Ambev SA Sponsored ADR Aktie

Good afternoon, and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to Ambev's 2026 Second Quarter Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Carlos Lisboa, Ambev's CEO; and Mr. Guilherme Fleury, CFO and Investor Relations Officer.

As a reminder, this conference presentation is available for download on our website, ri.ambev.com.br as well as through the webcast link. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded.

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 Ambev's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to the future events and therefore, depend 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 Ambev and could cause results to differ materially 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, percentage changes refer to comparison with 2025 second quarter results. Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items, which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of Ambev's normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company disclosed the consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit and EBITDA on a fully reported basis in the earnings release.

Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. Carlos Lisboa. Mr. Lisboa, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call. Across our footprint, football is part of our culture, one of the strongest passion points that bring people together, and beer has a unique role in creating such special moments. I want to congratulate all the national teams from our markets that represented their countries in the FIFA World Cup.

I also want to recognize our teams for their outstanding execution across Ambev's footprint. Moments like these are also where our company stands out. The World Cup is one of the toughest execution tests in our industry. The challenge goes beyond activating a campaign. It is about turning a tournament into a semester-long platform, activating a portfolio rather than a single brand and connecting consumers and customers across countries, channels and millions of points of sale while building engagement that lasts beyond the final whistle. Across our markets, our brands were among those most associated with the event. We did not just take part of the World Cup. We helped shape the category through it.

While the World Cup has come to an end, our own game has only reached half time. Ambev's performance continued to strengthen in the second quarter with its quality and shape improving versus Q1. Volumes provided a much stronger contribution, growing 1.4% year-over-year with beer up mid-single digits. Disciplined revenue management and resource allocation supported net revenue growth of 6% and normalized EBITDA growth of 9%, even as we stepped up investment behind our brands. As a highlight, our normalized EPS grew 24%.

Looking at the movie rather than the picture, the first half provides a broader view. Total volumes grew 0.7% with Beer volumes growing well ahead of the total. Net revenue grew 7%. Normalized EBITDA increased 10%, implying 1.3x operational leverage and normalized EPS also grew 10% Operating cash flow reached BRL 8 billion, one of Ambev's highest first half levels.

As we enter the second half, we are building a business with stronger foundations and designed to deliver compound profitable growth over time. Behind this progress is our 3-pillar growth strategy, starting with pillar one: lead and grow the category. This quarter, we advanced on both dimensions.

On lead, we strengthened both brand equity and market share across our 5 largest markets. On grow, share gains and improving industry conditions support beer volume growth in markets that represent over 80% of our volumes. Mainstream continued to improve sequentially with volumes only slightly below last year.

We continue to lead the high-growth segments with a broad and complementary portfolio. Premium remained a key growth engine, growing nearly 20%. Balanced Choices grew more than 60%. No Alcohol beer grew around 20%, and Flavored Beer and RTDs maintain momentum.

Michelob Ultra shows how we scale a relevant consumer proposition across markets. It more than tripled in Brazil and Argentina during the quarter, grew over 50% across our footprint, and is now present in nearly all our markets, connecting with consumers, seeking a more active and balanced lifestyle.

This takes us to pillar two: digitize and monetize our ecosystem. Our digital ecosystem has become a key lever for category development. In an increasingly dynamic environment, a broader portfolio creates greater complexity. These enable us to manage that complexity with greater precision, strengthening the core while accelerating the new engines of category growth. It is not just a technical backbone, but an execution powerhouse that creates efficiencies and improves how we operate every day. We read demand faster and more accurately help customers increase sell out through better recommendations and allocate resources to the highest return opportunities. This strengthens our performance while helping our partners grow, as reflected in the continued improvement in our NPS.

Ambev, Bees Marketplace GMV grew around 60% in both the second quarter and in the first half. In the first half, gross margin expanded 6.7 percentage points year-over-year, reaching 22%. In Brazil, Marketplace GMV doubled in the first half, with 3P as the main driver.

And on the pillar three: optimize our business. This pillar creates the flexibility to deliver on both of our capital allocation priorities: investing behind opportunities that drive long-term growth while consistently returning excess cash to shareholders. In the quarter, we stepped up investments behind our brands, while expanding normalized EBITDA margin by 80 basis points. That discipline, together with solid cash generation, allowed us to advance our share buyback program and announce an additional [ IOC ] distribution this quarter. Together, the 3 pillars reinforce one another, creating a flywheel that strengthens the company and supports sustainable profitable growth.

Before moving to our key markets, let me highlight the breadth of our performance. In both the second quarter and the first half, beer volumes grew or remained broadly stable in 7 of our 10 largest markets, while net revenue and EBITDA grew across all business units, showcasing that our progress was not dependent on any single market or growth lever.

Starting with Brazil beer. Continued commercial momentum supported another solid quarter. The beer industry continued to improve sequentially. According to Nielsen, sellout improved from a high single-digit decline in the second half of 2025 and mid-single-digit decline in the first quarter to a slight decline in Q2. Nielsen's measurement calendar ended around June 20, capturing only the early part of the World Cup period. Extending the analysis through month end and across our broader coverage, we estimate that the industry was slightly positive in the quarter.

The World Cup created incremental demand across channels and regions. Nevertheless, it was offset by adverse weather conditions. Average temperatures remained below last year and well below 2024. On a 2-year comparison, our industry modeling indicates that adverse weather accounts for the full industry volume gap versus 2024. Even so, our consumer tracking shows sequential improvement in category equity and participation, reinforcing our confidence in the category's resilience in a dynamic consumer and macroeconomic environment.

Through that, our business continued to outperform. Market share expanded year-over-year for the fourth consecutive quarter, consolidating the commercial momentum of our business in Brazil. We estimate that our share increased across mainstream, premium, balanced choices and beyond beer. Brand equity continued to grow, while price relativity remained broadly stable versus last year.

This quarter marked 1 full year since we regained leadership in premium with our share of the segment reaching an all-time high. Premium grew in the mid-20s and reached approximately 25% of our beer volumes. This performance reflects our new premium architecture, with each brand anchored to distinct consumer need states, Original for authenticity and simplicity; Stella Artois for quiet luxury; Corona, for the outdoors and natural living; and Michelob Ultra, for an active and balanced lifestyle.

The recent announcement of Spaten Pro takes this [ architecture ] into a new space, combining premium credentials with 0 alcohol and 10 grams of protein to expand Balanced Choices into new occasions. Balanced Choices volumes doubled versus last year, while No Alcohol grew in the 30s. Mainstream was broadly stable, delivering a significant improvement from a mid-single-digit decline in the first quarter. Together, improving industry conditions and market share progression supported 5% beer volume growth.

Serving this portfolio across more than 1 million points of sale requires precision at scale. Our digital ecosystem provides that capability. Through this, we improved assortment, placed the right SKUs in each outlet and activated our World Cup platform nationwide. Beer distribution grew more than 6%, with returnable bottles up over 4% and premium over 20%.

On the consumer side, Ze delivered GMV grew 16% versus last year, while orders more than double on the Brazilian national team match days. Ze also gives us a real-time view of where the category is heading. Premium already represents 35% of beer volumes on the platform, while Balanced Choices reached approximately 7%, nearly twice the weight in Brazil beer. This combination translated into net revenue growth of 9%, EBITDA growth of 13%, and 110 basis points of margin expansion, while we continue to invest behind our brands.

In Brazil NAB, sequential improvement, although the job is not done yet. The recovery has taken longer than expected, and volumes declined 4.4% in the quarter. Around 30% of the decline reflected our decision to phase out volumes from a lower return channel. Adjusting for this decision, volume performance improved versus the first quarter. By the end of the first half, we had also cycled the toughest comparison base of the year. Market share progressed sequentially, approaching historical levels by the quarter-end as price productivity pressures ease.

Throughout the period, we continued investing behind our brands to regain momentum while maintaining disciplined revenue management and protecting profitability. As a result, Brazil NAB delivered double-digit EBITDA growth with more than 300 basis points of margin expansion in both the quarter and the first half.

And last, we had 2 distinct realities within this quarter. In Bolivia, temporary social unrest and road blockage disrupted mobility and logistics for much of the period, leading to a double-digit volume decline. The situation has since normalized and our operations are running normally. Argentina, by contrast, was a highlight. Our beer volumes grew low single digit, lapping growth in the same quarter last year, supported mainly by continued market share momentum and improving industry and the national team's World Cup [ performance ].

Premium grew high single digits, led by Stella Artois and Corona. Balanced Choices reached a mid-single-digit mix of our beer volumes, supported by the launch of Michelob Ultra and Stella Pure Gold. Mainstream was broadly stable with Quilmes strengthening brand equity and mainstream share. This is the same category development playbook we are executing in Brazil, scaling Premium and developing Balanced Choices while continuing to strengthen Mainstream.

In the Dominican Republic, our business delivered mid-single digits volume growth in the quarter despite the adverse weather conditions in April. The consumption environment remained constructive, supported by a favorable macro backdrop and healthy price relativity versus other alcoholic beverage. Beer continued to gain share within alcoholic beverage, and our volumes grew high single digits in the first half. Premium grew more than 40%, led by Corona and Michelob Ultra, while Mainstream grew low single digits, supported by Presidente and The One in the first half. Presidente's brand equity remains strong, reinforce its leadership and cultural connection with Dominican consumers.

Finally, in Canada, we continue to outperform in a dynamic environment. The beer industry declined low single digit as unfavorable weather and softer consumer demand weighed on performance. Trends, nevertheless, improved from the first quarter, supported by FIFA World Cup occasions. We gained market share in both Beer and Beyond Beer.

Within Beer, Michelob Ultra continued to lead the development of Balanced Choices, while Busch strengthened our Mainstream performance. In Beyond Beer, [ Mics ] and [indiscernible] Water remain important growth drivers. As a result, Canada delivered low single-digit top line growth alongside low to mid-single-digit EBITDA growth and margin expansion in both the quarter and the first half.

With that, I will now turn it over to Fleury for the financial highlights.

Thank you, Lisboa. Hello, and good afternoon, everyone. As we close the first half of the year, our financial performance reflects the mindset that has guided us over the past quarters: to create value through disciplined resource allocation, focusing on what we can control.

In the first half of 2026, we delivered 9.6% normalized EBITDA growth with margin expansion across all of our business units, as well as 10.1% growth in normalized net income. Stated EBITDA grew 2.5% and stated net income increased by 11.6% in the period.

From a cash flow perspective, our first half performance allow us to continue executing our capital allocation priorities of investing in the organic growth of our business while also returning excess cash to shareholders over time. The first half performance was supported by another quarter of consistent execution of our growth strategy.

Now let me walk you through the second quarter highlights. Starting with operating performance. Normalized EBITDA grew 8.9% in the period, reaching BRL 6.4 billion, with 80 basis points of margin expansion. This reflects disciplined decisions across cost, expenses and revenue management, allowing us to expand both gross margin and EBITDA margin while stepping up investments behind our brands during the FIFA World Cup.

Consolidated cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding Marketplace, increased by 2.2% in the period, supported by continued productivity and operational efficiencies across our footprint. Here, it is worth noting that in the first half of the year, Brazil Beer cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding Marketplace products, increased by 9.7%, while our full year guidance remains unchanged at between 4.5% and 7.5%.

Consolidated cash SG&A grew by 10.7% in the quarter, mainly driven by higher sales and marketing expenses, reflecting a portion of brand activations during the FIFA World Cup. As we mentioned during our first quarter earnings call, these expenses tend to follow the timing of our [ Meg ] events calendar and Q2 reflected that.

Distribution expenses also increased in the period, mostly due to volume performance as well as one-off expenses in [ Lass ] as part of restructuring initiatives in Argentina. Taken together, these results illustrate how we think about resource allocation. Our cost PMO initiative that started last year is based on a continuous improvement mindset together with choices to focus on growing return on invested capital, ultimately, freeing up resources to reinvest in our strategic priorities and pursue our ambition of delivering consolidated margin expansion over time.

On administrative expenses, it is important to remember that the effect of lower volumes in 2025 impacted our bonus accruals in the second half of last year, creating a potentially tougher comparison base going forward.

