Hello and welcome to the EssilorLuxottica Q3 revenue update. At the end of the presentation, there will be a 30-minute Q&A session where you will be allowed a maximum of two questions. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the call over to Stefano Grassi, CFO, to begin.
Welcome to our third quarter trading update. EssilorLuxottica posted another quarter of strong growth with top line in acceleration despite a tougher comparison base. During this period, our revenue were up 17% at current exchange rate. While if you look at our results at constant FX rate, you're looking at 8.2% growth. The main driver of the difference between constant and current FX results is very much the U.S. dollar that during the course of a third quarter revaluated approximately 17% against euro. In Q3, pretty much all the region posted solid growth. Asia-Pacific and Latin America were at double-digit pace. Europe was at a high single-digit pace, and North America performed on a low single-digit territory, but with a very tough comparison base. As you remember, in the third quarter of last year, our North America grew 14% versus 2019.
Before we start our journey across the different geographies, let me just give you a last touch on e-commerce. Our e-commerce division is contributing to 7% of our revenue base with a top line growth in the mid-single digit territory. Now let's start our journey on page 12 of the presentation with North America. North America posted a third quarter top line growth at 3.4% at constant currency. I remind you that our second quarter revenue were up 2.4% versus 2021. Both professional solution and our direct to consumer division posted solid growth. If we look a little bit closer, our professional solution division, both categories, lenses and frames, were in the positive territory. From a channel mix standpoint, our key accounts, our department stores, our e-commerce partners were all positive.
While the ECP, our independent ECP, decelerated in the negative territory during the course of the third quarter. When we look at our brands, the licensed luxury portfolio that we have was very much the key growth driver of our frame business. While on the lens side, our branded lens portfolio outpaces consistently the unbranded part of our portfolio. On the direct-to-consumer side, we are very pleased to report that our Sunglass Hut business, Oakley Retail, Pearle Vision, and Target Optical, they all posted positive growth during the course of the third quarter. While LensCrafters was slightly negative, but again, it's a very tough comparison base. As you remember, in the third quarter of 2021, LensCrafters reported a 9% comp sales versus 2019.
A last touch on e-commerce that posted a top-line growth at a mid-single-digit territory in the course of the third quarter, driven by Sunglass Hut, Oakley, and EyeBuyDirect.com. This last one, they grew on a double-digit territory. Now let's move to Europe and let's look at on a very outstanding growth for the third quarter. Our EMEA region grew 9% on top of a 9% in 2021 versus 2019. Our professional solution was in a high-single-digit territory, and our direct-to-consumer division was in a double-digit pace. Professional solution, most of the countries deliver a strong growth with Spain, Turkey, Middle East at a double-digit pace, while France, U.K., Italy, they all perform on a mid-single-digit territory.
The only major country that experienced a deceleration during the course of the third quarter was very much Germany in light of a deceleration on the optical side of a business. If we now look in our two categories, lenses and frames, the lens side of the business deliver a mid-single-digit growth with price mix that continue to be very strong. While on the frame side, the growth is more balanced between volume and price mix, with a double-digit delivery very much led by a strong sun season during the course of the third quarter. A last touch on the direct-to-consumer now. I would say it's an outstanding delivery of the results that we've seen in the third quarter. We deliver a double-digit top-line growth on the top of a double-digit top-line growth in 2021 compared to 2019.
We have very much strong results pretty much across all the banners in the region. Sunglass Hut top line was approximately 60% in Q3. Salmoiraghi & Viganò deliver a double-digit growth and GrandVision that deliver a mid-single digit growth in top line through the course of the third quarter. Now let's move east and let's touch Asia Pac. In Asia Pac, we experienced a strong acceleration of our results where our top line that was up 23% at constant currency. I remind you, in the first half of 2022, our top line was up 2% in Asia Pac. Let me walk you through what's driving that acceleration in the region.
From a country standpoint, China was on the double-digit territory, driven by our professional solution division with our Stellest lens, and that is not a news, that continue to record exponential growth with a third quarter volume that double the one that we recorded in the second quarter. On the other countries, we report a top line in acceleration with a double-digit pace in India, in Southeast Asia, in Australia, while Korea was the last in line still with a high single-digit growth. On the lens category, we grew a top line at double-digit pace with a strong ramp up of our branded lens portfolio with Varilux and Eyezen growing respectively at double-digit and high single-digit pace. Moving to brick-and-mortar now. Our top line grew in excess of 35% during the course of the third quarter.
That top line growth was very much driven by a strong delivery of our optical and sun banners in Australia. This result was also helped by an easier base of comparability in Q3. As you might remember that last year, Australia experienced a quite severe lockdown that clearly created a softer base for us. Now let's touch on the last region of the four, and that is Latin America. As you remember, Latin America was the best performer region during the last three consecutive quarter. During this quarter, they thought they would pass the lead to another region, namely Asia Pacific, but they still delivered an outstanding 12.6% growth at constant currency. Brazil was on their high single digit territory. We were double digit in Mexico, in Argentina, and in pretty much all the other Hispanic countries.
