In fact, we have already opened 18 restaurants so far this year. For the full year 2024, we plan to open 80 to 90 EOTF restaurants, again with about 90% of them being freestanding, we expect to accomplish this plan with capital expenditures of $300 million to $350 million, which we plan to fund with cash on hand and cash from operations. About 60% of restaurants across the Arcos Dorados footprint, our experience of the future locations. We remain confident that we will surpass 90% of our footprint modernized to EOTF by the end of 2027 reaping all the benefits of the formats enhanced technology to improve guest experience, while driving additional sales growth and operational efficiency. Finally, in addition to the value the business is generating and as part of its ongoing commitment to provide shareholders with multiple sources of return, Arcos Dorados’ Board of Directors has approved a cash dividend of $0.24 per share to be paid in full equal installments towards the end of each calendar quarter.
Marcelo, back to you.
Marcelo Rabach: Thanks, Mariano. Operating responsibly is an important principle for Arcos Dorados, which is why we continue to develop and implement our recipe for the future ESG platform. In 2023, we continued moving forward with our commitment to source 100% fresh cage free eggs. So far, we had switched our sourcing in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico and Peru. We are already working out the details for our upcoming transition in several additional markets and expect to achieve our commitment to be 100% fresh cage free in all Arcos Dorados markets by the end of 2025. Our sustainable construction program reached new cities in Latin America, arriving in Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador. These new or remodeled restaurants include up to 25 sustainability initiatives and come equipped with technology that minimizes the operations environmental impact.
The technologies include smart airconditioning systems, water collection tanks, solar panels, and waste separation beams among others. In 2023, Arcos Dorados sourced about 30% of its energy from renewable sources. Last year, we also signed an agreement with the [Indiscernible] a leading company in the Argentinean energy sector to source electricity from a new wind farm they built in the province of Buenos Aires. We began sourcing electricity from this new farm last month and along with other prospects in Brazil and Colombia, we expect these to help us continue converting our energy matrix to more sustainable sources in 2024. Before we open the call for questions and answers, I would like to share a few final thoughts. We are very proud of the results we delivered in 2023.
Comparable sales rose with or above inflation in all markets driven by higher guest volumes and a competitive pricing strategy that offer the most compelling value proposition in the region. Total revenue benefited from the strong comp sales performance, as well as restaurant openings and in mostly neutral currency environment. In 2023, profitability grew mainly as a result of top-line growth as we used some of our margin opportunity to drive guest volume. Over time, this is more sustainable and reflects habit formation among guests supporting increased frequency and lifetime value. But it is worth repeating that excluding the impact of the higher royalty rate, full year 2023 EBITDA margin was 60 basis points higher than the prior year. The structural competitive advantages we enjoy today are real and we have strengthened them in 2023.
Our freestanding restaurant portfolio grew larger and we opened even more opening gap between us and our nearest competitors. And our Digital platform is second to none with the industry’s most downloads, active users, functionalities, sales, you name it. Our plans is to continue leveraging these advantages while bringing them to more markets in the coming years. Finally, the restaurant openings is as strong as ever. We will maintain discipline around the processes and tools that have generated the strong results over the last few years. We also expect to increase the base of openings in the next couple of years to take advantage of the opportunity to expand the McDonald’s brand in a highly underpenetrated region of the world. We are now two and a half months into the first quarter of 2024 and we are pleased with the continued growth of our markets.
We set ambitious internal goals for revenue and EBITDA growth this year with solid results so far. Needless to say, we are also keeping a close eye of developments in Argentina and Ecuador at the beginning of 2024. But we feel confident with the brand along with the right strategy and team to continue generating significant value for our shareholders, people and communities. Thank you all for your continuing support. Dan, over to you to start the Q&A session.
A – Daniel Schleiniger: Thanks, Marcelo. [Operator Instructions] Great. So our first question today comes from Melissa Byun who actually sent a couple of questions from Bank of America. So I will start with the first one. I think this one is for you Mariano. Can you please discuss the margin outlook for 2024, including expectations for food and paper costs, wages and other expenses? And where do you see the potential for productivity gains and/or other sources of savings?
