Earnings call transcript: Marcopolo misses Q3 2025 forecasts, stock dips

Marcopolo SA (POMO4) reported its third-quarter earnings for 2025, revealing a miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company posted an EPS of 0.2689, falling short of the anticipated 0.2878, resulting in a negative surprise of 6.57%. Revenue was reported at 2.51 billion BRL, below the expected 2.64 billion BRL, marking a 4.92% shortfall. In the aftermath, Marcopolo's stock price fell 6.46% to 8.25 BRL, reflecting investor disappointment.

Key Takeaways

• Marcopolo's Q3 2025 EPS and revenue missed forecasts, impacting stock performance.
• Record gross margin of 26.7% achieved despite financial misses.
• International operations now contribute 50% to total revenue.
• Strong performance in electric bus deliveries and international market expansions.
• High interest rates challenge domestic market conditions.

Company Performance

Marcopolo's overall performance in Q3 2025 showed resilience in the face of financial misses. The company achieved a record gross margin of 26.7% and reported a net profit of 329 million BRL, with a 13.2% margin. International operations, which now account for half of the company's revenue, highlighted Marcopolo's strategic focus on global markets. However, domestic challenges, including high interest rates, have tempered growth.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 2.51 billion BRL, below forecast of 2.64 billion BRL.
• Earnings per share: 0.2689, missing the forecast of 0.2878.
• Gross Margin: 26.7%, a record level for the company.
• EBITDA: 419 million BRL, with a 16.8% margin.
• Net Profit: 329 million BRL, representing a 13.2% margin.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Marcopolo's Q3 2025 results fell short of expectations, with an EPS surprise of -6.57% and a revenue shortfall of 4.92%. This miss contrasts with previous quarters where the company had generally met or exceeded forecasts, indicating a challenging period.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Marcopolo's stock price dropped by 6.46%, closing at 8.25 BRL. This movement places the stock closer to its 52-week low of 5.79 BRL, reflecting a cautious market sentiment. The decline aligns with investor concerns over the missed financial targets.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Marcopolo anticipates modest production growth in 2025, with a focus on efficiency and alternative propulsion technologies. The company remains optimistic about stronger performance in 2026, supported by a backlog visibility of 3 to 3.5 months and potential growth in the city bus segment.

Executive Commentary

CEO Andre Amaganisha remarked, "Marco Polo is one of the players that really has an opportunity to stand out as a body producer, not only in Brazil, but in the world." CFO Pablo Monta highlighted the success of international operations, stating, "International operations were the highlight of the quarter with growth in volume and evolution of sales mix."

Risks and Challenges

• High interest rates in the domestic market could hinder growth.
• Economic conditions may delay fleet renewal processes.
• Non-recurring charges, like the 61.3 million BRL from New Flyer, impact financial performance.
• Competitive pressures in the electric and hybrid bus markets.
• Potential changes in dividend policy could affect investor sentiment.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the New Flyer impairment and battery recall, the dynamics of the Argentina market post-election, and strategies to address domestic market challenges. Executives clarified their export strategies and potential changes in dividend policy.

Full transcript - Marcopolo SA (POMO4) Q3 2025:

Moderator, Marco Polo: Morning. To Microbola's conference call to discuss the results for the 2025. Today's presentation and remarks on the results will be provided by Andre Amaganisha, CEO Pablo Monta, CFO and Investor Relations Officer and Eduardo Wilrich, Legal and Investor Relations Manager. Please note that simultaneous interpretation is available on the platform. To access it, just click on the interpretation button at the bottom of your screen and select English.

This conference is being recorded and will be made available on the company's Investor Relations website at ri.marcopalo.com.br, along with the presentation shown today. All participants will be in listen only mode throughout the presentation. Then we'll begin the Q and A session when further instructions will be provided. Before moving on, we would like to remind everyone that any forward looking statements made during the presentation are based on the beliefs and assumptions of Marco Polo's management and on information currently available to the company. Statements involve risks and uncertainties as they refer to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur.