Now moving to below EBITDA lines. Net financial expenses totaled BRL 486 million in the quarter, a 50% reduction versus the same period of last year, mainly explained by 2 positive noncash factors in the nonderivative instruments line. First, in Bolivia, following an approximately 40% devaluation of the local currency in late June, we had a positive effect coming from the conversion of hard currency held in the company. These reserves were due to secure liquidity to meet the expected foreign currency obligations, including payments to certain suppliers and dividend remittances. Second, a positive effect that came from other markets where local currencies were more stable during the quarter, resulting in lower conversion losses on monetary balances compared to last year.

On the Bolivar devaluation, it is worth noting that our consolidated income statement reflects average monthly FX rates as required under the applicable accounting standards. As a result, going forward, the local currency devaluation is expected to gradually create a negative translation impact on our financial and operational results.

Turning to income taxes. Our consolidated effective tax rate in the quarter was 19.9%, compared to 18.4% in the second quarter of 2025, reflecting country mix effects over higher earnings before taxes, partially offset by regular income tax attributes. In the first 6 months of the year, our ETR was 20.6%, broadly in line with the 20.3% recorded in the first half of 2025. As a result, both normalized and stated net income reached about BRL 3.5 billion, increasing 23.3% and 24.5%, respectively, versus last year.

Normalized and stated earnings per share reached BRL 0.22, representing, respectively, a 24.2% and 25.4% increase versus last year.

Now turning to cash flow generation. Let's go beyond the quarter and look at our performance in the first half of the year. Cash flow from operating activities totaled BRL 7.9 billion, an increase of BRL 3.6 billion, representing over 80% improvement versus the same period of last year. This was mainly driven by higher EBITDA and improved working capital dynamics, with payables reflecting our volume performance.

Cash flow used in investing activities totaled BRL 3.3 billion, BRL 1.5 billion higher than in the first half of 2025, primarily reflecting the deconsolidation of assets previously reported as restricted cash in CAC as disclosed in our first quarter's financial statement, partially offset by lower CapEx investments. It is important to note that we continue to invest with discipline in our operations, balancing brewery upgrades, capacity expansion, innovation capabilities, the expansion of our commercial assets base and our technology infrastructure, all aimed at supporting long-term value creation.

Cash flow used in financing activities totaled BRL 5.7 billion, BRL 7.1 billion below last year, mainly explained by our BRL 6.7 billion 2024 dividend payout in early 2025. This cash flow performance supported our shareholders' agenda already demonstrated this year through, one, the execution of approximately 95% of our 208 million share buyback program announced in October last year, representing roughly BRL 3.2 billion cash disbursement until July. Two, the BRL 4.2 billion 2025 IOC payment announcements before withholding tax to be fully paid by October 6. And three, the 2026 IOC declarations of BRL 1.8 billion made so far this year before withholding tax to be paid by December. Altogether, such events represent BRL 5.9 billion returned to our shareholders on [indiscernible] tax cash basis as announced until the date of this report.

Now back to you, Lisboa.

Thank you, Fleury. Let me close with these 3 messages. First, our first half performance reinforced our conviction in the category [indiscernible] profitable and growing the majority of our markets with healthy fundamentals. Its cultural relevance and versatility allows us to serve a broad range of consumers, need states and occasions, giving the category meaningful room to grow.

Second, as category captain, our role to bridge the gap between beers potential and actual consumption. We have what it takes to do that: a proven growth formula built around our 3-pillar strategy and being deployed across our footprint through replicable models.

And third, the flywheel is in motion and gaining momentum. We closed the first half, we posted volume growth, high single-digit net revenue growth, almost double-digit normalized EBITDA growth with margin expansion and double-digit normalized EPS growth. Solid operating cash flow supported continued shareholder returns. The consistency of this performance gives us confidence as we build on this progress in the second half.

Before I finish, I want to thank our teams and business partners across all markets for their ownership, resilience and commitment, and for continuing to dream big to create a future with more shares.

Thank you very much for joining us today. And with that, let me hand it over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Nadine Sarwat with Bernstein.

I'd like to zoom in on Brazil NAB and on the minus 4.4% volume growth. Thank you for confirming that 30% of that decline was from the channel phaseout. So am I correct in assuming that that channel phaseout will continue to be a headwind year-on-year for the next 3 quarters? And then putting that to one side, can you share with us how the underlying soft drinks market did, so that we can get a sense of that underperformance that you mentioned? And how are you thinking about that segment in the second half of the year?

Nadine, Lisboa here. So you already mentioned about the phaseout, right? So let me just complement the point with the following. First, the NAB industry in the first semester of this year was posted, right? But we couldn't leverage that much because the recovery for us took longer than expected, because we were focused on correcting the commercial course, I mean, price relativity, market share performance, volume performance, without compromising the health of the P&L of our business unit, okay?

And I'm glad that we close the quarter 2 very in line with our expectations. It took longer, but now we are very close, because we corrected the price relativity without compromising what we deliver in terms of net revenue per hectoliter performance in the quarter.

Two, the market share got pretty in line with historical leverage levels by the end of the quarter, right? And three, as a consequence, we saw our volumes also improving within this period, right?

So when we look forward, I think it's always good to have in mind that last year we had 2 different years within the year, right, which means that we just cycled through the most tough comparison base for us volume-wise and share-wise, right? Which means that now, moving forward, we're going to have a way better, right, context to navigate with the recovery on top of the recovery of the balance that I just mentioned to you, right?

And in terms of general health, we do -- I won't go into any sort of guidance about the industry moving forward, right, but given what I just mentioned to you, we should expect a way better situation for us on the NAB business in the second half of this year.

Nadine, Fleury here, if I can just complement Lisboa. I also heard you asking about how that adjustment, the 30%, will continue on the year. On that one, allow me to make 2 comments. That started or that is part of the resource allocation that we've been doing with Lisboa, thinking about profitability, channels, so on and so forth. And that is related to a specific fast food channel that we've exited. Therefore, that will continue to lap throughout this year, okay?

Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte with BTG.

Yes, my question is now moving to Beer Brazil. And it's really trying to clean up the figures a little bit considering the World Cup. So you already mentioned the additional impact that the World Cup had in sales and marketing as you try to activate the brands and everything. So if you could also extrapolate a little bit of that analysis into your top line for Brazil Beer, both in terms of what you think the volume contribution was and also in terms on whether the event may have had an impact in terms of your revenue per hectoliter or average pricing for the quarter? That would be my question.

Thiago, nice to talk to you again. Let me answer your question starting from the overall assessment of the event, right, the World Cup. Positive, it's always important to emphasize that, and broadly in line with our expectations. For us was a 6-month platform activation, right, across portfolio, channels, regions, countries. So very different from one single brand campaign, right?

Broad impact in line with what we were expecting across the footprint, not only Brazil, right? But Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Paraguay, Canada. Pretty much all of them brings pretty interesting results not only in volume, right, industry recovery, but also in terms of brand equity for our portfolio.

Specifically about Brazil, what we estimated in terms of impact was around 0.5 to 1 percentage point in industry growth for the quarter, right, which is also in line with what we stated during our first quarter announcement, right? It was very interesting for us because we could activate, I'm going to use Brazil as an example, right, not only for our core brands, but we did so far pretty much all segments in our portfolio, from Core to Premium, with the introduction and acceleration of Michelob, right, we did so as well with the Balanced Choice portfolio, and even with the Beyond Beer reactivated, frankly, right? So was very interesting for us to manage the portfolio during the tournament.

In terms of overall performance for the -- volume performance for the quarter, we estimate that the industry was slightly positive, as I mentioned during the intro. On top of that, we had a broad-based share gain, right, that pretty much explains the overall volume performance of the company.

And when we look at net revenue per hectoliter, it's always good to have in mind that the first quarter result was a combination of a strong carryover on top of a prior year without any sort of carryover. On top of that, the initial implementation of calendar, right, and the combination and the mix, right, and the combination of the 3 components, delivered a very solid net revenue per hectoliter performance. And we were expecting somehow a dilution of our carryover right through the quarter 2. And we kept the discipline on the rate side. As a consequence, we delivered for the semester a net revenue per hectoliter that increased around 6%, which is 50% pretty much above inflation, with a good combination of rate in line with inflation and a mix contribution on top of that.

And I always like to emphasize as well, Thiago, the mission of the net revenue strategy for us, which is on onefold, right, protect profitability, however, on the other fold, also protect the accessibility of our consumers to the category. And that's exactly the type of strategy we're going to keep in place for the residual part of the year.

And just one clarification from the statement you just made, Lisboa. You said you were already expecting some dilution from the net revenue per hectoliter into Q2. And I'm assuming that's because of the World Cup.

No. It's because of the carryover dilution from quarter 1 to quarter 2, and due to the comp base against '25. Because keep in mind that in the second quarter last year is when we kicked off, right, our net revenue agenda in the year. That's why we also saw an impact -- a temporary impact in market share that we recovered in Q3. That's the reason why we were expecting, not due to the World Cup.

Perfect. Because you're looking on a year-over-year basis, not referring on a Q-over-Q basis. That's clear.

Our next question comes from Carlos Laboy with HSBC.

Lisboa, I keep coming back to kind of a different variant of the same question as previous quarters, right? It seems that your brand strength indicators and market share indicators for Brahma and Skol in their respective regions of strength only, right, they've been moving in the right direction. The gaps you were trying to close have closed. Can you give us an update on that, is the first question?

And then the second question related to that is, do your Premium innovation efforts accrue a benefit to the quality image of your Mainstream brands? In other words, how do you know that what you're doing with Corona and the Michelob Ultra push that we just saw and the quality image of those brands is creating sort of a halo maybe over your Mainstream category or not?

Laboy, nice to talk to you, and a very interesting angle that you are bringing again to our discussion here. I'm passionate about this topic because one big dream that we have at Ambev, Laboy, is exactly about reimagining the Beer category. What the Beer category can be, right? And by doing so, in the end, our role, our mission is to bridge this future category image and the actual consumption, the actual portfolio that we have, right? So the entire capture in the end that we are building here has this role for us.

So when you mentioned the Premium, for sure the Premium enhances the image of the category. And by doing so, obviously, you're going to see a halo effect in all segments. And whenever I do the same with the Core, and somehow we challenge the status quo with the Core, we also see a halo effect in other segments. And this is the beauty about it. Everything that we are doing with Balanced Choices for sure brings new attributes for the Beer category, that make consumers see our category differently, better, stronger. And that's the way we perpetuate the relevance of the Beer category, not only Brazil, but across our footprint. And we prepare the category to land in the future with the right attributes. So this is a very interesting question, right?

And this is also related to the point when we bring the first pillar of our strategy, connecting, lead and grow. Because we want to take this role, be the category captain in our markets, okay?

Now connecting to Skol. Once -- and I already mentioned this to you in our previous sessions, one of the key challenges that we have is to develop these new [ partitions ] of the category without compromising the core. We want to add on top. We want to keep the foundation solid, healthy and build on top. That's the way we're going to bring more consumers to the category. We're going to jump into more drinking occasions, right? And we avoid cannibalization. That's the game we are playing here, and that's why it's so important to keep Core healthy, okay?

When I reflect about the Core performance, was volume-wise in the quarter, was broadly stable, which is good improvement versus last quarter. The performance is a consequence of our 3 brands performing in a pretty interesting way. Among the 3, Skol, after several quarters, stable in equity, delivered the first quarter with equity improvement. So it's a pretty interesting sign, right, is an issue, but it's good to see, right?

Within the Mainstream segment, all 3 core brands gained share, right, including Skol. Within Ze, and I always consider Ze our fruit in the future, what we're going to see tomorrow in Brazil happening, right? Skol was the brand, core brand, growing fastest, right, which is very interesting, where we introduced Skol 0.0 line extension from the mother brand. Line extension achieved 20% of No Alcohol beer mix, which is also very interesting, right?