In Latin America, our growth was driven by our professional solution division that posted a double-digit pace with both category, lenses and frame, in a double digit territory. On the lens side, we continue to see a strong double-digit growth with our Varilux brand. While on the frame side, our growth was double digit when you look at our sun and also our optical frame portfolio. Also when you look at Ray-Ban, Oakley, and our luxury brand portfolio, you all see double-digit growth. Once we move on the retail side, our brick-and-mortar revenues were in the high single digit territory for the course of the third quarter.
That performance was very much driven by our Sunglass retail business across all regions, while on the optical side, we observe a deceleration very much driven by GMO that was up against a very tough comparison base in 2021 versus 2019. Now, let me hand it over back to the operator for the Q&A session.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. The Q&A session will last 30 minutes. Please limit yourselves to a maximum of two questions and ensure your phone is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Susy Tibaldi from UBS. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is, focusing more on the top line. You delivered 130 basis points quarter-on-quarter acceleration, and I think if you asked a few months ago to anyone in the market, they would have said it was almost impossible. That's an excellent result. It seems that you had a very strong sun season, which obviously comes from relatively easy comp last year when we still had some COVID impact. Can you comment a little bit how much of the growth was driven by sun? Now that the sun season is pretty much over, what sort of normalized growth rate should we expect? What trends did you see in September and October?
Secondly, in H1, your EBIT margin grew 100 basis points year-on-year, and at the same time, you were absorbing 100 to 150 basis points inflation without any major price increase. When we think about the H2 margin, the fact that the sun category performed so strongly must have some pretty positive implication for your margin. Can we expect an expansion in H2 at least in line with what we saw in H1? Thank you.
Good morning. Good morning, Suzy. Let me take your question. First of all, with the third quarter performance. Clearly there was help and support from our top line perspective from sun that we've seen it pretty much across the geographies, across the different channels. It is true, but I remind you that from a revenue-based standpoint, sun accounts for about a fourth of our total revenue base. The remaining parts of the business are also at a pretty high pace. That is very important to remember because I think it's an important driver of our growth for sure, but it's not the only one. When we look at the impact on the margins, clearly our ability to manage inflationary headwinds really resides in two things.
On one side, our growth, and therefore our leverage on the P&L. On the other side, the impact for the efficiency that we are undertaking across the business units, the efficiency that derive from the integration of the GrandVision within EssilorLuxottica. As I mentioned already a few times, this year is gonna be a story of growth and margin expansion, and that is gonna be still valid for 2022 for the group.
Our next question comes from Louise Singlehurst from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Stefano, for taking my question. Two from me too. Just firstly, I think when we first read the statement, if I think back to July, we had quite a cautious set of comments with regards to the U.S., slowing. Obviously today's statement, obviously it reads a lot more in terms of stability, I would say. There's no real mention in terms of any changes during the period. Is that fair to assume that there is a lower growth, but it's stable during the period? I wonder if you can just provide some color there for us, Stefano.
Secondly, just in terms of the cohort mix and structure, is there anything that you can tell us that struck you in terms of change at the entry level, you know, the higher end spending as we think about that more aspirational consumer and a few concerns, obviously, about a slowdown at the lower price point? Thank you.
Good morning, Louise. Let me take your two questions. First one on North America. The North American story is, it's a North American story of growth. It's a story of acceleration as you heard on the third quarter compared to what you've seen on the course of the second quarter. Despite a tougher comparison base in several parts of North America. Just to give you an idea, we'll still continue to see growth on the frame business, while last year our frame business was up in excess of 30% compared to 2019. We're posting growth on top of exponential growth last year, and that's obviously very reassuring for us. With respect to price trends, let me say we don't see any consumer downtrade at all.
We actually continue to see solid price mix on frames, optical and sun frames. We continue to see a strong luxury portfolio. We continue to see our branded lens outperforming the unbranded ones, which clearly drive a price mix, which witness the fact that consumer do understand the value that we propose with our premium lenses in pretty much all the geographies.
Our next question comes from Cédric Lecasble from Stifel. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. Good morning, team. I have two. The first one is on your general comments about growth led by volume or by operating leverage, volume operating leverage and by price mix. Just wanted to know if what's going on this year with the strong cost inflation has led to any change in perception of the mix between price mix and volume, knowing that you said that over the medium term we'd be more on the operating leverage side and on price mix and with a slight inflection versus some past years. That's the first question. The second question is on Stellest. You still have a huge momentum there. Can you maybe tell us about your pricing strategy for these lenses?
Maybe tell us at what price on average they sell and what's your general pricing strategy as penetration seems to skyrocket. Thank you very much.