Investors, analysts and journalists should take into account that macroeconomic conditions, industry factors and other aspects may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in such forward looking statements. We will now begin the presentation. I'll turn the floor to Mr. Mota. Mr.

Mota, you may go on. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for attending the conference call for the results of the third quarter twenty twenty five. We are going to start on Slide four, where we show our results. In the quarter, Macroparo showed strong growth in revenue associated to the foreign markets with expansion of 51% in revenue in international operations and 43 in exports.

Net income reached million and ROIC was stable at 25%. Let's go to the next slide. In nine months of 2025, Brazilian bus body production grew by 2.1%. The highlight is the exports, with growth of 21.6 in the period. This performance reinforces the expectation of small growth in production in 2025 compared to 2024.

Somehow, the volume is still insufficient to cope with the aging of the Brazilian fleet as we have seen in the coming in the recent years. Let's go to the next slide. In the quarter, Marco Polo's production directed to the Brazilian market dropped by 8%. Production allocated to exports from Brazil grew 18% and international operations showed growth of 26% in production. Comparing to the same quarter twenty four, the stability of volumes is associated to the cooling down of the internal market, partially offset with the growth in volume in exports and international operations.

Marco Polo's share in the production of busparis was 48.7% in the third quarter twenty twenty five against 47.6% in the third quarter twenty twenty four. Let's go to the next slide. Net revenue consolidated reached BRL 2,500,000,000.0 in the third quarter twenty five with greater share with especially with Argentina being the highlight. Revenue coming from the external market considering exports and international operations accounted for about 50% of Marco Polo's net revenue, balancing the representativeness of sales in Brazil. Let's go to the next slide.

Consolidated gross income in the third quarter twenty twenty five reached 6 and 68,700,000.0 with gross margin of 26.7%. The increase in gross profit and gross margin is associated to a better performance of external operations, a better operational leverage and also the capture of emission gains and efficiency gains. EBITDA was $419,000,000 with margin of 16.8%, however, negatively impacted nonrecurrently in BRL61.3 million because of the New Flyer, our Canadian subsidiary. Without this, EBITDA and EBITDA margin would be 49119.3%, respectively. Net profit was BRL $329,000,000 in QC twenty five with margin of 13.2% Against a result of three thirty five million and margin of 14.5% in the third quarter twenty five.

Now I'm going to turn to Andre that is going to talk about the market outlook and projections for the remainder of the year. Thanks, Pablo. Good morning. We are going to start with coach buses. The growth in deliveries in international operations and exports offset the decrease in Brazil.

The mix was good, but in terms of added value below what we saw in the third quarter 'twenty four, even with the evolution that we saw compared to the second quarter 'twenty five. The fourth quarter should keep a good pace of delivery considering the seasonality that is positive. In urban and city buses, we see a sequential growth showing a positive outlook for the segment. Record delivery for bodies in electric buses this quarter with 64 active units in Brazil. Micro and Polari also delivery of important volume six thirty one with micros gaining momentum compared to Volaris compared to the strong base of the third quarter 'twenty four for Volaris.

We continue expecting the new bidding process for the Camino de Scala program. Let's move on to the next slide. International operations were the highlight of the quarter with growth in volume and evolution of the sales mix compared to the third quarter twenty four. Even with the drop in volumes delivery, Walgreens could expand its profitability in the quarter. A consistent backlog with high value added products, including electric models, reinforced the positive tone for the Australian operation for '26 as well.

In September, Marco Polo had the launch of the GH family in the Australian market with the model Paratiso G81300. Metaso had a good volume for the third quarter 'twenty five. Now we have to know the reflexes of the local economy due to the elections that were conducted last Sunday. Polomax continues cautious for 'twenty five, but expects a better year 'twenty six after the stabilization of the discussion of tariffs with The United States. Maza grew deliveries and kept positive results with good prospects for the '5 and 'twenty six, especially on the coach segment.

