shaping up for the year. Thank you.

Hi, thank you, Henrique. Flury here. Can you hear me well? Just checking the mic here on my end.

Yes, I can. Oh, great.

So let me start with how we put your question. I think 2025, just to recap, was really a year that when we started, we saw important cash cogs pressure. I'm talking about Brazil beer. That's why you have given a guidance last year, five and a half to eight and a half. And we have done here a series of, I would say, projects looking to different lines of our P&L. As I said in my speech, we focus on the industrial side. We focus on the distribution, always privileging the investment behind our brands because that is what we need to continue to focus to make Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 work better. By a series of implementation of these strategies, we are happy that we landed on the 6.1, which was the first quartile of our guidance. Now, when we look into 26, I think there are two things that remain the same. One is we need to continue to work very hard on the initiatives. We need to continue to make it very focused on our side with our ambition of coming with another year of margin expansion. And we are already doing that as we started the year. And when we do our analysis, when we look into the costs, our hedging, which is non-speculative, when we look at the commodities, so on and so forth, We are giving the guidance to the market of 4.5% to 7.5% for the full year of 26, which is Bitcoin broadly in line with what we have done in 25. And that is pressured, as I said in my speech, from commodities, aluminum in particular, and portfolio mix. But be in mind that we will continue to work very hard. It's our job here to... through the work, and probably throughout the year, come narrowing or come with new zones here. So far, that is the guidance that we have.

Henrique, Lisboa here, just to complement Fleury. You can imagine that nobody here works. We are not expecting such a, you know, challenging context in terms of volume drop for the industry, especially here in Brazil, right? So that put a lot of, you know, stress here. on our, you know, ambition to protect margins, right, from that again. And I think, you know, last year was, that's the reason why we said it was a stress test for us, right? Because if we could, you know, somehow overcome the effects, overcome commodities, and on top of that, overcome the lack of, you know, our lack of capacity to dilute costs without having the volumes, right, that give us confidence, right? Somehow, I think, you know, the obstacle made us, you know, develop internally, right, the right muscles to be prepared for another round, but in a way better shape, in my point of view, right? So, again, was not a training season for us, was already a hard game last year, and I think was good, right, to test and be prepared for what's coming.

Thank you very much. You too. Our next question comes from Gustavo Troiano from Itaú BBA. Please, Mr. Troiano, your microphone is open.

Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. And my question relates to capital allocation. And how should we think about your approach towards dividends throughout the year? Last year, you paid interim dividends on a quarterly basis, but just wanted to touch base on how you're thinking about the policy for this year, not only in terms of the final payout target, but also on the timing of the distributions throughout the year. So it would be nice to understand if we should expect dividends being concentrated towards the end of the year as we were used to see until 2024 or if there's something new towards this discussion. Thank you very much.

Thank you for the question. Let me just start highlighting, you know, again, what we have done in 25. I think you have seen a very proactive discussion that we have had with Gizbo and our board here to make sure that we're able to change the payout or return to shareholders on a consistently basis quarter after quarter on last year. On this quarter, or the beginning of this quarter, Lisboa just mentioned on his beginning introduction that we're also being part of the IOC that we've approved with the board at the end of 2025. This is not a guidance. I cannot tell you how that will come over the year, but what I can say as a CFO, that we continue to have every quarter discussions. We continue to look into our cash position, the cash generation on our side, taking into consideration always the three points of our capital allocation, invest in organic growth, look into selective M&A, and deliver sustainable shareholder return over time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte from BTG Pathflow. Please, Mr. Duarte, your microphone is open.

Yeah, hello, Lisboa, Fiori. Yeah, in my question, I wanted to circle back to some of the topics I think we discussed a year ago, right after the return of both of you to MBEV. and things that are related to the strategic vision that you shared with us at the time. And I wanted to comment, if possible, in light of not only the quarter, but I think 2025 results as a whole. The first one is to you, Lisboa, when you referred to make, I remember a year ago, bigger investments in the core brands as part of your analogy of making the company more ambidastrous and fostering the category growth. You mentioned briefly about elevating the core in your initial remarks, but when you look at the portfolio and the way it performed throughout the year, it appears that was premium, not the core that really stood out. So I wanted to hear how you think Core stands a year later in terms of potential or whether you think it will continue to be gradually eclipsed by the premium brands and the portfolio will be somewhat transitioning more into premium and Core losing relevance. So that would be the first of the topics we discussed a year ago. And the second one is related to the portfolio itself. You know, in the past, I don't know, five or six years, Ambev made lots of investments in innovation, introduced many new brands. You repositioned the pricing. And obviously, I think this led to higher costs and expenses to support that expansion, right? And I remember a year ago you mentioning that you believed the portfolio was stronger and it was time to reap the benefits of these investments. So on the question of the SG&A dilution, whether you think what we saw this year is really related to that, and obviously the sustainability of that going forward, which you mentioned a little bit before in the previous question. So those will be the points. Thank you. Hey, Thiago.