Marcelo Rabach: Okay. Thank you, Dan. Thanks, Melissa for the question and good morning to everybody. For the margin outlook 2024, we are committed to continue with our successful strategy that we have consistently delivered in the past four years. With our enlarged footprints of freestanding restaurants and the 3D’s, we will focus on growing sales above inflation, increasing our EBITDA in dollars, while obtaining margin expansion as we have done in the last two years. That’s how we increased our EBITDA from $272 million in 2021, to $472 million in 2023, that’s a 74% increase in US dollars and our EBITDA margin from 10.2% to almost 11% last year, despite the increase in the royalty rates. So in 2023, specifically, our strategy generated an EBITDA growth of 16.3% in the fourth quarter and 222.2% for the full year in US dollars.
For 2024, we expect to continue this trend of growing sales at or above inflation with a more benign cost environment for food and paper. That should translate in maintaining the healthy margin trends of the last years. We did see some headwinds in margins in Brazil and NOLAD the ones that we experienced in ’20 – in the last quarter of 2023 to translate into 2024. So, in summary, the expectation for 2024 is to continue with the same trend that we had in 2023.
Luis Raganato: And if you let me add, Mariano, to improve margins, what we are doing in the region is focusing on the equalization of our execution and how we manage our business. What we do is, we have a benchmark market like Brazil. We take the best practices to – positively impact markets that have a specific opportunity and we have this kind of opportunities not only when you compare market-to-market but within some markets and even on a store level. So, what we are doing today is leveraging from the diversity and scale that we have in the company.
Daniel Schleiniger : Great. Thanks. Thanks guys. Melissa’s second question actually, it’s back to you Luis, is going to be, good growth. The loyalty program has been very impressive. Can you share any metrics on the behavior of members versus non-members? Thank you.
Luis Raganato: Yeah, thank you for the question, Melissa. The main metric that we have today– are there registered members, okay? And like you said, it is a very positive number. We came from 3 million members in December to 5 million members by the end of February. And what we are expecting is to increase the value of identified sales that’s another metric that we are starting to see. What we expect is that the loyalty programs are such a booster of those identified sales. And what we are already seeing is an increase in visit frequency but today it’s very early to – we are in the early stages of the program. And what I can add is that, we are going to roll out the program in many markets by the end of this year. Dan?
Daniel Schleiniger : Great. Thanks, Luis. The next question is from Julia Rizzo from Morgan Stanley. Actually she has about a three or four parter here. So let’s take this in pieces. First is please comment on same-store sales trends. I think she is probably talking more about the beginning of ‘24 than the end of ‘23 since we published those back in January and we’ll start with you Marcelo.
Marcelo Rabach: Okay. Thank you. Hi, Julio, thank you for your questions. Since February of this year of 2024 the cumulative sales trends are above the line with our expectations. Our strategy is to remain focused on offering value, great value to our guests all across our menu. And we expect this to help deliver comparable sales growth at or above inflation in the full year 2024 in most of our markets. And there are contributions in the sense coming from a very competitive pricing. We are pushing for categories of our program meets where we see the biggest opportunities. So we should have some contributions coming from our Board meets. And finally, we continue to see a positive evolution in terms of guest volumes that has been the case for the first two months of the year.
In terms of the contribution of the different markets, I would say that based on the first two months of the year, we’ll face some headwinds in SLAD, particularly in Argentina and Ecuador. But at the same time, we saw very strong contributions coming from the other markets of SLAD and from the other two divisions. Brazil is doing extremely well and NOLAD too. So with this kind of performance in terms of sales, what we expect is an EBITDA growth at the consolidated level for the full year 2024 as it has been the case when we take a look to our results in the first two months of this year. So we are pretty constructive in terms of the same-store sales trend, which allowed us to gain market share consistently across the region last year and we continue with that trend in the first two months of this year.
Daniel Schleiniger : Great. Thanks, Marcelo. The next of three parts of Julia’s question, I think are all for you Mariano. The first one she asks about margin is declining in Brazil and Nolad and if that’s a one-off I think you’ve addressed that already. Basically saying that, correct, that is more of a one-off not something that we expect to continue into ’24. And then she asks a couple questions and some of that are related to Argentina. She says also corporate expenses and others increased above expectations despite the exposure to what we call Argentine peso. And related to that, how much is Argentina now of total sales and EBITDA? So I will give you those to Mariano.