Now we are going on to the next slide. In October '5, we showed that the bus road, the main trade show directed to the bus market in Belgium, the Paradezzo twelve hundred and Paradezzo thirteen fifty and also the Volaris attack hybrid and ethanol. This is the global footprint of the market, the brand, decarbonization and also the concept of safety in the G8 family. Now the company is certifying the Parades models to be sold in Europe, and the first deliveries are expected for the fourth quarter 'twenty six, '7. As for the key growth drivers that we identified in the '4, they are all delivering positive results.

International operations, exports as the highlight of 'twenty five and efficiency and operational leverage moving forward, especially by increasing gross margins. High interest rates impact the renewal of fleets with the Brazilian market waiting for the funds cost to go down. We continue paying attention to opportunities in 'twenty six, focusing on efficiency, alternative propulsions, gaining momentum in city buses and bidding processes that can help us in the beginning of next year. This concludes our presentation, and we are going to go on now to the Q and A session. We will now start the Q and A session.

Q Our first question comes from Lucas Machialli from BTG Pactual. Mr. Machialli, your mic is ready to go. Good morning, everyone. I have two topics on my side.

First, could you please clarify, I have a question on reading the release about the accounting of the Mover program. And more specifically, what makes it feasible for you to take credit within the program? And also the difference of the credit that came from the program this quarter vis a vis the previous quarters, if there was anything in particular that enabled you to take a bit more credit? I think this is the first question. And the second question, we are in the discussions of changing the rules for the dividend payout.

So considering the profit reserve in your balance sheet and room for payout, I would like to understand the mindset of management to anticipate the payout of dividends to shareholders. So what are you planning with this regard? Thank you very much. Great. Lucas, this is Pablo speaking.

Thanks for your questions. So I'm going to start with the Mover program. This is a program that's created by the federal government to foster projects that involve R and D and product development, process improvement, specifically related to the guidelines of the new Brazilian policy. And in this context, what we see is that this is a program that is directly related to fiscal incentives, and that has to do with the expenses related to R and D by the company. So what we had this quarter was a higher concentration of expenditure, which led to a higher level of benefit.

We see Marco Polo, it is already certified in the program since it started. It has been since it started. So it is recognizing those benefits based on its expenditure. But in practice, for us to understand the recurrence of these numbers, we'll have to do how much in a certain period of time. Marco Polo is investing in R and D.

So much of what we are doing to obtain this benefit is based on OpEx. That is expenses, people involved in the process, some materials, prototypes that are the basis for the benefit. So this quarter, we did see a higher level because of a higher concentration of expenses in the area. In the coming quarters, we don't know if we are going to have similar concentrations that can bring also similar levels to what we saw this quarter. So this is for Novier.

As you talk about dividends, I think this is something that we have been discussing orally. Today, Marco Polo has a policy completely aligned with the Board of Directors in terms of paying out dividends every quarter. This quarter, we are not going to have anything out of the ordinary. It's going to be the regular payout. And what we have today in practice that any change in the legislative environment that can actually change something in our tax framework.

When this is to be discussed, then we are going to bring the discussion to the table, and we are going to analyze the topic. So our understanding now is that we are going to have the payout, and we are going to follow the policies we have been adopting. So nothing different unless the scenario changes, and then we are going to have an internal assessment of what to do. Very clear. Thank you very much, Pablo.

Have a good day. Thanks for your answers. Have a good day. Our next question comes from Gabriel Hizeng from Itau BBA. Mr.

Hizeng? Can you hear me? Yes, loud and clear. Okay. Good morning, everyone.

Thanks for taking my question. I have two Itau. We are seeing a strong reaction in terms of currency today. And talking to investors, we see that this is an expectation, a bit different in terms of revenues for the domestic market. I'm sorry, we are seeing an impact on your stock.

So if you could elaborate a bit on that, if the numbers of the third quarter reflected some delivery that went to the fourth quarter, so a mismatch that compared to what we had reported. So how the performance of the domestic market in the third quarter will make the company rethink its performance for 2026. So a bit about the demand in the domestic market. And on the upside, we did see a record gross margin, 26.7%. I think it was the highest gross margin reported by Mercopolo.

