Lucas Lira : I mean you’re right. I think our international operations in 2023 dealt with, right, many different circumstances, geography by geography. I think last we’ve already covered today with the commentary on Argentina and Jean in his prepared remarks talked about how the other last countries, right, continue to perform well, delivering mid-single mid-teens EBITDA growth in the quarter, and they had a good year as well. So between Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay, we had a good 2023, obviously, right? More to do in 2024, but we’re happy with the performance outside of Argentina in last. And as we’ve been mentioning in the past, when you look at cash flow performance, right, I think Argentina did very well given the circumstances and that’s kind of supported further in terms of cash flow generation in last as a whole, given the performance of Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay.
As you move north, if you look at CAC, I think CAC had obviously an important recovery throughout 2023. And this is true not only on a year-over-year basis, but also sequentially how the Dominican Republic, which led this recovery, right, to manage to improve quarter after quarter on a sequential basis was also — gives us confidence that we’re on the right track. And one data point that for us has been relevant in 2023 is that if you compare our 2023 performance in the Dominican Republic in particular, with our 2021 performance because 2022 was down right? The facts are that the Dominican Republic delivered kind of a record performance in 2023, even when compared with the higher performance in 2021. So that gives us confidence as a data point that we’re on the right track.
And then when you double-click into the dynamics, you see our Presidente, right, family of brands really coming back and that gives us optimism going forward that as we continue to take, right, the Presidente family forward. And if we do a good job with respect to the other kind of segments within our portfolio, be it core plus, be it premium because these are still underrepresented in that part of Latin America. We see more room for growth in the Dominican Republic, and that should also help CAC because the Dominican Republic represents roughly 80% of CAC. So it’s going to be a combination of Presidente, Corona, Modelo Especial in the DR that we’re going to focus on going forward. And then if you go to Canada, I think Canada had a very difficult year.
And so as far as volumes are concerned, the big drag was the industry, unfortunately, not only beer but also beyond beer. We did lose market share basically due to kind of mainstream volume performance because if you look at Corona and Michelob Ultra they delivered solid performance in 2023, not only in terms of volume growth but also market share and brand health indicators. And so going forward, the focus in Canada will continue to be behind the trade up, the premiumization of the portfolio because that’s where we do see momentum, and we also have to improve our performance beyond the beer side of the portfolio as well. And then my last comment is, even though we did see industry drag in Canada, even though we still saw in CAC, right, challenges in Panama, for instance, when you look at the cash flow performance in both geographies, right?
We had actually a better performance year-over-year. So right, we see the different dynamics kind of on the EBITDA side. And obviously, we have some work to do in many of these markets. But when you look at what the team managed to do in terms of cash flow performance, last delivered better cash flow, CAC deliver better cash flow and Canada delivered better cash flow year-over-year. So when you add to that the performance in Brazil, that’s how we got to the record operational cash flow performance for the company as a whole.
Lucas Ferreira : Super brief, if I may a quick follow-up. Last year, I remember the guidance was that Brazil’s EBITDA growth — organic growth would be pushing the average higher. So do you think that this should be the case for 2024? Or you think international ops will probably outpace Brazil in ’24.
Lucas Lira : I think the challenge here is like Argentina, obviously, right, where we made the comment around organic revenue being capped. So I think that’s different from what we had in 2023. If you look at kind of other geographies as compared to Brazil, I think Canada in 2023, we managed to deliver despite the tough Q4, we managed to deliver EBITDA growth, right, 2.7% for the full year, which for Canadian standards was much better than past performance. So there, if the team succeeds in improving volume performance, maintaining net revenue per hectoliter growth and deliver operational leverage, perhaps we’ll be able to deliver better performance in Canada for the full year. Let’s see. I think Canada — I think CAC, Dominican Republic, the challenges, too, right, not only keep momentum but build on the momentum that we delivered in 2023.
And so to the extent we managed to improve the performance of Panama. I think that could also help us for the full year to kind of improve as compared to what we delivered in 2023. And so I think those are the opportunities that we have. But again, still a lot to do, years just beginning, so far, I think so good with what we’ve seen but a lot to do still.
Jean Jereissati : So that’s it. Thank you all who joined the call. Thank you for your time and attention. The summary overall, it is that operational performance is going to be the drive of our sustainable value creation path. And to translate commercial momentum into more free cash flow generation is really what we are into Brazil solid with momentum and started well with a good Carnival. CAC went back to its journey. Argentina is really about the playbook to operate over there and really focus on cash generation in dollars. Largest Argentina being resilient in Canada, aiming for a year of EBITDA growth. So that’s pretty much the summary. Thank you very much. See you in May and have a great day.
Operator: Thank you all very much. This concludes today’s conference. You may now turn off your phones. Thank you.