And altogether, right, what I really like about the core performance, the Mainstream performance, is something that we rarely discuss about, Laboy, because we always put emphasis on consumers trading up from Core to Premium. But from 2019 to today, right, the value segment in Brazil reduced by half in an industry standpoint. And that volume was captured by the Core, another very interesting point for us to consider in our conversations moving forward, and another big reason why it's so important to have more than 1 core brand playing this game.

Brazil is very different, regionally speaking, right? As a consequence, our brand's performance are also very different across the country, right? And the complementarity of our mainstream portfolio today is a very important competitive advantage for Ambev.

Our next question comes from Lucas Ferreira with JPMorgan.

If I may, a question, a follow-up question on the net revenue per hectoliter and how to think about that line going to the second half. So Lisboa, you mentioned a few factors, right, explaining that strong performance in the first half. When we look at the second half, especially when you compare year-over-year, is it fair to say that the delta year versus year should be larger in your Mainstream portfolio? Because if not mistaken, this is where you guys had a more sort of a trouble last year on the Mainstream. And this year, like you've been mentioning, sort of things are back on track on the brand equity, both of the brand equities in the Mainstream. So my question is how does mix affect. So should we see a higher delta year-over-year in the Mainstream and that obviously pushes your average prices down? Is it fair to say -- or any sort of price actions expected for the second half? Should we still be aiming this sort of inflation plus scenario for second half? That's the question I have.

Lucas, let me clarify the following. Actually, the main issue we had last year in the second half was not the Mainstream performance was more the industry impact against 2024. Bear in mind that in 2024, there was a weather phenomenon that impacted Brazil, El Nino, and created a distortion in weather temperatures. Not a coincidence, but a consequence of that, for 2024 was the peak of the industry in Brazil volume-wise. And when we had the change, the weather change in the -- especially in the second half of last year, is when the industry [ gap ] performance was created.

And the Mainstream segment has, for obvious reasons, and we discussed a lot about that, due to the relevance in some specific occasions like the on-premise, there's a huge correlation with the industry performance. And this is exactly what explains the Mainstream performance from our portfolio from the second half of last year.

So everything that we mentioned, myself and Fleury, about second quarter and first half should be complemented with this information because we just cycled through the toughest comparison we have -- we had against '25, volume-wise. Now we are entering in a different kind of scenario, right? And based on the information that we have available from different weather forecast institutes, there is no expectation whatsoever for even more adverse temperatures moving forward comparing to '25, right? This is an important consideration to keep in mind.

On top of that, we don't have any more that fluctuation, share-wise, right? We kept our share level since Q3 last year pretty much stable, right? By the way, with some improvements. And that share level performance is supported by a very solid share performance across all segments. And that should be somehow the shape we should expect for Ambev moving forward. That's why we are so confident about our portfolio momentum, right? And we stated that today we have the most complete portfolio that the company ever had because this is making a huge difference combining with the execution capacity and the digital capabilities that this company has developed along the previous years, right? So I think that's all I have to say about your point.

Our next question comes from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

I wanted to follow up a little bit on the volume ex FIFA World Cup implications. And clearly, you've just laid out within your commentary what were the issues in the second half of last year affecting obviously volume on a year-over-year basis. So as you look at the second half in terms of particularly Beer in Brazil volume cadence, just try to help us bridge maybe what we should expect given it's a relatively easy comp, but obviously, the World Cup is behind us. So how do you think about the performance of volume into the second half? And then obviously, into -- moving into next year also with El Nino coming again, how much of a potential tailwind that could be?

Ben, look, I cannot provide you any industry volume guidance, right? But what I can say is the following. Comparisons versus '25, we are just cycling through a period when the industry declined mid to low single digit last year, against '24, right, to semester when the industry declined high single digit against '24. I think that's the first part of the answer, right?

Those drivers that historically impact positively the industry played the same role in the first half and should play a similar role in the second half, namely LDA population growth, employment and aggregate income, okay? On the other hand, we do see, which is a concerning sign, household levels continue to be very elevated, right, which is a point of attention for us. But on the other hand, this is when we usually see our category resilience. Because in the end, beer for Brazilians is a very accessible [ entertaining], right? And this is very important for us, especially in this kind of scenario.

Weather, right, well, weather is a very difficult and tricky aspect to predict, right? I'm not a weather expert here. So as I said, current external forecast do not indicate any average temperature more adverse than last year. Regarding El Nino,what I did Ben is the following. I was not here in '24. So we and the team, we revisit all the consequences, right, that we lived and lived and the country faced during the year. And there are very interesting learnings for us, right?

The first priority should always be around our people. Our experience in '24 reinforced the importance of protecting them and supporting partners and communities. There will be probably, right, extreme weather change across the country, different impacts, is super important for us to be ready and be part of the solution, and protect as well our operations.

Second learning, potential impact on costs, right? Extreme weather conditions may also affect agriculture commodities, logistic prices, right, input costs, right? And we are working closely with farmers and suppliers in order to be prepared to face that scenario.

On the demand side, '24 illustrated that warmer temperatures can influence industry demand. And that's exactly what I mentioned before.

However, these effects are unpredictable. I'm not an expert. I cannot -- we cannot rely on that. The only thing we can do is control what we can control and be prepared, be ready for a wide range of climate scenarios, right? And maybe, if possible, continue to build an even more resilient business moving forward.

And Ben, just one comment here just to reinforce what Lisboa said. If you go beyond the quarter, it's important to remember that we are very confident about what the industry can go. If I look into external drivers for Brazil and most of our emerging markets, population growth, rising income per capita, they should play favorably going forward, also per capita consumption.

And what is on our side, as Lisboa said, what we can control and what we're working on, we believe that beer is very connected to focalization, and we are working to expand the boundaries of our category going forward. So we are confident on what are the demographics and what goes in external and what we can do to expand the category going forward.

Okay. This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to invite Mr. Carlos Lisboa to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Before we close, let me share a personal reflection. This was my sixth quarter leading Ambev, and the environment, as we just discussed, has gradually stood still, right? I believe great companies are defined by what they do and deliver in periods like this. They usually sharpen their choices, strengthen capabilities and turn challenges into opportunities, right?

I feel privileged to lead Ambev and to work alongside people whose talent and ownership make that possible. There is always way more to do, but I believe Ambev is stronger today than when I began the journey as CEO. We are entering the second half confident in our strategy, energized by our momentum, and ready to capture the opportunities ahead and determined to keep building an even better company in the future. Thank you for joining us today.

This concludes today's presentation. You may disconnect, and have a nice day.

Good afternoon, and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to Ambev's 2026 First Quarter Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Carlos Lisboa, Ambev's CEO; and Mr. Guilherme Fleury, CFO and Investor Relations Officer.

As a reminder, this conference presentation is available for download on our website, ri.ambev.com.br as well as through the webcast link. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

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 Ambev's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore, depend 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 Ambev and could cause results to differ materially 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, percentage changes refer to comparisons with 2025 first quarter results. Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items, which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of Ambev's normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company discloses the consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit and EBITDA on a fully reported basis in the earnings release.

Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. Carlos Lisboa. Mr. Lisboa, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. As we start the year, here is the message I would like you to take away today. In tough moments, great companies and cultures find a way to get stronger, and that is what this quarter begins to show. We entered this year in a better position than we started last year despite the dynamic operating environment. From day 1, we frame our mission around 3 priorities: avoid disruptions; keep momentum; and build a stronger company. Last year was the many and that made the third objective, the hardest to deliver. As a team, we embrace the challenge elevated our market intelligence capabilities and focus on what we could control, guided by our growth strategy. Within that context, Ambev delivered a solid start to the year. Total volumes were broadly flat against the toughest comparison base of the year while beer returned to growth, up low single digit.

Net revenue grew high single digits, supported by net revenue per hectoliter growth. And even with continued cost pressure we delivered double-digit EBITDA growth with margin expansion of 60 basis points, while net income grew by a low single digit. The quarter also reflected solid operational cash flow generation and continued discipline in returning cash to shareholders. That is why the first quarter matters. First, it materializes the strengthening we've built over the past year, boosted by continued improvement of the beer industry across most of our footprint, coupled with our commercial momentum. Second, it delivered a balanced shape of P&L from top to bottom, being a solid first step for trading the kind of year we want to have. What gives us confidence is not only the quarter itself, but how it reflects the way our strategy is evolving across the company.

On the Pillar 1 as the category captain, our mission is to lead, develop and grow the beer industry, bridging the gap between the categories potential and actual consumption. Across our footprint, the mission to continuously strengthen the core segment, where many of our most loved brand set and which remains the foundation from which the category can expand while continuing to build the segment shaping the future of beer, premium, balanced choices, non-alcohol and flavored beer. In doing so, we are developing a more complete portfolio and broadening the reach of the category over time.

Under Pillar 2, we are building a true digital ecosystem and becoming an even more outside the organization. On the direct-to-consumer front, we are strengthening how we understand and address consumer needs. So we can serve them better with the right products for the right occasions.

On the B2B front, data, insights and digital tools are helping us support customers better, recommending the right portfolio and activation strategy for each point of sale and ultimately driving stronger sellout. By doing so, we allocate resources more efficiently, improve returns and make Pillar 1 stronger.

Under Pillar 3, we continue to build the muscle that makes the other 2 pillars scalable. The discipline we have built on revenue management, costs, expenses, cash generation and resource allocation is what allows us to free up resources, to reinvest behind our brands, and strategic priorities while protecting profitability and improving return on invested capital over time. Our ambition is for these 3 pillars to evolve simultaneously and work as a flywheel, reinforcing one another and perpetuating our profitable growth journey. As we continue to implement our strategy across our footprint, the breadth of our results stand out. We delivered flat or posted net revenue growth in all of our business units. EBITDA grew across all of them with margin expansion in 4 out of 5.

Within that, let me turn to the main highlights across our markets. In Brazil Beer, the quarter had the toughest comparison base for the industry year-on-year. In this context, it still declined by mid-single digits in the period, although improving sequentially versus the fourth quarter of last year. The distinction matters because the softness is explained much more by cyclical factors affecting occasions than about structural drivers. Fundamentals remain solid and the weather continued to be the main drag, concentrated in the South and Southeast, but with lower intensity than in previous quarters. As we said during our last call, what changed was not whether consumers wanted beer, but how often the right occasions happen. Within that context, Ambev outperformed commercially. Our volumes grew 1.2% in the quarter. Building on the progress achieved in the second half of last year, and we entered this year from a stronger commercial position, supported by continued market share progression. Brand equity also kept improving, reinforcing the link between stronger brands better portfolio execution and share gains across all beer segments according to our estimates. We continue to win where the category is expanding the most. Premium grew more than 20%, led by Stella Artois, Corona and Original. Balanced choices grew over 70% with Stella Pure Gold and Michelob Ultra more than doubling. Non-alcohol beer grow low teens with Corona Cero growing over 70% and Skol Zero Zero gaining traction in the regions where it has been introduced closing the quarter, reaching double digits of the non-alcohol segment mix. At the same time, our core plus value portfolio, although more exposed to weather and macro consumption dynamics, performed ahead of total industry declining by low single digit. Even so, it continued to improve sequentially with a more balanced performance across brands and regions and gained market share versus last year. Beyond Beer also continued to gain momentum, growing in the 20s with our portfolio addressing unmet consumer needs on more occasions, led by Beats, Brutal Fruit and our newest portfolio member, Flying Fish. Altogether, this is bringing to life the most complete portfolio we have ever had, one that allow us not only to sell more but to sell more to more consumers on more occasions and create more value for longer. This portfolio supported a solid net revenue per hectoliter performance, up 8.3% in the quarter as we began to implement our revenue management agenda, our digital platform allowed us to manage price, discounts and mix with more precision and better returns.

On the customer side, this marketplace also continued to gain relevance with around 75% of our customer base already buying through the platform, driving GMV to double, supported by continued expansion of 3P.

And on the consumer side, Zé Delivery remain a key activation stage for our brands and one of the major convenience platforms in Brazil, representing mid-single-digit of our beer volume in the country. In the quarter, GMV grew high single digit with 16 million orders delivered to 5 million monthly active users, of which around 80% are millennials and Gen Z.