So if you could elaborate on the main drivers, what kind of behavior you're expecting for the coming quarters, if that makes the company be a bit more optimistic in terms of profitability. So if you could answer the questions, it would be very helpful. Then we'll then, so I'm going to start talking about revenues. Indeed, we did have revenues that in composition, it has relevance because of international operations and exports. And when we talk about the domestic market, what we have effectively seen in a short term scenario is interest rates in an environment that has been more challenging.

Operators are making decisions on renewals. And we have a scenario in which we have inflation rates is still high, interest rates high. So that makes operators to believe that rates are going to go down at some point. So in the short term, this has a high impact on decisions. So that's what we have for the current scenario.

And somehow, this quarter, this dropped an impact on us. But anyhow, the backlog, if you consider of the year backlog, is very strong. And in line with what we mentioned before, even have your vehicles concentrated in the second half of the year, which generates better margin and indeed helping the margin to bring more value added to consolidated results. Gabriel, as for differences in volumes, we have 150, 170 units of volume produced more than invoiced, but that's normal. It happens from one quarter to the other.

That's why we think that we always have to have a greater lens in terms of quarter. But in two, three quarters, we are going to deliver everything that was produced, and we are going to zero this number again. In the second quarter 'twenty five, we had a higher volume of deliveries. Now things kind of got inverted. But in the fourth quarter, we might also have more deliveries than production.

This is a natural movement. Again, we have to look into a longer term to have a better picture in terms of revenues. Very clear. If I could, just a follow-up. Pablo talked about the healthy backlog.

What is the last month in terms of visibility of backlog for the domestic market? Sorry. It's February. So you're talking on average of three to three point five months in backlog of all segments. So we are probably we are basically with the backlog for the year close.

We have an issue with the urban buses that is profitably settled. And so we have three point five months. And just adding to the comments of Pablo and Eduardo, what we see is obviously a market that still affected by the impact of the high interest rates. Interest rates are still not down. In the beginning of the year, we expected it to go down faster.

It did not happen. We know that most of procurement is made based on financing, almost 80%. But we talk about the need to renew fleets. The fleet is still with a very high average age. Talking to clients, they want to renew the fleet, but they are cautious, trying to find the best time to do that.

And obviously, when we consider the whole of the year and now I'm starting to look into 'twenty six, this segment has a natural seasonality. So we are probably going to close the year in line with our expectations. And for next year, we are going to start a net natural seasonality with greater purchases happening in the second half of the year. Very clear. Thanks, Andre, Pablo, Eduardo.

Our next question comes from Kennedy from Citigroup. I have two on the side of Citi. First, to talk a bit about the impairment of new flyer to understand your views. Somehow, it was expected the company releases its results, but I would like to have your feedback about the topic. What's been like, interactions with the company, anything to come or to be added and also the recall of batteries that was recently announced, your view of the topic?

And the second question is about your international businesses. I would just like to have a better color about the main geographies, especially in South America, Australia, Argentina. If you could just comment more specific discussions about the government, what do you see in terms of size of market, the amount of buses that could be released, the market share of the company in the region? I know that Argentina has been a very volatile market, but any additional color is very helpful. Thank you very much.

Okay. Castelli, thank you very much. Good morning. Will start by talking about New Flyer. They recognized the last quarter the operation of AGL, that was an operation that was fired by New in 2019.

And this AGL operation at the time had a very strategic context, thinking of the internalization of New Flyer. What happened from then to today is that ADL, that was market leader in The United Kingdom, made decisions in terms of electrification, change of perfusion and etcetera, and some of them did not yield the results that were expected. So in a context where tariff barriers in The U. K. Are very low, what happened is that there was room for the Chinese to enter the British market, and AGL was not able to compete with the Chinese players.

And that, along the years, made AGL to lose relevance in the market. And consequently, the fair value that was paid for the company in 2019 was not supported, especially in terms of goodwill. So that generated the impairment. There was an impairment before, already lowering the expectation of future profitability, but now it was a bit heavier on the balance sheet. And this is what was reflected in the second quarter, that four new flyer that does impact us on the third quarter.