Morning, Cedric Lecasble. Let me take your two questions here. First of all, with respect to the balance between volume and price mix. I can confirm that the direction that over the medium longer run we want to take is exactly the one that you described. Volume being predominant over price mix. In a certain extent, if I look at where we are today on the frame side, for example, we already have that happening. We have volume being stronger than our price mix. On the lens side, it's probably still price mix being heavier than our volume mix. Again, the direction over the longer run isn't changed, despite the inflationary trend that we clearly see today.
With respect to Stellest, I mean, our Stellest is in a way a revolutionary technology that we believe is gonna create a major change in the eyewear market. It's a revolution that we've seen being very successful in China, and we are now progressively rolling that out in other different countries. As we mentioned, Stellest is not only the only product that we have. That's why we like to talk more and more on the longer run of myopia solutions, because we have the products that comes from the joint venture with CooperVision.
We have a variety of different solutions that are lenses, contact lenses, and our goal, our intent is to make those products accessible to our own retail network, to independent ECP, to really make sure that our effort to eradicate poor vision around the world is obviously completed successfully. The price that we see right now for the Stellest lenses in China is around EUR 400 for the pairs of Stellest lenses. We obviously consider pricing depending on the markets where we are. Again, the reception from the market that we've seen in China, and I would say not only in China, so far has been extremely positive.
Our next question comes from Julien Dormois from BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, Stefano. Thanks for taking my questions. One that is a follow-up from the previous one on myopia management in general. Just curious whether you could tell us more about the revenue contribution from Stellest. I mean, last year.
I think you generated about EUR 150 million in retail sales from Stellest. Is it on track to be possibly a doubling of that number in fiscal year 2022, despite the lockdowns that China experienced in the second quarter? The second question relates to acquisitions, whether you could provide us with an organic growth number for the third quarter, so basically stripping out the contribution from the bolt-on M&A. Also wondering whether now the higher cost of financing makes you a bit more prudent in terms of future M&A or whether it doesn't change anything to your strategy.
Bonjour, Julien. Let me answer your first question on myopia. Just to give you perspective, we talk about the growth that we have in China being the double-digit pace, which is obviously very reassuring, which has been instrumental to our material step up in the region of Asia Pacific. As part of the growth, as part of those results in China, myopia solutions are obviously an important asset. Just to give you an idea, those solutions represent more than 10% of our revenue in China. Again, we are talking about something that two years ago didn't even exist.
It is an important building block of our strategy in China, and we're very pleased with the result that we've been able to accomplish so far. Now, with respect to M&A, the impact of M&A is slightly more than 1 percentage point. That is broadly aligned with the expectation that we share with you and the rest of the community at the Capital Markets Day in [Tortona], where we said that over the longer run, we expect the contribution from M&A bolt-on acquisition to be around 1% of our top line.
Our next question comes from Domenico Ghilotti from Equita. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning to everybody. I have a question on your comments referring to Germany. It was the only exception in a very positive comment on European retail performance. I wonder if you can elaborate a bit more and, say, a risk of seeing all the other countries now that the summer season is over, them moving in the same direction. If you have any comment on that would be relevant for us.
I would say we're looking at a single quarter. I mean, if I look at the performance in Germany, so far it's been pretty reassuring. We are trending on a mid-single digit territory. It is a growth story that it's very strong and solid for us. So, a single quarter shouldn't create any concern. We've seen a deceleration on the optical part of the business, lens and frames. But again, if I look at the first nine months of the year, our growth in Germany is in on the positive territory on a mid-single digit one. So, nothing to be concerned.
Our final question from today comes from James Grzinic from Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Buongiorno, Stefano and team. I just have two quick ones really, Stefano. The first one was around that point you made on sun. Can you perhaps help us on how well that 25% of sun-related grew for the group as a whole in Q3? Secondly, take your points around margin. You seem to be coming across as very constructive on margins. I think back in H1, you talked to an unhelpful seasonality to margins in the second half relative to the first half. Do you think that is still a valid comment at this point?
Good morning. Buongiorno, James. Let me take your two questions, sun and margin, to the extent that I can, I guess. On sun. Sun do double digits, whether you're looking at our retail part of our business, so down to consumer, or you're looking at that from a B2B professional solution side. It's a, you know, very good story. The luxury parts, especially on the B2B side, has been obviously an important driver of growth, which is very pleasing. As you know, we recently renewed our partnership with Armani over the longer run. We announced a partnership with Diesel brand. We see there is a lot of vibrant results on the sun part of our business.
With respect to margin, the seasonality between second half and first half of the year, it is true. Yes. We usually have a second half of the year with lower margin, but that is structural. That said, again, I wanna remind you the qualitative comments of top-line growth and margin expansion because that is still valid for the full year 2022. Okay. This was the last question, and I wanna thank you all and look forward talking to you for the full year 2022 results. Thank you and have a good rest of the day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.