In essence, Zé gives us a direct window into the future, and that is visible in our portfolio. Premium represents around mid-30s of volumes on the platform versus nearly mid-20s in Brazil Beer while balanced choices are around 50% above Brazil Beer average. More broadly, Zé is becoming both a growth engine and a catalyst of transformation for the organization, helping us accelerate the digital data analytics and AI-driven culture and improving how we understand consumers, develop our portfolio and operate the business going forward. And everything that was said translated into a solid P&L. Top line grew 9.6% and EBITDA grew 7.6% despite cost headwinds from FX and commodities. In Brazil NAB, 2025 was marked by 2 distinct phases. In the first half, strong commercial execution and favorable pricing position supported solid volume performance and market share gains. In the second half, however, despite our consistent revenue management, market share performance came under pressure as the pricing relativity became less favorable. In the first quarter of this year, we cycle a tough comparison base. And although both relativity and market share improved sequentially, volumes were still down 3.9% versus last year, underperforming the industry. Regarding our portfolio, Guaraná brand equity reached all-time high at the end of 2025, significantly ahead of its market share, while our non-sugar portfolio grew in the mid-teens led by Guaraná Zero, Pepsi Black and H2OH!.

In the quarter, our disciplined execution showed up in the P&L, with top line growth of 1.8% and EBITDA up 16.4% with 400 basis points of margin expansion. In Argentina, the macro environment has become more stable with lower inflation and less FX volatility than what we faced a year ago. That improvement, however, has not yet translated into a meaningful recovery in consumption. The beer industry remains soft in the first quarter, and the demand continued to reflect a cautious consumer environment. So while the industry appears to have found a more stable level since Q4, we continue to believe in a gradual recovery. Within that context, our performance in Argentina continued to strengthen. Despite volumes declining by low single-digit, sellout market share increased versus last year. Supported by mega brands equity and consistent execution. Above core grew high single digits, led by Stella Artois and Michelob Ultra. We remain focused on protecting our commercial position with a disciplined revenue management agenda while continuing to invest behind our brands to reignite the category growth. And as we build momentum toward the FIFA World Cup, Quilmes and Michelob Ultra will be key consumer connection platform in the country.

In the Dominican Republic, we had a solid start to the year. The consumption environment continued to improve supported by a more constructive macro environment and healthier category dynamics. Beer continued to gain share of alcoholic beverage, helped by better price relativity. In that context, total volumes grew high single digits, supported by disciplined commercial execution. Market share remains stable and Presidente brand health continue to strengthen. -- reaching all-time high levels.

In Canada, the beer industry remained soft in the quarter, declining mid-single digit, affected by a weak consumer backdrop and unfavorable weather conditions. Within that context, we maintain a stable share in beer and continue to gain sharing Beyond Beer, supported by momentum of our mega brands. In beer, Busch and Michelob Ultra were the top 2 fastest growing brands in the industry, while Mike's, Nurture and Cutwater led our market share gains in Beyond Beer. All in all, despite volumes declining 2%, EBITDA grew 6.7% with 160 basis points of margin expansion.

With that, I will now turn it over to Fleury for financial highlights.

Thank you, Lisboa. Hello, and good afternoon, everyone. We entered the year maintaining the same financial discipline that has guided us over the past quarters to drive long-term value creation through our capital allocation framework. We delivered normalized EBITDA growth of 10.1%, translating to an increase of 0.3% in normalized net income. From an operating cash flow perspective, we delivered the strongest first quarter performance in the past 10 years, which not only allows us to continue investing behind our brands but also reinforces our commitment to return excess cash to shareholders over time, materialized through the execution of our ongoing share buyback program and our IOC announcements.

So let me walk you through the quarter in more details. On the operational side, normalized EBITDA reached BRL 7.6 billion with 60 basis points of margin expansion, supported by top line performance and continued financial discipline. Consolidated cash COGS per hectoliter excluding marketplace, increased 9% in the period, with Brazil Beer up 14.6%, reflecting the expected pressure from FX and commodities headwinds, which should gradually ease starting in the second quarter as previously anticipated. That said, we continue advancing on cost initiatives towards capturing efficiencies.

Consolidated cash SG&A grew 4.8% in the quarter, with efficiencies coming mainly from distribution expenses driven by operational leverage in Brazil Beer. We continue to invest consistently behind our brands in the period, and consolidated sales and marketing grew 5.1%.

Most importantly, I want to remember that our sales and marketing expenses tend to follow our Mega platforms event calendar, which this year includes the FIFA World Cup in quarter 2.

Looking at our financial performance. Net financial expenses totaled BRL 1 billion in the quarter, about BRL 200 million higher than last year, mainly driven by higher carry costs on derivative instruments. As a result, normalized net income reached BRL 3.8 billion with a normalized EPS of BRL 0.24, growing 0.5% versus last year.

Now turning to cash flow generation. Cash flow from operating activities totaled BRL 3.2 billion in the quarter, an increase of BRL 2 billion year-on-year. This was mainly driven by improved working capital dynamics, particularly through better package and raw materials inventory management as well as improvement in payables, mostly coming from a reduction in barley payments in the period and lower bonus payments following last year's performance.

Cash flow used in investing activities totaled BRL 2.4 billion, BRL 1.6 billion higher than Q1 '25, mainly coming from BRL 2 billion impact of the deconsolidation of assets previously reported as restricted cash in CAC as per applicable accounting standards. For more details, please refer to Note 5.1 to our financial statements.

Cash flow used in financing activities totaled BRL 1.2 billion, against BRL 8.8 billion year-on-year, reflecting the execution of our previous share buyback program and the timing of our 2024 dividends payout, which in 2025 together consumed BRL 7.7 billion of our Q1 cash position. Under our priority to return excess cash to shareholders. We continue executing our ongoing share buyback program announced in October last year. And yesterday, the Board of Directors approved the payment of BRL 1.2 billion related to the second tranche of the IOC declared in December of 2025, and a new IOC declaration of BRL 700 million to be paid by December 2026.

In summary, we started the year with momentum. We will stay focused on what we can control while continuing to invest in long-term value creation. At the same time, we remain mindful that the global geopolitical environment continues to be dynamic. Therefore, we are closely monitoring developments across all of our markets and we maintain our Brazil Beer cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding marketplace guidance unchanged from 4.5% to 7.5% increase in 2026 -- and continue to pursue our ambition of expanding consolidated margin over time.

With that, let me hand it back to Lisboa.

Thank you, Fleury. So as I close, I would like to leave you with 3 messages. First, our conviction in the category remains unchanged. Beer is one of the largest, most loved and most profitable consumer categories in the world and its potential is far from being fully captured across our footprint. We continue to see room to broaden the categories reach, remain relevant to consumers as their needs evolve over time and participate in more consumption moments. Second, we have a growth formula anchored in the 3 pillars of our strategy, presenting encouraging results. In our view, that is the way not only to build momentum, but to make it less by turning 1, 2 in 3 into a true flywheel. And third, while the environment remains dynamic, 2026 is also shaping up to be the year of socialization. It started with Carnival, and the month ahead bring a strong occasion-driven calendar, including the FIFA World Cup. These are the moments when our brands connect more deeply with consumers and when as people come together beer becomes part of what makes those moments very special. And our ambition remains the same, always strive for our better version. This quarter was an important step in that journey, and it gives us confidence in what comes next. And before I finish, I want to thank our teams across Ambev. Your ownership resilience and discipline in executing our strategy are what made this quarter possible.

Thank you very much for joining us today. And with that, let me hand it over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Henrique Brustolin with Bradesco BBI.

My question is about net revenue per hectoliter in Brazil Beer. For us, at least it was the main highlight of the quarter, especially given how your volumes outperformed. So if you could qualify the 8% year-on-year increase, what drove that in terms of the contribution from mix? Any contribution from price increases in case they took place in the first quarter would also be very helpful. And also seasonally, Q1 usually has a weaker pricing than Q4, right, because of state taxes in Brazil. if there was anything different in this ICMS dynamic this year that may also, in part, explain the pricing performance in Brazil Beer. That would be my question.

Henrique, nice to talk to you, and thanks for the question. Look, I think it's always important to, as you said, explain what are the components driving the net revenue per hectoliter performance? And first and foremost, in terms of hierarchy, the first component is exactly the -- all the effort put behind our revenue management agenda in '25 and the carryover we brought into the first quarter of '26. Keep in mind that from '24 to '25, we didn't have pretty much a carryover, right? So in other terms, it is an easier comp. The second component in the hierarchy comes from our revenue management agenda into '26, right? And the third component comes from the mix since our above core segment continued to grow in a very solid pace, right? Altogether, drove a pretty healthy net revenue per hectoliter around the high single digit, as you mentioned, right, keeping our strategy unchanged, right? We want to keep the rate broadly in line with inflation over time and capture positive mix and evolve in a solid basis moving forward.

And just to complement here, Henrique, Fleury. On the tax side, there was nothing that was important to highlight during the quarter. So same as last year.

Our Next question comes from Nadine Sarwat with Bernstein.

Nadine, you can open your microphone. I believe she's having some technical issues.

We are going to go ahead to the next question from Thiago Duarte with BTG.

My question is really now jumping into volumes in Brazil Beer. In the presentation, we shared that the industry was down by mid-single digits in Q1. And at the same time, I think, Lisboa, you continue to suggest that you think this was due to cyclical factors such as the weather, right? And last quarter, marked, I think the fourth quarter in a row of falling industry volumes at a relatively steep pace. So in theory, starting now in Q2, we are cycling through that, I think, easy comparison base. And so my question to you, Lisboa, and I think you mentioned in different occasions in recent past, how confident you are about the potential of the category. And obviously, this year, you have a positive calendar effects such as the World Cup. So my question too is really how confident you are now that we are cycling through this easy comparison base, how confident you are that volumes can grow in the balance of 2026 in the next 3 quarters?

Thiago, nice to talk to you and thanks for the question. Just a clarification. First, actually, the industry is cycling through the toughest comparison base, not the easiest comparison base, right? Since Q1 '25 was pretty much the only quarter when the industry pretty much landed in a positive territory. From that onwards, was something a solid negative performance in all quarters from 2 to quarter 4, right? So when the category, the industry landed around mid- to low single digit in this quarter versus last year. In our point of view, is a continuation of a recovery because we are -- the categories, again, landing in the toughest comparison moment, right? And about the drivers, I think it's always good to understand what happened last year. And we always emphasize that the issue was not whether consumers wanted beer, but how often the right occasions happen, right, given the fact that what mostly impacted the industry were cyclical drivers, which is pretty much the same that happened in this quarter in '26, right, being the most relevant impact coming from the weather. However, in a lower intensity vis-a-vis what we saw from quarter 2 to quarter 4 from last year, right? And I think it's important for you to keep in mind, Thiago that the correlation between industry performance and the weather is very visible for us. And this is something that we have been dedicating a lot of time and effort here to improve the capacity we have to read what is happening around us, right? Regarding the context or in other words, cyclical drivers impacted the industry performance and also the structural drivers. And when we look at, right, everything that impacted last year the industry that is still impacted this year, the industry, and we look forward. We do expect that, first and foremost, the calendar will bring a pretty interesting right ground for the industry to continue recovering moving forward, right? A combination of long holidays, a combination of FIFA World Cup coming exactly at the moment when the industry declined the most, high single digits against '24. And after that, you have in mind that the major impact coming from -- came from the weather. We don't expect, despite the fact that we don't control this piece right? We don't expect the weather to impact the industry the same way happening because, right, the issue came from the distance, the gap between a very warm weather in '23 and '24 against a cold and long winter time in '25. And that gap was the main reason why right, we saw such a big decline, which is very unusual for the beer industry to face in a region like Brazil, right? The other piece of the equation, which is still in place, by the way, right, is the household income pressure, which is something that we continue to pay attention. However, the category usually shows its resilience in moments like that. Beer is seen as an affordable entertainment for consumers in Brazil. And that gives us the chance to despite the pressure, continue to see and drive category industry momentum moving forward. I hope to have answered your question.