In terms of recall of batteries as announced, of course, we are also monitoring that. Somehow, we tried and understand what was going on. And in practice, at the end of the day, what New Flyer is doing is that New Flyer is an integrator. So in the manufacturing of this product, it integrates the supply chain and delivers the full solution to the end consumer. And in this context, they identified a failure in the battery system and the bar system of the battery.

And that was a commitment of New before the consumers, the clients. And therefore, it was New Flyer that announced the recall. And that's why it mentioned that they could have material provisions in the communications to be made in the coming days. So within this context, what we see is generally in operations like that, where the company is an integrator, it has back to back contracts that would enable her to recover some expenses that they had because of failure of product. So this is a scenario that's probably being discussed.

We do not have details. If we do, they are not public, But probably, it is a discussion that is ongoing between New Flyer and suppliers to know who is going to take responsibility for the total cost. But for now, it's New Flyer that we recognize that because of its commitment as integrator before the client. I'm going to talk a bit about our international operations. Thanks for your question.

Marco Polo has a very important market share in all the markets in which you operate. Remember the turnaround that we always brought to the team, what we did in international operations, how much we transformed company's results, and that shows in numbers all the actions that conducted. We can give that in detail to you. So in the markets where we operate, where we have plans, we have a relevant market share, and that's true for Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, a bit lower in South Africa Mexico, I'm sorry, a bit lower. South Africa market weaker, Australia market weaker.

You just asked about Latin America. Marco Polo is the main budget producer in Latin America. We have more than 40% of the Latin American market, which is very interesting because you're talking about large players, the small producers in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil with important players, Mexico as well. So the company's leadership is proven in numbers and obviously happens because of its product and the company's manufacturing capacity. In international operations, what we see, Australia with a super important turnaround.

We had an expectation of a smaller portfolio this year than last year. 25% was even better than 24%. 26% with a very important backlog of sales, so a positive year for '26. South Africa, an operation that is growing in time. We did prepare the operation to increase its production capacity, and we are leaders in market share.

Australia, South Africa, with the pandemic, several players got weaker, and that improved our relevance in the scenario. In Mexico, a bit more of a cautious market, especially because of questions with regards to The United States. Mexico operators are a bit more cautious, but there is a need for renewal. Colombia is a market that is showing better than expected, especially with a larger sale of city buses. Of course, this is a segment that depends on Transmilenio that is important for renewal, but the city buses were a positive surprise.

And in Chile, we are using it for a center of sourcing technology. And Argentina, a market that had large deliveries by Marco Polo as a consequence of all actions that were taken in recent years. It is an important market in terms of renew, especially of city and double decker buses. And in the urban buses, this is also important. Local manufacturers deliver a capacity that does not meet the market, but the market has not accelerated its renewals.

When it does, we will certainly have an important growth of the city bus segment as a whole. And a final comment is that recently, we had a launch in Europe. And the reason for this launch, well, this is a global company that wants to expand more and more the DNA of the company used to be an international company. But what we see is that in the global scenario of the body players, some are weaker, as I mentioned, in South Africa and Australia. And even chassis manufacturers are no longer producing batteries, which gives an opportunity for Mercado to be the preferred choice because of technology, innovation, decarbonization solutions and strengths in its manufacturing capacity and financial capacity.

So these things have placed us in an international scenario in an important position for the future. Polo is one of the players that really has an opportunity to stand out as a body producer, not only in Brazil, but in the world. Our next question comes from Fernando Benne Branagh from XP. Mr. Benne?

Good morning, everyone. Andre, Eduardo, Pablo. Thanks for taking my question. First, a follow-up in the domestic market. You did talk that previously, but you did say in the past that there was a better trend for city buses.

And we did see that true this quarter with a sequential growth. I would like to understand the price for the backlog for the city buses. How does it compare to last year's backlog, not only size but also mix. Articulated buses, electric buses, 26, just for us to have a better protection terms of growth and profitability for the city bus segment for next year? And a second question, do you have an update on labor as a whole, if you have a bottleneck, if everything is okay?

