Good evening, and welcome to the conference call of Fnac Darty. Mr. Enrique Martinez, CEO of Fnac Darty, and Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier will lead the call. Mr. Martinez, over to you .
Good evening to all. Thanks for joining us on the call devoted to the presentation of our Q3 activity as well as the first nine months of the year. I'd like to return briefly to the events of the past few days. As you've all seen, there were acts of looting and violence on the fringes of demonstrations in many towns in France. Amongst the thousands of shops affected, there are Fnac Darty stores that suffered various types of damage, from broken windows to outright looting. Damage is considerable. We don't yet have a consolidated amount. Detail inventories are underway. Of course, our priority was to ensure the safety of our teams and our customers.
The looting of our stores led to closure. The prime goal is now to get the stores up and running again to welcome our customers in the best conditions by the end of the year, whilst ensuring safety and security. Obviously, we regret the violence that affected stores and particularly downtown shops that are already considerably weakened at a time when defending downtown shopping is a priority. Of course, a return to safety and security is vital so that we continue to serve our customers. That's my introduction. I'm going to hand over to Jean-Brieuc so that he can tell us about the first few months' activity, and I'll come back after that.
Thanks, Enrique. Let's start with slide two with the main highlights of this publication. End of September, group revenue comes in at EUR 6,966,000,000, up 1.1% like-for-like compared to the first nine months, 2025 restated, driven essentially by the Rest of Europe sales. In Q3, sales grew +1.8% like-for-like. Our gross margin rate is up 40 basis points across the full year and the quarter, thanks to the growing contributions of service activities and a favorable product mix. Lastly, we confirm our guidance for 2026. Turning now to performance by category, slide three.
Household appliances is up versus end of September 2025. Small appliances continue to grow with the dynamism of floor care, coffee, and seasonal products, big household driven by air con and cooling systems because of the severe heatwave. The technical products are slightly up with contrasted dynamics by category. The PC market continues to grow strongly thanks to the renewal of equipment linked to the end of Windows 10 support.
Telephony is also up driven by a good Q3, whereas sound, photo, and TV are slightly down. Services and diversification continue their positive dynamic and are still growing. Conversely, editorial products are down. Audio maintains a very good momentum driven by vinyls, but books remain penalized by not a very promising market with few new releases. Gaming suffers from a high basis of comparison after the launch of Switch 2 in 2025. The end of 2026 will be marked by the release of GTA VI, the most widely expected game in the decade. By distribution channel, online sales are up 5.3%, representing over 21% total sales of the group driven by our marketplaces, whilst in-store sales remain stable. Click and collect, key metric of our omnichannel performance, represents 50% of our online sales. Let's look at the performance by geography. Slide four.
France posts a decline of its like-for-like sales of 0.6% end of September in spite of favorable weather conditions. Certain category activity is hurt by not a very promising consumer environment. The Rest of Europe that now accounts for over 40% of total group revenue activity delivers a fine performance, revenue up 3.5% like-for-like on the first nine months. Italy's up +2.5% like-for-like with good dynamics across all channels. Integration of Unieuro is continuing, and we confirm our target of at least EUR 20 million synergies by the end of the year. Belgium-Luxembourg up +5.2% with market share gains in a more favorable consumer context. Portugal's up over 8% driven by the dynamics of both brands, Fnac Darty and the success of Darty. Recent acquisition of 11 Staples stores will reinforce the territorial coverage in 2027. Spain's up +4.4% like-for-like, thanks to a good momentum across categories.
Stores renovated in 2025 delivering strong performance. Switzerland declining 1.1% because of a declining book market as well as PC sales. As you can see on slide five, our gross margin rate comes in at 28.7%, up 40 basis points versus the first nine months of 2025 restated. That's the growing contribution of service activities, as well as a favorable product mix. Back now to Enrique.
Thank you, Jean-Brieuc . A pretty solid start to the year. As I mentioned in my introduction, a few words about the progress of the tender offer by EP Group. Since the announcement, 26th January, major milestones have been crossed. The offer was filed AMF 10th of March, and the French approvals, FDI, 26th of March, and foreign subsidies 4th of May, and the AMF, 7th of May. Offer's open since the 12th of May.
The final milestone was the authorization to be secured from the European Commission that was delivered and disclosed on Monday, which means that we can complete the offer. We welcome the fact that we've secured this authorization. Following this decision, AMF has set the closure of the offer on 9th of November 2026, and our shareholders and OCEANE holders can, if they wish, bring their securities to the offer up to the date. Settlement delivery will occur 12th of November 2026. As announced by Euronext this morning, the success conditions of the offering remain unchanged. EP will have to cross the legal threshold of more than 50% of capital of voting rights at the end of the offer period. If it's successful, the offer will be reopened for at least 10 days of negotiation to allow shareholders or OCEANE bearers to bring their securities to the same conditions.
All the documentation pertaining to the offer is available on our website, as well as on that of the AMF. Slide seven. In conclusion, as was indicated, the closing of the offer set for 9th of November, and we confirm our guidance 2026, an increase of our current operating margin and operating cash flow and those of Beyond Everyday for 2030. As you know, Q4 is very important for the activity with commercial high points in the group excel. We're convinced that consumers will be there. We are ready to receive them, and we'll be very successful. We're ready now to take your questions. Thank you for your attention.
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Okay. [Non-English content] I think the presentation was clear. I don't see any questions coming. Thank you all for tuning in and following this presentation. Look forward to seeing you for the presentation of our annual results early in 2027. Thank you.
[Non-English content] Ladies and gentlemen, this ends today's conference call. Thank you for your attendance. You can now disconnect.