And Lisboa, Fleury here. If I just add, I think we all heard Lisboa mentioning a few moments ago about the momentum of our portfolio, this year compared to what we had before. So the compounding effect about the momentum of our portfolio is also very relevant when you think about volume for this quarter and when you were to put together a view for the year.

Next question comes from Lucas Ferreira with JPMorgan.

I wanted to explore Fleury, about this topic you just mentioned about the momentum of the brands. But if you can go down to the category levels and also brand specific, especially the key brands in premium and core, how they have been performing? What has been sort of the surprise in your view in terms of resilience, right, in this tough environments in both premium and core. And especially in core, how things look like in your view going forward through the rest of the year, which seems where maybe the market is a bit more competitive or maybe where you guys had a bit more trouble. So basically, how to think about this momentum going forward, especially regarding the core segment, which was maybe on the weak side this quarter?

Lucas, look, I think the first point to highlight here is the mission we set for ourselves to really not only lead but also develop and make this industry, the category grow over time, right? In other words, we want to be truly a captain of the category here in Brazil, right? With that in mind, the way we should land this mission is by protecting, elevating the brands that compose in our point of view, the core of this category here, our domestic right, large core brands. And we have been doing that, and we discussed about it right last year, also putting the efforts behind a portfolio play in this game, right? We want to have more than one core brand playing this role because we know that Brazil is a very large country and our competitive dynamics, they change depending on the region, right? So in other words, it's important for us to have more than one brand, and this is a large piece of the equation, piece of the category, and we have a very high share level there, right? By having this strong core segment, you can really play the game to expand the category, right, develop the category to attract more consumers to jump into more occasions, right? And we are doing so in a pretty solid way. I think the first point to highlight is the Premium segment. Again, a portfolio game. There, we find brands like Stella Artois, Original, right, Corona placing very solid and consistent, right, volume performance along quarter-over-quarter, right? And taking us to regain the leading position and also today, having the brands growing the most in the Brazilian market within this segment. On the other side of the story, a new choice for us, right, the one we call balanced portfolio, right? The piece of the portfolio composed by non-alcohol beers, right, which, by the way, continue to deliver various solid results. And the new brands like Stella Pure Gold and Michelob Ultra, which has been growing in an exponential way here. Altogether, this portfolio jumped from 1.5% of our mix, right to this quarter, delivering almost 4% of our mix. So it's a very solid pace of growth, right? And we are complementing this game with new members like Flying Fish, right? We are bringing to life the versatility that the category brings to us. right? And by doing so, we are creating new experience to our consumers, to learn everything that beer can be here. And this is what really excited us. And it's nice to be part of a global enterprise, but because we -- it's almost like having crystal ball in your hands, right? We know what a beer can be. And we know that we can make this love category, even stronger in Brazil. And this is exactly the mission that we set for ourselves since day 1. I can guarantee you, all Ambev partners, they are in love with this idea, right, to drive this category even further.

Our next question comes from Carlos Laboy with HSBC. I believe he's having some technical issues as well.

We're going to go ahead to our next question from Ben Theurer with Barclays.

I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the COGS outlook. You could help us understand and frame maybe the cadence throughout the year. Obviously, we saw the pressure as in first half as an expected. But just given the current environment with higher aluminum prices, et cetera. How should we think about the cost flow through for you guys based on the hedges for the rest of the year?

Thank you, Ben. So when we do and as we have done last year, so let me go back a little bit to '25, which will probably ease for you to understand how we are working in '26. When we start the year, we have extensive analysis and we have our hedges, which give us a very good visibility on the forecast going forward. And last year, you remember that was a very tough year for us because when we give the guidance to the market, we didn't have a view about how the industry would perform throughout the year. So last year, I'll start by saying that we had to reignite the muscle of the organization of looking into very details of costs, production, distribution, so on and so forth, and that is working all together different areas, which allowed us to land the year despite the volume decrease at the lowest part of our cash COGS guidance for the year. When we're starting '26, what we have said to the market is our range between 4.5% for Brazil Beer cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding marketplace from 4.5% to 7.5%. And we understand that the market is still dynamic. That's what I just said to you guys. But the information that we have today with also the discipline, with also the cost discussions and projects looking forward to different areas. We are maintaining our cash COGS from 4.5% to 7.5% for the year. We know, and that's something that I also comment that we know that Q1 is probably the highest on cost, and that should start easing through the second quarter onwards. And allow me also to mention one thing that makes very clear for everyone. When we think about not direct cost, but investments that we do in sales and marketing, we understand and we made it clear that Q2 is probably will be more skewed when I look into the FIFA World Cup and activations that we have compared to the prior years. So probably expect Q2 to be more skewed on the sales and marketing on H1. But we are confident that we -- and we're working very hard to maintain the guidance throughout the year.

Our next question comes from Gustavo Troyano with Itaú BBA.

My question also relates to Beer Brazil, especially on the FIFA World Cup impacts here. And basically, I just wanted to understand your perspective on how much of that consumption related to the World Cup is something that you can already see a few months in advance from the events of potentially starting to flow through your results as early as the first quarter versus something that really only becomes clearer as we get closer to the event itself by the second quarter. So how do you think about this time line for this demand to flow through your P&L? And related to this time line, I was wondering whether you're already seeing any early pricing movements from competitors ahead of this demand peaks. So would you say that this period ahead of the World Cup could create any opportunity to fine-tune relative pricing across SKUs or whether if you think it makes sense to adjust pricing ahead of the World Cup as well. Thank you very much.

Gustavo, thank you for the questions. I will keep the protocol in place. I'm going to answer 1 question to give you all the chance to interact with us, okay? So regarding your first question, World Cup contribution, look, historically, the World Cup usually brings a contribution of around 0.3% to 0.4% industry growth year-over-year, annually speaking, right? That contribution usually impacts as well the second to third quarters, right, which is exactly when we're going to see the event taking place, right? For sure, you have prep games in different regions across our footprint, and those are moments as well when we activate our brands, right, with campaigns, promo, different sorts of activations, right, and that creates additional consumption moments, right, which is good for the category, right? Keep in mind that in Brazil, what we missed the most last year were occasions frequency. So whenever you have the chance to activate frequency, right, it is good for us on a year-over-year basis, right? I think you saw during the beginning of the session, we already have our portfolio, right, of brands exploiting the moment in different ways. And this is beautiful because we have a complementary portfolio of brands, and they can use the platform to create new bonds with consumers, right, in different ways. And this is wonderful in my point of view as a market here, right? And this is exactly what you're going to see moving forward and gaining even more traction, right? Because as we speak, our teams are ready to land everything that we developed last year, to reach such a unique moment for us in pretty much across our footprint in a very stronger way to keep our momentum forward. As Fleury mentioned before, we jump into this year with our portfolio delivering solid results, right, across the board from core to high end, to Beyond and flavor beers. And now the World Cups -- World Cup comes in a very interesting moment for us to keep this momentum forward, right? So that's it, I think, very excited about the opportunity and ready to make it happen.

And just to add one thing here, Lisboa, I think it's important to remember that on this World Cup, different from the prior, our digital platforms are much more evolved. So we're going to see a lot of activations through something that we've been developing for a long period of time. So the connection that we make with consumers to Zé Delivery and the connection that we make our [ POCs ], points of sales that we interact directly through BEES, I believe, will be amazing. We're going to be -- you're going to see a lot of activation, and it's our job, as Lisboa said, to help grow the industry.

Our next question comes from Robert Ottenstein with Evercore.

And apologies if I missed it. I know there was a question -- I think it was the first question was on the price/mix. And you mentioned some carryover from '25 business mix and RGM. Can you be a little bit more specific in breaking things out. I think CPI in Brazil is running around 4%. So should we think in terms of 4% pricing and then 4% mix? Or how should we look at that and then perhaps in connection with that, can you give us the latest breakout of the Premium segment, what percentage of your business is Premium, how much that is up and the impact of that on the revenue per hectoliter?

Robert, look, as you said, we detail a little bit what you just asked in the beginning of the conversation, but I'm going to emphasize the key message here. The revenue management agenda has a mission that is composed by twofold, right? One is protect the industry growth, category accessibility in other terms, right, while protecting our profitability, right? That's the reason why we're going to always aim a rate strategy aligned with inflation over time to allow our consumers, especially those coming from mid- to low socioeconomic ends and to access the category, right? And that's exactly what we see happening in the beginning of this year. The main difference is the carryover against an easier comp from last year given the fact that we didn't have a carryover from '24 into '25, right? So 3 components building up the net revenue per hectoliter in quarter 1. First and foremost, carryover. Second point, our revenue management agenda taking place already. And the third component is the mix contribution, right? To your complementary question, the mix for us represents 20% of our volumes growing around 20%, right, in a very consistent basis. That's the reason why you see an interesting contribution coming from the mix which usually represents around 15% of what we see in our net revenue per hectoliter performance.

This concludes the Q&A session. I would like to invite Mr. Carlos Lisboa to proceed with his closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you for joining our call today. As we close, I would like to reinforce a few messages. First, this quarter marked a solid first step into the kind of a year we want to have. Second, our growth formula is based on the 3 pillars of our strategy working as a flywheel. When these pillars advance simultaneously, they show encouraging results, strengthening one another and supporting our profitable growth journey. And third, we are confident in beer. It is a loved and versatile category with clear headroom to grow. '26 is shaping up to be a year of socialization. And when people get together, beer has a unique role in making those moments more special. With that, I would like to thank you all and hope to see you soon.

This concludes today's presentation. You may disconnect, and have a nice day.

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 Fleury, 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 through the webcast link. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

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 Ambev'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 Ambev and could cause results to differ materially 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, percentage 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 Ambev's normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company disclosed the consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit and EBITDA 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 1, 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 maintained 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 3 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 flywheel that strengthens each year and sustain 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 year. 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 runway ahead. The category has headroom to expand, supported by favorable demographics in Latin America and growth 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 potential and actual consumption, fostering category growth. In 2025, we led where the category expanded the most, premium, balanced choices and nonalcohol. We elevated the core segment through innovation and investments while building adjacencies like flavored beers.

And that leads us to our Pillar 2, 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 sellout activation tools powered by our data and insights, benchmarking what works across points of sale and translating it into sharper activation and portfolio recommendations.

Also, BEES 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 BRL 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, Z� 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 2 pillars scalable. In 2025, we set a clear ambition to expand Ambev's consolidated EBITDA margin again, EBM. Despite industry softness and FX 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 EBITDA margin by 50 basis points, marking our third consecutive year of margin expansion and by 110 basis 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 BRL 20 billion in shareholder returns in 2025, the highest in our history through BRL 13.2 billion in dividends, BRL 4.2 billion in interest on capital and a new BRL 2.5 billion in share buyback program. And we are starting the year paying the first BRL 1.2 billion 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 EBITDA margin in 4 out of 5. In Brazil Beer, full year volumes were in line with the soft industry, and our performance reflected 2 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 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 Nielsen 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 nonalcohol grew around 30% 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 nonalcohol 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 Brazil NAB, during 2025, the disciplined execution of our strategy and resource allocation supported EBITDA growth with margin expansion. At the same time, Guaran� Antartica'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 continued to weigh 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 beverage in full year, supported by healthier dynamic between categories, while Presidente's brand health reached all-time highs. In Canada, we outperformed both beer and beyond beer industries, supported by our beer mega brands and continued 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 enter 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 focus 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 EBITDA margin expansion of 50 bps reaching 33.4%, mainly driven by 3 factors: First, net revenue per hectoliter growth of 7.5%, supported by stronger brands, revenue management strategy and continued premiumization across our portfolio, leading to net revenue per hectoliter growth across all of our business units.

Second, financial discipline. Consolidated cash COGS per hectoliter 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 hectoliter, 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 continued 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 BRL 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 BRL 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 BRL 24.5 billion, BRL 1.6 billion lower than last year, mainly due to softer volumes that impacted working capital. Cash flow consumed in investing activities totaled approximately BRL 5 billion, mainly driven by CapEx investment broadly in line with last year. Cash flow consumed in financing activities amounted to BRL 26.8 billion, driven by shareholder payouts and the completion of our 2024 share buyback program.