And also the expansion of the plant of Summit Hills, what is the ramp up of the chassis production for Volaris? And how does that relate to the main OEMs and partners? Thank you. Fernando, thanks for your questions. I will start with the city bus segment.

We did mention that there was a good opportunity for us to improve our mix, to sell products with more added value, articulated buses. We closed deals that helped us. Also, have businesses that are already developed for next year. And electric buses, a delivery that is lower than expected. But each year, the number is higher than the previous year.

So in our backlog, we do have some deliveries for electric buses next year. It's important to highlight that the announcements made in terms of conversion to electrification always brings higher volumes than expected. But because the base is small, every quarter, every half of the year, we have better numbers than the before. So that helps the company. Now considering the backlog for the future, I did mention that we have the year closed now.

As I mentioned in the previous question, we have a natural seasonality of the segment. So clearly, you see a coach bus segment less strong in the first half of the year than the second half of the year. This is natural. We always talk about higher sales in the second half of the year, and major opportunities are clearly charter buses. We always have new contracts, contracts under negotiation.

This is one of the areas of operation. And city buses because we have a need. We have a very old fleet. We have decarbonization, government programs, all incentivizing this renewal. So we see a huge movement of operators, but also institutions strengthening the importance of renewal and bringing to the table topics to accelerate the renewal process.

At first, funding was important. We do have credit solutions. Each city has an interesting model. Guilhelena is a city that brought an interesting credit proposal, Sao Paulo as well. We have other cities that I'm not going to mention now, but that are showing interest to renew their fleet.

It's a smaller base. It's low, And we do see a potential not only for electric buses, but also articulated buses and other propulsion solutions. Labor, well, along the year, we said that we had to keep our structure, build capacity, train employees. Labor is always a challenge for expansion, but we are at a positive time at the market. We don't see a great growth in production.

So labor of Marco Polo and the industry as a whole is available at the plants to deliver the future volumes that we expect. So differently from previous years, where we saw peaks of renewal. Now we have been talking about a more organic growth in line with the seasonality of the market, clearer seasonalities, lower in the first half, higher in the second half. And we do see that a bit more steady. So the available labor today is prepared to deliver what we need at the end of this year, but also in our projections for the future.

The chassis, our summit is planned. We talked about investments. We invested almost BRL260 million in the last two years, a major extension, not only in the chassis line that prepared the company to enter the segment, but also to prepare the layout and improve efficiency and competitiveness of the operation. So it was not only investment in chassis. Our partners see that.

Well, whenever Marco Polo brings a chassis solution, it is a natural competition of chassis players in the market. But what the numbers show, and I think this is a fact in this evolution, is that we have most of our volume being sold through other chassis producers. An example of electric buses is a great example. This is where Marco Polo really took a leap in the manufacturing of electric chassis or chassis for electric products. And today, most of our volume is through our partners.

It's not our own solution. So we have solutions sold by the Chinese, European, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Australia. So I think this is a show that the system will going to continue working for us, chassis, bodies with different solutions, and Marco Polo with our own chassis brings another alternative to the market. But again, all events, meetings, the day to day relationship with commercial team and chassis manufacturers is to show that Marco Polo is not a body producer and is working in its essence to provide the perfect offer in terms of bodies that can complement several chassis. I hope I have answered your questions.

If not, please just let me know. Very clear. Thank you very much. Our next question comes from Andres Abaruto from UBS. Andres?

I have two points. The first, I'd like to have a follow-up on international operations, particularly Argentina. That was the highlight for this year, even helping offset the drop of domestic operations. We did have some volatility regarding the elections. So I would like to know your visibility in terms of backlog in Argentina And also in the last elections, we did see a result that was considered positive for the business environment.