Nice to connect to you again. Look, one of the feedbacks we got from you all was about, you know, following the protocol, one answer only, so I'm going to get the first one. Okay, the first question. So... Based on the core question, what is the core role here for us? And I understand your point is more related to Brazil, given the fast growth rate we are delivering with the premium, right? I continue with my point of view, Thiago, regarding us being a company capable of managing ends, right, not only one side of the portfolio partition, right, especially because, you know, the part that you are, you know, alluding to the core, it is the stronger part of the industry, right, and if, when you take in consideration, right, the majority of the population in Brazil still rely pretty much on one minimum salary, the core has a meaningful play you know, to gain, right, in the game, because, you know, it promotes accessibility to the category. On top of that, right, Brazil is composed by different regions. Those regions, it's very interesting. I think I never told you that, but one of the things that caught my attention is how cyclical, right, the portfolio is per region. So some places in Brazil that used to be a Brahma place, today is an Antarctica place. Another one is a Skoll place. And at a point in time, I told you guys, Skoll is still, you know, a very relevant brand in several states of Brazil. Here in Sao Paulo, for instance, right? So it's critical for us to protect, right, that strength that our company has, the category has, because somehow these brands... They represent the category. And there's plenty room for us to make these brands very relevant in the future. How? Take for, you know, as an example, what we are doing as we speak with Skoll. We just brought to the game a new brand variant, which is Skoll 00. We are not just following, right, the zero trend. We are doing so now. with novelty because this brand extension bring something different from the others. Zero alcohol, zero sugar. And this is the way, one of the ways, we keep these brands relevant for our consumers in the future. And it's interesting because when you do so, when you find a way to be really ambidextrous, is when you see the full potential coming to life. I'm going to give one example, which is the last quarter of last year, This is when we saw the full potential for our portfolio coming to power. Because the share gain not only came from the new partitions being premium, being no alcohol, being balanced, it came from the core as well. And coincidentally or not, this was the time when we started to see Skoll also stabilizing and gaining momentum, especially in those states where we put more emphasis behind the brand. And as a consequence, our share improved not only through the segments, but also through the channels and also through regions in Brazil. And this is what we want. Because we believe that our strength relies on the portfolio strength. And this is the game we want to play. Right? And the core side of the business plays a very meaningful role there. Right?

And, Lisboa, if we can just add, like, one thing here, Tiago, quickly, is I think connected with the strength of our portfolio, CORE was more impacted by, I would say, weather-impacted occasions, which were not fundamentally impacting the category. And with the other side of the portfolio, we led where the category expanded. And that's where we came with the bulk of the growth in premium and zero in Brazil.

That's clear. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Our next question comes from Renata Cabral from Citi. Please, Mrs. Cabral, your microphone is open.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for taking my question. My question is related to GLP-1 drugs and the potential impact on companies' portfolio. We are seeing the discussion a lot developed in the US. Of course, the penetration of the drug has been much higher than in Brazil. So my question for you is, the weakness of the portfolio this year somehow can be attributed to that. And more than that, since in March, one of the patents will expire in Brazil. the usage can expand in 2026 or maybe 2027. What is the expectations of impact in the portfolio and what the company is working to mitigate that and offer other options to consumers, not only in the year, but also in the NAB portfolio? Thank you.

Hi, Renata. Thank you for the question. I think it's always... important to, you know, go back to 25 in order to really understand what happened. There are two different kinds of impact. One is attitudinal change, the other one is behavioral change, right? What happened last year was a change on the behavioral side due to the weather, mostly, okay? When you have Bad weather, right? When you have colder and longer winter time, the most important drinking occasion in Brazil, which is the hour of home among friends sharing beer, is the one mostly impacted. And this is what explains the majority of the drop that we saw last year. And by the way, as explained by Flory, the brands that depend the most on this occasion are core brands. And that's the reason why you saw the core brands somehow following what happened with the industry. So, what is good about that is the fact that even with such a challenging circumstance, context, we measure the attitudinal side of our consumers regarding the category constantly. And we see not only protection of the relationship between consumers and the category, but with those that are more that are closer to the category, we saw strength, which doesn't mean that those that are more, you know, unfrequent consumers, sporadic consumers, right, do not fluctuate. And for those consumers, we are working with a very versatile category to attend more needs and trends. That's the reason why you see us developing zero, right, alcohol beer, right. We are developing functional beers like gluten-free, lower calories, and we are also attending those consumers with more sweet-flavored beers, like, you know, a flying fish that we introduced last year. So regarding the point about the GLP-1, We haven't observed any meaningful impact on our business. But like any other emerging trend, it requires time, more evidence, and as a consequence, I just want to say that we're going to keep monitoring and acting accordingly.