In total, we returned BRL 21.7 billion to shareholders on a cash basis, meaning that approximately 90% 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 NOPAT 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 hectoliter, 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 Yokaichiya. Yoka, in turn, will transition to a fully dedicated position leading Ambev's treasury team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Yoka for the outstanding work he has done leading Ambev's Investor Relations team over the past 5 years and to wish both continued success in their new roles. Now back to you, Lisboa.

Thank you, Fleury. 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 3 reminders. First, beer is a loved category in Latin America with strong fundamentals, and that strength comes with headroom for growth, given its versatility to address consumers' trends and needs. Second, we, as a company, are advancing simultaneously on our 3 strategic pillars, strengthening a flywheel we can compound year after year. And third, we entered 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.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Nadine Sarwat from Bernstein.

I'd like to double-click on Brazil. So firstly, 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? And 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 '26?

Nadine, nice to talk to you again. Lisboa here. Look, I'm going to follow the protocol. I'm going to get the first answer. Regarding Brazil Beer, to your point about what are the drivers. So quickly reminder, what happened last year made 2025 like an outlier year for the beer industry in Brazil. Prior to that, 10 years' time, 5 years' time, 3 years' time, there was consistent growth and pretty much driven by favorable demographics and disposable income increase.

Last year, and we mentioned that during the result announcement, what we saw was unseasonable weather impacting mostly the wintertime and boosted by the La Nina phenomenon that somehow made the winter go deeper and longer in the second half. And that created unfavorable type of situation for beer because it impacted the most an occasion and out-of-home occasions that are where the beer category volume resides. So that's the reason why we saw the impact. Obviously, it was not an easy situation for us to manage.

As I said before, it was the first time that we saw such a strong impact in our industry, but I think the team 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 during the last quarter of last year, we were ready 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 year-over-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 the positive territory that we landed.

I won't go into the details about the first quarter of this year. But what I can say, Nadine, is the following. Actually, that weather pretty much came into the first round of this year, the first month of this year, what puts in a year-over-year comparison, the weather impact is neutral, which is important for us.

Sustaining 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're thinking about this going into 2026, 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, Henrique, Fleury here. Can you hear me well? Just checking the mic here on my end.

Yes, I can.

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 we have given a guidance last year of 5.5% to 8.5%. 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, okay? Now when we look into '26, I think there are 2 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 to -- 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 nonspeculative, 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 midpoint 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 do the work and probably throughout the year, come narrowing or come with news on here. So far, that is the guidance that we have.

Henrique, Lisboa here. Just to complement Fleury. You can imagine that nobody here, we are not expecting such a challenging context in terms of volume drop for the industry, especially here in Brazil. So that put a lot of stress on our ambition to protect margins for Ambev again. And I think last year was -- that's the reason why we said it was a stress test for us. Because if we could somehow overcome the FX, overcome commodities, and on top of that, overcome the lack of capacity to dilute costs without having the volumes that give us confidence.

Somehow, I think the obstacle made us develop internally the right muscles to be prepared for another ground, but in a way better shape in my point of view. So again, was not a training season for us, it was already a hard game last year, and I think it was good, you're right, to test and be prepared for what's coming.

Our next question comes from Gustavo Troyano from Itau BBA.

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 I 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 is something new towards this discussion?

Thank you for the question. Let me just start highlighting again what we have done in '25. I think you have seen a very proactive discussion that we have had with Lisboa and our Board here to make sure that we are able to change the payout or return to shareholders on a consistently basis quarter after quarter on last year. On this quarter or beginning of this quarter, Lisboa just mentioned on his beginning introduction that we're also paying part of the IOC that we've approved with the Board at the end of 2025.

I cannot -- 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 3 points of our capital allocation, invest in organic growth, look into selective M&A and deliver sustainable shareholder return over time.

Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte from BTG Pactual.

Yes, 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 Ambev 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 ambidextrous and fostering the category growth. You mentioned briefly about elevating the core in your initial remarks.

But when we 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. In the past, I don't know, 5 or 6 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. And I remember a year ago, you mentioning that you believe 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.

Thiago, nice to connect to you again. Look, one of the feedbacks we got from you all was about 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. I continue with my point of view, Thiago, regarding us being a company capable of managing ends not only one side of the portfolio partition especially because the part that you are alluding to the core, it is the stronger part of the industry.

And if -- when you take in consideration the majority of the population in Brazil still rely pretty much on one minimum salary. The core has a meaningful play to gain in the game because it promotes accessibility to the category. On top of that Brazil is composed by different regions. Those regions is very interesting. I think I never told you that, but one of the things that caught my attention is how cyclical 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 Skol place. And at a point in time, I told you guys, Skol is still a very relevant brand in several states of Brazil, here in Sao Paulo, for instance. So it's critical for us to protect that strength that our company has, the category has because somehow these brands, they represent the category. And there's plenty of room for us to make these brands very relevant in the future. How? Take as an example, what we are doing as we speak with Skol. We just brought to the game a new brand variant, which is Skol Zero Zero. We are not just following the zero trend. We are doing so with novelty because this brand extension brings 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 of our portfolio coming to [indiscernible] because the share gain not only came from the new partitions being premium, being nonalcohol or being balanced, it came from the core as well.

And coincidentally or not, this was the time when we started to see Skol also stabilizing, gaining momentum, especially in those states where we put more emphasis behind the brand. So -- 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. And the core side of the business plays a very meaningful role there.

And Lisboa, if I can just add like one thing here, Thiago, quickly. 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.

Our next question comes from Renata Cabral from Citi.

My question is related to GLP-1 drugs and the potential impact on company's portfolio. We are seeing the discussion a lot developed in the U.S. 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. So the usage can expand in 2026 or maybe '27. 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 beer but also in the portfolio?

Renata, thank you for the question. I think it's always important to go back to '25 in order to really understand what happened. There are 2 different kinds of impact. One is attitudinal change. The other one is behavioral change. What happened last year was a change on the behavioral side due to the weather, mostly, okay? When you have bad weather when you have colder and longer winter time, the most important drinking occasion in Brazil, which is the out-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 Fleury, 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, okay?

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 a strength, which doesn't mean that those that are more unfrequent consumers, sporadic consumers 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 alcohol beer. We are developing functional beers like gluten-free, lower calories. And we are also attending those consumers with more sweet flavor beers like 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.

Our next question comes from Isabella Simonato from Bank of America.

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

Isabella, it's a long question. So let me take the point about pricing, which is very sensitive. So I'm going to try to answer without going to any -- a territory that we don't want. So our pricing has a mission composed by twofold. One side of the pricing story is keep our industry accessible. And the reason why for that is what I mentioned before. A good -- 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 on it. 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 to protect our profitability moving forward. And as you know, we have an ambition to continue expanding margin in the -- ambition. 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. So we're going to -- we need to be always balancing the 2 sides of the story. So it's not an or, but it's an and game. The beauty about our situation today is when you look to our flywheel, first and foremost, our portfolio is more complete today. And it is complete regionally speaking. So it gives us alternatives to move forward with our revenue management strategy for the year.

On the second side of the story, the second pillar of our strategy, you find the digital ecosystem. And I already mentioned to you all BEES is enabling us to strengthen our core 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, to execute our revenue management strategy in a different way than we used to do before. We are more effective today than before in terms of dollar invested in promotions and so on and so forth. Our algorithms help us to recommend the right portfolio of brands 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 2 together should be enough to offset what kind of impact we see on the COGS 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 that the more we do it, the better we get. So again, similar to what I said before, I feel like last year was a very good acid test, stress test for us to be ready for the year to come.

And Lisboa, Fleury here, just to add one thing here, Isabella, when you look into our costs, another way of thinking about that cost and expenses, you look at that in a holistic way. You always do the resource allocation over and over, as Lisboa was mentioning, measuring returns from market promotions from everything that we do. And it's also fair to say that, as Lisboa mentioned, over time, we want to increase -- we have the ambition of increasing our margin. But most likely, we're not going to be able to do that every quarter because when you look into Pillars 1, 2 and 3, 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 Lisboa mentioned as a flywheel. So that's what we want to continue to gain momentum over and over.

This does conclude 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. And we will do that by leading and shaping a loved category with clear headroom for growth. Advancing simultaneously on the 3 pillars of our strategy is what set us apart. 2025 stress tested our strategy, and we closed 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.

Good afternoon, and thank you for waiting. We would like to welcome everyone to Ambev's 2025 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. Today with us, we have Mr. Carlos Lisboa, Ambev's CEO; and Mr. Guilherme Fleury, 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 through the webcast link. We would like to inform that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

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 Ambev's management and on information currently available to the company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore, depend 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 Ambev and could cause results to differ materially 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, percentage changes refer to comparisons with third Q '24 results.

Normalized figures refer to performance measures before exceptional items, which are either income or expenses that do not occur regularly as part of Ambev's normal activities. As normalized figures are non-GAAP measures, the company discloses the consolidated profit, EPS, operating profit and EBITDA on a fully reported basis in the earnings release.

Now I will turn the conference over to Mr. Carlos Lisboa. Mr. Lisboa, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you again, and thank you for joining our call today. We closed the second quarter, making important decisions to position ourselves well for the remainder of the year. Reflecting on the third quarter, these choices were even more relevant as industry volumes remain softer than expected, mainly in Brazil. This quarter reflects the results of our choices. Our brands continue healthy with most of our top 10 markets maintaining or improving brand equity, particularly in Brazil.

Net revenue grew, supported by resilient net revenue per hectoliter growth, up 7%. Top line performance combined with cost initiatives drove EBITDA growth of 3% with 50 basis points of margin expansion, while normalized EPS grew 8%. Looking at the film rather than the photo, in a year-to-date perspective, we are positive about the decisions we have made and the resilience of our business. Supported by the strength of our brands and our solid market share, top line grew 4%, driven by a healthy net revenue per hectoliter of 7%, which led to EBITDA growth of over 7% with 120 basis points of margin expansion.

Cost initiatives continue to make a difference with cash COGS per hectoliter growing below net revenue per hectoliter and normalized EPS grew above 7%. Following our capital allocation strategy and confident on our long-term value creation potential, on October 29, the Board of Directors approved a BRL 2.5 billion share buyback program with the main purpose of canceling shares as a way to return cash to shareholders. Behind these results line the foundations of our growth strategy.

Starting with Pillar #1, lead and grow the category. To be a true category captain, we must place our customers and consumers at the center of our decision-making process, being able to better understand and serve the demand, a capability that becomes even more important when the operating environment turns more dynamic, allowing us to: Number one, lead the beer category. Our core brands remain resilient even though volumes declined given its higher sensitivity to industry environment. Our premium and super premium brands strengthened and continue to grow in volumes more than 9%; and number two, shape new avenues of growth.

The Balanced Choices portfolio grew 36%, including non-alcohol beers growing above 20%, continued to expand ahead of the company's volume. As leaders, we continue to develop the category, aiming not only to sell more, but to expand the consumer base and the number of occasions over the long term, ultimately creating sustainable value.

As for Pillar 2, digitize and monetize the ecosystem. This pillar continues to be instrumental to our business. It provides valuable insights into our consumers, customers and operations while expanding our addressable market. The third quarter marked another solid step towards making our digital ecosystem a competitive advantage for our company. When it comes to new growth engines, BEES Marketplace maintained its strong momentum with GMV growing 100% to an annualized BRL 8 billion, driven by the expansion of our commercial partnerships.

Meanwhile, on the direct-to-consumer front, Zé Delivery recorded a 7% increase in GMV even amid a softer industry, supported by a 9% rise in average order value. In revenue management, BEES continues to enable a more assertive and data-driven decisions. With a more granular view of elasticity by brand, pack and customer, we can optimize our discounts and promotions to improve the return on every real invested.

For example, this quarter in Brazil, we increased the number of SKUs per pack in 5% and improved by 30% the return on promotions. And in cost and expenses management, BEES also played a key role in the SKU optimization program we mentioned last quarter. It helped us expand the distribution of our main SKUs, improving production efficiency while ensuring that our customers continue to find the right portfolio for their businesses.