And how does that reflect in your expectations for the coming years in Argentina? My second question is your margin. You did highlight that this quarter, you have a gain of efficiency in terms of labor. So what to expect for the coming quarters and also operational efficiency. So how we conciliate this issue with the drop in volumes that we see in domestic coach buses.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Andres, for your questions. Have a good day. Let's talk about Argentina. Well, historically, Argentina has been a relevant market for micropolicy.

And along recent years, it had a significant repressed demand. We always say that in Argentina, we have approximately 38,000 to 40,000 buses circulating, 7,000 coach buses, the remainder city buses. And if you consider the last year, since 2019, we haven't had major renewals for coach buses. And urban buses, we did see some renewal movement, but very specific, which shows that the repressive demand for the market So what we see for this year?

Since last year, specifically in the second half of the year, we started to see our local operation getting closer to Argentinian customers, trying to create financial solutions for us to indeed offer products that could meet the demand and the adjustments that were started in the '3 and 'twenty four by the Malay administration did strengthen the purchasing power of Argentinians, and we had the demand also based on tourism. Argentinians leaving, especially to Brazil, on tourism. And that lot of recovery in terms of revenue and results of the operation. Today, we had the first half of the year very good. The second half is going to be very good.

We have the backlog closed for the year. We did have some hiccups after the elections, the local elections, specifically Buenos Aires with militia defeat with a percentage that was higher than expected a while ago, generating a market anxiety because the market has still a lot of adjustments to be made. So we did see that the market held up a bit, interest rates went up, and customers waited to see the level of financial costs that they would have for their purchases. Just as a side comment, the private credit market in Argentina recovered. We see greater availability of local banks to provide credit to us, which is very good thinking of the repressed demand.

So from now on, the last elections, the national elections were more positive than expected in recent days. We see their rates going up to the highest levels compared to the last thirty years. But the point is that Argentina demands caution when we talk about sustainability of volumes in the long term because it depends on several things to have access to international credit, to have liquidity in dollars for local and foreign investors. So we see that the backlog for the end of the year is very good, a positive scenario for the government to continue making the macro adjustments to reduce the Argentinian cost and a much more favorable scenario now that we had. I think that now, Mille is going to be able to make the necessary movements, and we'll see Argentina recovering in the coming year.

Coach buses will still lead the operation, but we are probably going to have a market for city buses that will probably gain some breast for the coming months. So we see that the scenario for Argentina is more favorable than what we had expected in a short period of time. The backlog is very well designed for the end of the year. In terms of efficiency, we are very much aligned to what Andre mentioned in the beginning when answering Fernando from XP of having today the labor we need to run the backlog that we have and also the projected backlog for the next year. So we see that the more time we can keep our employees within the company, the better the performance because this is a product that demands a level of knowledge, manual knowledge that is quite significant.

So this is the efficiency that we mentioned before. When we had a more time of our employees with us at the plant, we would reach more efficiency. And the results will certainly be better for the future as we can structure our mix. I think one important point is the period of seasonality that we might have in the beginning of next year. But again, we are preparing that with internal levers, vacations, so things that enable us to keep our labor and at the same time to keep our production capacity, expecting the production of heavier vehicles and more demand.

So for the scenario that we are expecting now, we can work with efficiency and we do have levers to keep our labor with us for a longer period of time. You very much. Our next question comes from Luisa Mousse from Bonsai. Ms. Mousse?

Thanks for taking my question. If you could help me understand the dynamics of coach buses this quarter, especially about pricing and mix. What was price like this quarter and mix compared to last year? And what's your expectations in terms of price from now on? Hi, Luisa.

Thanks for your question. From the first quarter to the third quarter twenty twenty five, we increased prices, increased the value added of the product. So seasonality is natural. We start with higher volume for charter buses in the first half of the year. In the second half of the year, we have heavier buses.

And then we start to have half of the charter portfolio of lighter vehicles than heavier vehicles. And the third quarter, this movement pending to heavier buses, which is also the trend for the fourth quarter. With heavier buses, you have a higher average price because of the value added of each product. So the trend is, as Andre mentioned, we should have the effect of seasonality then in the '6. And then the '6, we are going to have a heavier mix.