Thank you so much, Lisboa.

You're welcome. Our next question comes from Isabella Simonato from Bank of America. Please, Mrs. Simonato, microphone's open.

Thank you. Hi, Lisboa. Hi, Flori. I mean, my question is about 2026 Bureau Brazil. I mean, as you mentioned, right, last year was quite challenging in terms of weather and occasions, and you highlighted, right, several issues. TAIA wins this year, especially regarding that, right, the World Cup and, et cetera, more holidays, right, as I mentioned in the past. But at the same time, you're coming, your guidance, right, probably shows that costs will grow, right? above general inflation, right, and you're coming off from a base of SG&A that seems tough in the sense that that was a very good performance, right, in the last year. So when you balance things, right, between maybe a more favorable backdrop and what you're facing internally, I wanted to hear your thoughts on your pricing strategy for 2026, right, and also if you could give us a little bit of a color on and how should we think about mix especially uh during the world cup and uh and and among those variables right across those variables what do you think should be should be more relevant when we're thinking about uh volume growth for the year thank you isabella uh it's a it's a long question right so

Let me take the point about pricing, right, which is very sensitive. So I'm going to try to answer without going to any, you know, a territory that we don't want, right? So our pricing has a mission composed by twofold, right? One side of the pricing story is keep our industry accessible. And the reason why for that is what I mentioned before. the majority of the population in Brazil still depend a lot on accessibility to be close to the category. So we must keep an eye That's the reason why core has a role to play. That's the reason why packaging assortment has a role to play. Because we want to give them accessibility alternatives. If we rely only on premium, we're going to make their lives even harder. On the other side of the story, pricing has the role of You know, to protect our profitability moving forward, right? And as you know, we have an ambition to continue, you know, expanding Mars in the future. Ambition, right? The same way we anticipated to you in the beginning of last year. We keep this ambition alive, and Fleury mentioned that in the beginning of the session, right? So, we need to be always balancing the two sides of the story. So it's not an or, but it's an endgame, right? The beauty about our situation today is when you look to our flywheel, right, first and foremost, our portfolio is more complete today, right? And it is complete, reasonably speaking. So it gives us alternatives, right, to move forward with our revenue management strategy for the year, right? On the second side of the story, the second pillar of our strategy, you find the digital ecosystem. And, you know, I already mentioned to you all, right, this is enabling us to, you know, strengthen our car business while creating new growth engines. On the first side of the story, go deeper on the core business. We are using technology to go more granular, right? To, you know, execute a revenue management strategy in a different way than we used to do before. Right. We are more effective today than before in terms of dollar invested, right, in promotions and so on and so forth. Our algorithms help us to recommend the right portfolio. for each type of point of sale and so on and so forth. By doing so, we not only improve our capacity to execute the pricing per se, but we also bring together a very interesting mix impact for the game. And the two together should be enough to offset what kind of impact we see on the cod side. as we did last year. That's pretty much the balance we have to keep in place every single day. And I must confess, the more we do it, the better we get, right? So, again, similar to what I said before, I feel like last year was a very good asset test, stress test for us to be ready for the year to come.

Just to add one thing here, Isabella, when you look into our costs, another way of thinking about that, costs and expenses, you look at it in a holistic way. You always do the resource allocation over and over, as Isboa was mentioning, measuring returns from market promotions, from everything that we do. And it's also fair to say that, as Isboa mentioned, over time, we want to increase, we have the ambition of increasing our margin. But most likely not going to be able to do that every quarter. Because when you look into pillars one, two, and three, those will be maximized over time. But that's our long-term ambition. Looking to our costs, taking out of the equation what didn't make sense, and refuel and reinvesting behind our brands. And that's what Ebola mentioned as a flywheel. So that's what we want to continue to gain momentum over and over.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

This thus concludes the Q&A section. I will now hand the floor back to Lisboa for any closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you for joining our call today. I would like to close reinforcing some messages. Our mission is to always strive for our better version. We will do that by leading and shaping a love category with clear headroom for growth. Advancing simultaneously on the three pillars of our strategy is what set us apart. 2025 stress-tested our strategy, and we close the year stronger and better prepared for what comes next. Thank you and hope to see you soon. Enjoy Carnival.

This does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.