In summary, the combined impact of the revenue and cost management led to an expansion of our gross margin in the quarter. Speaking of cost performance, let's move into Pillar #3, optimize our business. This year, we have been emphasizing our disciplined approach to costs, and this quarter clearly shows why it matters. While we expected costs to continue to accelerate, driven by FX, commodities and the operational deleverage from lower volumes, our efficiency efforts paid off. We managed to keep costs mostly in line with previous quarter, freeing up resources to continue investing in the long-term growth of our business. Looking ahead, there is still work to be done as we pursue the lower half of our Brazil beer cash COGS per hectoliter guidance, which will support our ambition of protecting consolidated EBITDA margins in the full year.

Speaking of margins, our disciplined approach to revenue, cost and expense management once again delivered results. Four of our business units expanded EBITDA margins, and all of them delivered growing or flat EBITDA consistent with the last 2 quarters.

Now let's turn to the commercial highlights from our main markets. Starting with Brazil beer. This was the second consecutive quarter of industry softness. It is understandable that this can raise some concerns about the category's prospects. So before we go into our business performance, I would like to take a moment to share a few insights into what we see as situational factors, meaning either short term or cyclical and structural factors that may impact the industry over time.

Over the past 2 quarters, the beer category equity has improved, which is a good proxy for future share of throat, while consumers' participation in beer remains stable. This reinforces our view that there are no meaningful short-term structural changes in consumer behavior toward the category. The industry's decline was mostly related to fewer consumption occasions, particularly in the on-trade channel, which was affected by 2 main factors: Number one, weather. The past 6 months were colder than normal, especially in the South and Southeast off a tough comp as 2023 and 2024 were the 2 warmest winters on record. This impact, according to our estimates, represents approximately 70% of the industry decline.

And number two, consumer purchasing power. The macro environment, particularly in the North and Northeast, continued to constrain discretionary spending. These are situational drivers for the short-term or cyclical nature, underpinning our confidence in the long-term fundamentals of both the category and our portfolio.

That said, let me share 3 potential trends and needs that can turn into structural drivers. Number one, the beer category in Brazil has evolved. We value it, and we will be part of it. However, easy-to-drink beers are still the preferred choice of Brazilians. Number two, certain groups of consumers prefer sweeter beverage. And number three, more consumers are seeking a balanced lifestyle. As a consequence and not by coincidence, we have been working to address these trends and needs. Our portfolio of brands spans a wide range of liquid profiles. Our easy-to-drink brands are relevant in all price segments and the brands that are growing the most in our portfolio address such need. We already lead the ready-to-drink space with products such as Beats and Brutal Fruit, which cater directly to the sweet-seeking consumers.

Additionally, we are launching Flying Fish, a successful international brand with the aim of developing the flavored beer segment in Brazil. This segment has been growing globally, reaching over 3% mix of the beer industry in several countries. And for balanced lifestyle seekers, our non-alcohol portfolio, together with Stella Pure Gold and Michelob Ultra has a strong appeal, offering moderation alternative without giving up the great beer experience.

In summary, while we read the current industry headwinds as situational, our strong portfolio and innovation agenda ensure we remain well positioned to capture future growth and keep shaping the beer category.

Now let's move to our performance in Brazil beer. Over 100% of the volume decline is explained by the industry performance. Our brands once again improving equity, gaining low single-digit sellout market share according to Nielsen, while expanded net revenue per hectoliter. The market share gains came across all relevant segments.

In the core segment, volume declined by low teens, reflecting the overall industry context. However, the market share progressed versus last year as relative price improved through the quarter. Premium and super premium brands once again stood out, growing mid-teens and gaining sellout market share, reaching close to 50%. After 6 years of consistent recovery, we achieved the highest share level since 2015 according to our estimates. This performance was driven by Original, Stella family and Corona, the latter 2 at the top end of the price index.

And our balanced choice portfolio maintained strong momentum, growing mid-60s. Stella Pure Gold more than doubled its volumes. Michelob Ultra grew over 80%, and our non-alcohol beer portfolio expanded by low 20s, further strengthening our leadership in the segment.

Moving to Brazil NAB, throughout 2025, the CSD industry has experienced a deceleration from up low single digit in Q1, to down mid-single digit in Q3 according to Nielsen, driven by similar situational factors that impacted the beer industry.

In addition, our revenue management decisions last quarter led to an inventory phasing into this quarter, impacting sell-in performance. In this context, our brands continue to strengthen and our market share grew year-to-date and was stable to low single digit down in the quarter according to our estimates with a net revenue per hectoliter above inflation. Our nonsugar portfolio once again delivered double-digit growth and now accounts for more than 25% of total NAB volumes.

In Argentina, the consumption environment remained challenging. Our beer volumes declined mid-single digit, underperforming the industry, reflecting an unfavorable temporary price relativity dynamics. However, brand equity remained stable, supported by the strength of our mega brands. Furthermore, we remain constructive on the long-term prospects for both the country and the beer category.

In the Dominican Republic, the operating environment and beer share of throat continued to improve sequentially, supported by a healthier price relativity across categories. Presidente brand, the cornerstone of the category, strengthened its equity once again, reinforcing its leadership and cultural connection with consumers in the country.

Finally, in Canada, the beer industry declined by mid-single digit in the quarter. We estimate that we outperformed the industry in both beer and beyond beer. The Ontario market continued to progress, supported by the route-to-market expansion implemented last year. Our beer performance was led by Michelob Ultra, Busch and Corona, which we estimate were among the top 5 volume share gainers in the industry.

Now let me hand over to Fleury, who will walk you through our financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Lisboa, and hello, everyone. Today, I would like to walk you through our financial performance highlights using our capital allocation framework. Starting with our priority #1, to invest in our business. Here, our focus is to allocate capital efficiently and maximize return on investments. One way we do that is by driving efficiencies across our cost and expenses baselines, freeing up resources to continue to invest behind our business and our brands, strengthening the connection with our consumers.

Building on that, in quarter 3, our disciplined cost management allowed us to quickly adapt our brewing processes to a more challenging operating environment and deliver strong productivity with tighter process controls and lower conversion costs, mainly in our vertical operations. As a result, we expanded EBITDA margin in most of our business units once again.

Now moving to net income. Our normalized net income reached BRL 3.8 billion, up 7% year-over-year, mainly driven by a lower effective tax rate, which more than offset higher financial expenses. Our stated net income reached BRL 4.9 billion, up 36% versus last year, reflecting one-off effects I will detail in a moment.

In this quarter, our net financial expenses closed at BRL 1.1 billion, about BRL 400 million higher than last year, mostly due to 2 factors we already addressed in quarter 2. One, a higher FX hedging carry costs in Brazil due to interest rate gap between Brazil and the U.S. And two, the cost of sourcing U.S. dollars in Bolivia.

On income tax, our effective tax rate in quarter 3 was 6.7% compared with 23.6% a year ago. The decline reflects mostly 3 one-offs, which totaled BRL 630 million and didn't have a relevant cash tax impact in the quarter. Excluding them, our effective tax rate would have been around 20%, consistent with recent levels. Let me go over them. One, following a change in legislation, we recognized a partial reversal of previously recorded tax liabilities associated with the 2017 amnesty program as detailed in Note 8.2 to our Q3 financial statements. Number two, fiscal incentives recognition. And number three, the Barbados divestment that generated a gain of BRL 884 million, where part of it was nontaxable in Dominican Republic.

The sale of Barbados is a tangible example of our second capital allocation priority at work, evaluate inorganic opportunities. Here, we completed the first steps of the transaction, transferring control to KOSCAB, a long-term partner in the Caribbean. The transaction simplifies our structure and keeps our brands in the region. Further details are disclosed in Note 1 to our financial statements.

Lastly, regarding our third priority, return cash to shareholders over time. As we approach the end of the year, I remain confident on the consistent cash generation of our business. Cash flow from operating activities remained solid, totaling BRL 6.9 billion despite softer volumes and higher cash taxes this quarter. Versus 2024, our cash flow from operating activities is down BRL 1.2 billion, mainly due to a slower monetization pace of existing income tax credits in Brazil. These credits will continue to be used over time, aligned with our tax strategy and are detailed in Note 7 to our Q3 financial statements.

Lastly, during the year, we already announced a total dividend of BRL 6 billion. Also, as Lisboa mentioned, we are starting a new BRL 2.5 billion buyback program after the completion of the previous one in June. Both the dividend distribution and the share buyback program reinforce our confidence in our business and our commitment to returning cash to shareholders over time.

With that, let me hand it back to you, Lisboa.

Thank you, Fleury. As we start the fourth quarter, I believe that we are well positioned to close the year on solid footing and to start 2026 with strong momentum. We are also excited for the FIFA World Cup next year, a great opportunity to connect again 2 of the greatest passions in Latin America, beer and soccer. To close, I want to thank our team for their resilience, especially in moments like this. Our grit and focus on what we can control are inspiring and give me even more confidence that we are becoming a better version of ourselves.

Thank you for your attention, and I will now hand it back to the operator for the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Lucas Ferreira with JPMorgan.

My question is on the COGS line. I think that was one of the positive surprises we had with the results, especially in a quarter where production probably was softer, right? I was expecting some sort of effect of a lower fixed cost dilution, but COGS came better than expected. So if you guys can explore that in a bit more details why the COGS were lower specifically this quarter? Does it have to do with the hedging strategy, some sort of a calendarization of that hedge effect or -- but also on the initiatives for reducing your cost base, if you can get into this? And then since you're reiterating the guidance, what would imply for the fourth quarter like sort of big acceleration of the cost per hectoliter, if this acceleration is also has to do with sort of the hedging calendarization or if there is anything else that we have to be aware of?

Lucas, it's Fleury here. Can you hear me well? So Lucas, let me just start by saying that, as you probably remember, I think Ambev has been known for its very strict discipline and action-driven organization. And I think that comes on over time. Working in emerging markets, we developed a capacity of navigating volatility while delivering results. Why I'm starting with that is because if you go back one step in Q2, I mentioned to you guys that most of the benefit that we were having in our COGS was related to the SKU rationalization and what we control.

On Q3, it's not different from that. It comes from a series of initiatives on what we can control. That goes from production costs, to breweries footprint and production and also utilizing our vertical operations in which we normally have better costs. So in essence, I think this is what the company does well. It's really focused on what we control, a series of initiatives. And I might frustrate you, there's no one single one, but there's a collection of initiatives that has been working through the organization with PMOs, of course, with Lisboa and myself with several areas. So that's how we were able to achieve, I would say, a positive cash COGS increase compared to what we have said before.

Now moving to guidance. I think Lisboa made it very clear on his initial speech, but I will reinforce. The guidance is the guidance. We are not changing our guidance for Brazil beer cash COGS per hectoliter, excluding marketplace. What is important to highlight is now with what we know, we will continue to work very hard to deliver the guidance within the first half of the range, if I may say, 5.5% to 7%, which is our ambition. And by doing that, together with our continued disciplined revenue management, I believe we could potentially look into the expansion of margins over time.

Our next question comes from Henrique Brustolin, with Bradesco.

I wanted to explore a little bit more the beer industry environment in Brazil. Very interesting, the comment you made, Lisboa, in terms of the weather representing the 70% of the decline and the remainder, the weaker consumer. I would like to hear a little bit more how you see this trend shaping up into Q4, especially if you could comment on the consumer part of this equation. And also, given that the headwinds were apparently different, right, in the North, Northeast than to the South, Southeast, if you also saw any big difference in terms of the volume performance across these 2 regions or even how the portfolio performed within the different categories? These would be my questions.

Henrique, nice talk to you. Thank you for the question. Let me highlight a few points here to clarify some of your doubts, right? First and foremost, everything that we see somehow is very aligned with what we flagged in our second quarter result announcement, right? So -- but having said that, during the quarter, we saw the most important driver, situational driver, which was the weather gaining even more relevance, right, since the winter time pretty much took the entire quarter, right, different from what happened in quarter 2 when mostly impacted June, right? So I think the most important point to have in mind is the following. The underlying consumer engagement, which we measure based on participation and category equity remains very solid, right?