So '26, the same. Lighter buses in the first half, heavier buses in the second half, more or less following the seasonality that we had for 2025. Our next question comes from Gabriel Stimit from Sant Andre. My first question is if you could talk about the sustainability of export volumes. We saw Argentina had an important role, but also other Latin American countries.

So if you could talk about exports in general. And the second point, you did talk about opportunities to grow in the European market, certification for sales in the fourth quarter 'twenty six, '7. So I would like to know the opportunities for the market. If you could just give us a bit more color. Thanks, Gabriel, for your questions.

The international market, G8 was launched, and it's still being introduced in some markets. This is an important pillar for sales of the product. This is a product that we launched in 'twenty one. And until now, we sold more than 5,000 units, more than fifteen fifteen hundred units exported. This is one of the factors for our turnaround of the company because of the product and its value in the market.

We had its recent launch in Australia a while ago in South Africa. So this is a product that is expanding in the international scenario and will certainly be one of the reasons for growth in the company. Fleet renewal, we always say that all countries are in late process of renewal. Brazil anticipated a chance a bit compared to other countries, but we do see a large room, several markets. In addition to what we saw of the plants, opportunities in Argentina, in the Mexican market, where we direct compete with European players that have a manufacturing base.

We launched the GH Paraguizo thirteen fifty in the market. So good markets this year, but that can have a potential for new Chile, Peru, several markets where we see opportunities. And I would say the major factors to try and simplify are new products, the value delivered G8 being the main highlight fleet renewal, which is an opportunity to actually continue to be seen because the age of the fleet is high in many of the countries. And then the competitive scenario where Macapalo is stronger than the competition, not only in Brazil, but basically in other markets. And I gave you example, South Africa, Australia.

So Marco Polo is stronger now than other players. In Europe, we are launching this product to the Italian and French markets. We started the process of going into Europe through Volvo because Volvo produced complete buses and now only is manufacturing chassis and wants a body partner to keep its market share. So we started with these two markets. We see other markets with a potential for expansion.

Portugal, Spain are two markets that value separate purchases for chassis and bodies. And we are going to continue working to have the preferred chassis body choice. This was a commercial movement. We are not talking about the production base. We had our we did our calculations to be competitive in Europe, and that's it.

In Europe, we have the same scenario mentioned before. Less players working with bodies, Volvo and Scania, for instance, are no longer producing bodies and also the purchases that are held back. So the capacity of the players that are acting in Europe is already four twenty seven. So we lost some competitors in the bus body production, and that's why we decided to go back to the European market in a market that is completely different than what we had in the past. Our next question comes from Marcelo Morgan from JPMorgan.

Marcelo? Good morning. I have two quick questions. A bit about CapEx. You talked about how much you are considering investing and also to ask about the Caminos Daxcala program.

The last two months of the year, you're expecting a bidding process until the end of the year. Any ideas on dates, volumes, prices, whatever you can share in terms of an update of the program? Marcelo, thanks for your questions. I will start talking about CapEx. The horizon that we are working with and sharing with you is that Marco Polo's investments this year and next year are going to be kept at this level.

You're talking about investment in product portfolio, updates of machinery and equipment, and we are putting this into practice to strengthen the company's competitiveness within what is possible. That is within our production process to have more automation, products that give us a higher level of repeatability and also solutions in terms of technologies and materials that can add value to our clients and effectively improve our level of prices and margins. So that has been our focus of investments. And Eduardo is going to talk about the coming as this program. We are waiting for the publication of the new bidding process at any time along the fourth quarter.

We are expecting it to be published generally fifteen days after publication. We have the actual process that can happen at any time. We still have the 23 process ongoing. So we do have deliveries for the '26, referring to the bidding process of '23. We are going to turn the call to Mr.

Mata for the final remarks. Well, I thank you very much for joining us in our conference call. And we are always available to any questions or comments that you might have through our IR channels. Thank you very much, and we wish you all a very good weekend. Marcos Paulo's conference call is now closed.

We thank you very much for joining us, and wish you a good day.

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