And the decline was pretty much connected to a reduce in number of occasions, right? And the reason why for that is exactly the 2 situational factors that I flagged in the beginning of the conversation in the session, right? South and Southeast, pretty much the reasons where we see accounting for majority of the volume in Brazil, pretty much 60%, impacted by colder and rainy conditions compared to a drier, right, and hotter conditions last year, right? And the North and Northeast, the other impact, right, which is connected to disposable income constraints, which, by the way, also impacted the first quarter. This was not necessarily a surprise for us. We have been measuring that since the beginning of this year, right?

So it's interesting to see that especially the weather, but also the disposable income constraint impacted mostly something that we also highlight during the second quarter announcement, the out-of-home occasion, which is very relevant for beer in Brazil, right? In other words, impacting particularly bars and restaurants, right? So now moving towards your question about what's coming, right, more. So -- when we reflect about the situational end, right, which is weather and income, the weather remains in October, still a concern for us, Henrique, because we haven't seen any meaningful change.

On the other hand, on the structural end, we also see a continuation of a good momentum our brands presented in Q3, right, which is what gives us confidence that we are well positioned for the quarter to come -- the last quarter to come this year, which will give us a pretty nice carryover into next year, which was the part of what we -- sorry, that we had a technical issue, but I was highlighting that we feel good and optimistic about the year to come because we're going to have the chance to jump into a year when we won't probably see that much of a hard comp impact coming from the weather, which was the most important detractor, right, situational detractor for us this year, combined with the chance to put together -- unite 2 amazing passions for Latin Americans, which are beer and soccer with the World Cup.

And on top of that, as I mentioned before, this year, when we reflect about participation and occasions, occasions were more impacted by the 2 situational factors. And next year, we're going to have the chance to explore more occasions since the World Cup time will match exactly with the hardest period for us in the year. And on top of that, especially in Brazil, we're going to have a pretty interesting number of holidays that will help us create new consumption occasions for us.

Our next question comes from Nadine Sarwat with Bernstein.

Great to see your commentary about Ambev reaching nearly 50% share of Brazil premium and super premium beer for the first time in a decade, and I appreciate the comments that you made in your prepared remarks. With that benefit of hindsight now of the 6 years of seeing that improvement that you called out, can you comment on which initiatives you feel have been the most successful in getting you and your brands to this point in that segment? And what are your aspirations for your share of that segment over the coming quarters and years.

Nadine, thank you for your question. Very interesting. As you said, was a true V curve for us since 2015 until today, right? And just to emphasize what you said, in the last 6 years, we gained 14 points of market share, consistent every single year. And that came mostly as a consequence of our ambition, Nadine, of being a true category captain, right? A captain that will bring to our consumers, not only in Brazil, but across the board in all markets. But since your question is about Brazil, but especially in Brazil, more and more alternatives to enjoy beer in different occasions. And by doing so, expanding our portfolio, we also have a chance to bring more consumers to our portfolio, right?

So if I have to answer your question with just one point, that would be my answer, right? Because we are here to build a portfolio strong enough to make our category even more appealing to our consumers.

And by the way, beer in Brazil has one of the strongest equities across all markets globally, okay. And the point about the portfolio that I also like the most is the following. We know that as consumers graduate and as we bring new consumers to the category, they want to have optionalities, right? They want to attend different needs in different occasions. And that's exactly when the portfolio makes a difference, right? And today, we have a pretty interesting portfolio with complementary roles to play this mission, right, from Original to Spaten, right, in the first layer of the premium. And then to Corona and Stella family in the latter part of the pricing index with different emotional and functional benefits.

And the interesting piece of that is since they are complementary, they are bringing incrementality for us instead of only cannibalization, right? And this is the, in my point of view, the magic around what we are doing here. And it's very interesting because the same way we are building premium, now we are building a new growth engine that we call balance. And the balance piece is also gaining a lot of acceleration. And on top of that, something that I'm not sure was that clear for you all, we are building a new growth engine beyond beer. And that beyond beer business during the last 3 years had been growing double digits, and we have been growing ahead of industry. And today, we are also the leaders as we are the leaders in beyond, as we are the leaders in premium, right?

So in essence, we are leading where growth is and where growth will be in the future.

Our next question comes from Thiago Duarte with BTG.

My question is, I'm trying to get a sense of the sustainability of the SG&A reduction that we saw not only this quarter, but I think throughout the year, although it might have been stronger this quarter. In the release, you mentioned the variable compensation accrual changes. You also mentioned the phasing in marketing expenses in CAC. So my question is, of the 0.4% consolidated organic reduction year-over-year in SG&A in the quarter, how much would you say is related to this phasing of marketing and bonus accruals? And how much you believe it's more of a sustainable gain in efficiency that you saw in expenses.

Then if I may, a quick second question related to pricing in Brazil, Beer Brazil. So I think that's more to you, Lisboa. Looking at the volume performance of the last 2 quarters, how surprised are you of the demand reaction to the price hike that you guys implemented ahead of the second quarter? And how that potentially affects the implementation of pricing that you normally do historically in Q4 of every year? Those would be my questions.

Lisboa, do want me to start?

Yes.

So Thiago, thank you very much for your question. Let me start more broadly, then I'll go into the details. If you look into our consolidated income statement, but that applies to most of the markets in which you operate, what we've been doing is we continue -- despite the impact that we had in volume, we continue to invest in sales and marketing as a percentage of net revenue, slightly increased quarter-over-quarter, and that is the investment that we're very careful of maintaining. Why? Talking about sustainability, is that is the one that connects our brands with our consumers, and that's how we connect with our flywheel on value creation.

Specifically, what happened throughout the year is like we've been, I would say, managing well distribution costs even with lower volumes. So we were able to have a better absorption of fixed costs even with declining volume. And on administrative expenses, I think here, it connects a lot with the way we compensate our executives and our employees. If you remember, Ambev is very well known for having a part of the compensation, which is variable, which is important for us, and it's very connected with the performance of the year.

If I were to summarize, there are 3 parts. One is the base salary. The other one is the variable compensation, and we also have long-term incentive plans that are discretionary and distribute in order to make for the variance in value creation over time. This long-term incentive is normally share related. So the employees and executives receive with a tenure of 3 years with that. Specifically this year, when I'm talking about variable compensation, this connects a lot with our company, which is in a difficult year, even though we've been working very hard on the levers that we can control, and we are delivering still like margin expansion, so on and so forth. It's also we've been going through a difficult time that is not structured. As Lisboa said, it's conjuncture that affects the volume. Therefore, the variable compensation of our teams were aligned with that. And with what we know today, what we have done was an adjustment on the accrual that we've made throughout the year.

So to summarize, we are continuing to invest on what is very important, which is sales and marketing. Our focus and discipline is also helping on the distribution and on the admin that is very connected with how we see the performance of our company with this adjustment on the variable compensation for the year. Now I'll turn to Lisboa.

Thiago. Let me touch on the second part. I think the most important message for you is the following. According to our modeling, industry modeling, our price increase has no impact whatsoever on the industry performance this year due to the fact that prices for the industry, for beer, they are still below inflation. What brings somehow a small impact, very small compared to the situational factors that I flagged before is the mix piece because it continues to grow way ahead of volume average growth with a higher price level. But in the end, consumers always have a chance to choose brands without such a higher price to consumer, right? And that's the benefit of having, again, a strong portfolio of brands. and that's exactly what we hold here in Brazil, right? Not only strong core brands with different competitive situations by region, which differ a lot, by the way, in Brazil. Brazil is a continent, right? And on top of that, we have the premium portfolio that also give us optionality to play around and it's very interesting because we are gaining new capabilities with our digital ecosystem, right?

And BEES -- within BEES, we have an AI-powered revenue management. In other words, we can personalize promotions to boost sales, optimize discounts and increase ROI simultaneously, right? In the end, just to finalize the point and somehow addressing the final piece of your question in terms of ambition, our ambition is always to keep our prices in line with inflation because we know the pricing component is a very important accessibility for consumers in Brazil, right?

And a good part of our consumers come from middle, low pyramid of the population. So it's important for us to always keep control in order to allow them to stay connected to the category.

Next question from Isabella Simonato with Bank of America.

I would like to follow up on your last answer, right, about price and volume correlation. I mean, I understand that beer inflation is pretty much in line with general inflation in Brazil. But my guess is that the timing of the price increase, right, that you guys did in June, and that was followed by the competition in the middle of a bad weather season, right? I mean, how much could that have exacerbated or created a different elasticity, right, to that price increase in the moment that it was done? I think -- that's my question.

And a little bit similar to what we saw on NAB, right? Because I think it was really surprising to see volumes coming down by that much, especially when we look at the competition, right, volumes move up in the quarter. So I believe you lost share, but more to understand the pricing strategy for this quarter, which unlike peers, is well above inflation, right, and to understand how you're guys seeing the volume reaction on that segment as well?

And if I may, a second question on LAS. I think we saw a big -- pretty important pickup on margins. Just if you could elaborate a little bit on the drivers of that, even though volumes in Argentina were not that strong, I think, will be clarifying.

Isabella. Look, as you said, beer CPI in line with overall CPI, no change there, right? According to our models, no different elasticity despite -- or caused by the unfavorable weather, right? So in our point of view, the timing of our price increase was very interesting, came at the right moment for us to avoid any kind of distraction vis-a-vis what we flagged for you all in the beginning of this year in terms of ambition for us, right?

We said we want to protect and evolve with the profitability of the industry. We want to keep a very tight control and disciplined cost expenses because in the end, we want to bring growth with profitability. That's what we said, and we continue very focused behind that.

On the situational side, meaning weather and disposable income, both categories, both industries, right, beer and soft drinks, were somehow impacted, right? But always keep in mind that for beer, the impact is harder because it is impacting mostly the most important occasion for the category, which is out-of-home, right? And you all know what I'm saying here, right? But pay attention to the following. The point about -- I think it's a little bit tricky to compare both businesses, right? We took the price increase for beer in the second quarter of this year. During the third quarter, we saw the relativity change, right, gap shortening, and that gave us the chance to put our share back on track. In fact, we see the balance between share and relative price even in a better position today than before than last year, which is very interesting for us, right?

On the contrary, actually, what happened with soft drinks, we increased -- we had our revenue management agenda impacting mostly the end of the quarter 2, right? And that brought an impact and a difference between sell-in and sell-out according to Nielsen, right? The CSD industry declined by mid-single digits, which was pretty much in line with our sellout, okay? The difference comes exactly from the inventory, and that is the consequence of our revenue management decisions in the end of quarter 2.

Now moving to, Isabella, to your question about LAS. I think when we look at LAS, their story, you need to understand of 2 different markets that consolidates into that. One is Bolivia and one is Argentina. Let me start with Bolivia. Bolivia continued to be a market that we are delivering strong results throughout the P&L, which is more than offsetting the impact that we had in Argentina, which in the quarter, if I may say, the demand was still recovering, but not there yet. So there were impacts on inventory level. And also, we couldn't fully implement our revenue management in Argentina in the quarter given the economic situation there.

So it's a story of 2 markets. One is Argentina that is tougher and the other one is Bolivia. Overall, it's very important to highlight that we remain very confident about the 2 markets and specifically in Argentina, which has been a more difficult environment. Just to remember that we are operating there since 2000. And we believe that we have the best portfolio of brands that connect with the people, the right initiatives there on revenue management and cost to make it continue to be an important engine for our company going forward.

Thank you. This concludes the Q&A session. And I would now like to pass the word back to Ambev's team for closing remarks.

Thank you for joining our call today. I would like to leave you with a final message. We are becoming a true ambidextrous company, making progress in all 3 pillars of our strategy, resulting in growth with profitability. Year-to-date, our top line grew 4%, while EBITDA was up 8% and EPS grew 7%. We are taking market intelligence to new levels, better understanding our consumers, their trends and translating them into actionable insights, making an already loved category even stronger. All in all, we are leading where growth is, especially in our main market, Brazil. Thank you, and see you soon.

Thank you. This concludes today's presentation. You may disconnect, and have a nice day.