Good morning, and welcome to our quarter three results webcast. I'm happy to say that both divisions made really good results during this quarter, especially Lindex, but also Stockmann is back on track. We can clearly see that our customer strategy is working. If we look at our results, our revenue was up by 12% on comparable currency rates. Our gross margin improved, and our operating result increased clearly in both Lindex and Stockmann. Our EBIT improved almost by EUR 17 million. When we look closer to Lindex, their revenue was 16% up, and growth in the online sales was over, close to 55%. Sales increased in all markets and in all business areas. Our operating results at Lindex was EUR 10.1 million better than an increase to EUR 30, almost EUR 32 million . Lindex generated its best ever operating results for this quarter.
On the Stockmann division, our revenue increased almost with 12%, and online stores increased with 26%. The merchandise sales in brick-and-mortar stores increased significantly, and the operating result improved by EUR 5 million, and we reached a positive EBIT for this quarter. I also would like to highlight that our cash position is strong with over EUR 170 million. Now, if we look a bit closer to Stockmann division, as I said, our revenue increased, and the revenue was up by 12%. If we still compare with 2019, it is down by 11.3%. I would like to highlight that we are still missing the tourists, which are an important customer segment for the Stockmann division.
Merchandise sales for the brick-and-mortar increased significantly almost by 14%, and the online store sales increased with 26%. If we compare that with 2019, it was almost with 170%. The share on online sales in this quarter was 8% versus last year, roughly 7%, and compared to 2019 when it was below 3%. For Stockmann division, the quarters and our campaigns have an impact also when we talk about the online. Gross margin declined versus last year, but I still would like to highlight that this 46% is on a very healthy level. The gross margin decrease compared to last year, basically, that we changed our clearance mechanism this year. Our operating result was EUR 0.1 million, so EUR 5 million improvement versus last year. Now, if we go more deeper in the Stockmann division highlights during this quarter, we can clearly say that our profitability improved.
I like to highlight that our profitability in Stockmann division has improved almost with EUR 15 million year- to- date this year versus 2020. As I said earlier, the sales in the brick-and-mortar stores increased significantly almost by 14%, and this is a clear outcome of the growing vaccination rate among the population that had increased the customer volumes in all channels. I'm happy to say that the demand for fashion has turned immediately as people are returning back to offices, so both fashion in men and women segments has increased significantly. We also changed our Crazy Days campaign. Last year, it was two weeks. This year, we had only eight days. But the sales exceeded versus the spring campaign by 58%.
As we've been doing all along, improving our or investing in improving our stores and online, in September, I'm happy to say we opened our Delicatessen, which is really the best in town. If we look the way forward, we conducted a CSR survey. Stockmann division is also working very hard in the CSR strategy and renewing our position when it comes to sustainability. We are proceeding to the next phase of our customer-focused strategy by renewing our operating model. This is not a cost-saving exercise. This is to improve our customer satisfaction and business profitability by smoother processes and more effective unified operating model. In Finland, we said that there will be roughly 105 positions that will be ended, and we need to create roughly 45 new positions. These are the plans we are currently negotiating with our employees.
Yes, there is nearly EUR 4 million gradual improvement also in profitability on top of all the things that we have already implemented this year. We are proceeding with our operational efficiency measures. When it comes to the sale and leaseback process, it's proceeding as planned. The supervisor has accepted a timeline with an estimated sale latest during Q1 2022, in order to reach an optimal outcome for the company and the creditors.
As we all understand, we have three big properties in sale, and this requires a lot of details, so we need more time with this process, but it's proceeding as planned. We have also faced challenges in logistics during this quarter, but we are afraid that they might continue also affecting the fourth quarter, and this is the global issue that everybody is faced with. Now I would like to hand over to Susanne and more details about Lindex. Susanne, please.
Thank you so much, Jari. Yes, let's continue to the Lindex side. I am very proud of the Lindex team today that despite challenges, have delivered Lindex best results ever for the third quarter. We have continued our strong growth development compared to both previous year and 2019. Our physical stores have almost recovered from the pandemic with an index 99 compared to 2019. This, in combination with our solid, digital sales development for both our own e-com as well together with, our external partners, we can see how the sales growth together with good margins and good cost control has contributed to the positive results. Our revenue for the third quarter increased by 13.5% versus previous year in comparable currency rates and by 12.4% versus 2019.
Our growth in the online sales was 54.5%, which is more than tripled compared to 2019. We increased the digital sales in all of our markets, and our digital share now stands for 17.9%. Our gross margin increased to 65% due to increased full price sales, reduced markdowns, and better intake margins. Our operating costs increased to EUR 58.8 million. The cost increased compared to previous years' strong cost cuts, and it's also due to increased sales. Our operating results therefore amounted to EUR 31.6 million, which is an increase by 47% versus previous year.
Our results for the first nine months, despite the quite challenging start that we had in the beginning of this year, has more than doubled compared to both previous year and compared to 2019. If we take a look at the highlights here, it is an exceptionally strong quarter driven by improvements where we have done a lot of internal actions, improving our sales in all business areas and markets together with a high demand to buy fashion again. One highlight is that we have launched our Lindex app also in the U.K. and in the Baltics, which means that we now have our app available in all of our own sales markets where we have physical stores. The app was built to our most loyal customers, and it's also them who uses the app the most.
What we can see is that our app customers shop on average four extra orders per year than compared to those who does not have the app. That's really great to see. Our online assortment is also growing, as well as our cross-functional collections based on our strengths. Examples of this is our loungewear and activewear. Women empowerment is one of our leading paths within our sustainability promise, where we continue to our progress. We are very happy to have appointed a Global Women Empowerment Manager at Lindex. It is an important role in accelerating the work and lead our work in creating fair and equal workplaces in our supply chain.
We have also signed and committed to a new International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry. This is an independent agreement between brands and trade unions and where our cooperation in the industry is crucial, to ensure the well-being and safe working environments for the textile workers in that supply chain. As part of our circular transformation, we are piloting Lindex secondhand in a few stores in Sweden and in Norway. In addition to offer our customers new types of services, our secondhand pilots also gives us valuable insights on how we can upscale the business model, and also how we can improve the designing of the assortment for longevity. Because we have set a target that we should, by 2025, have our entire assortment to be designed for longevity and circularity.
Looking at the next page, we continue our work to transform Lindex to a sustainable and omnichannel business with globally strong brand offerings. One part is our ongoing optimization and development of our store portfolio. We have done a thorough geographical mapping of our stores, and based on customer behavior and our omni focus, we will look into the structure of our future omni store portfolio and how we can increase our profitability and flexibility even further. We will make digital investments for strengthening our omnichannel setup. We will implement a new point of sale system for our stores, and we will also roll out a new workforce management system globally. It's also an ongoing work to continue to develop our e-commerce platform to meet the continuously changing customer behavior. To enable further growth, we are planning for a new distribution center supplying all sales channels.
This will be a critical investment to grow Lindex further and also to do this in a cost-efficient way. We will continue developing and optimizing our inspiring and strong offering based on our customer needs and insights, and we will also explore new innovations in the future. We proceed with our important work and sustainability transformation to reach our goals and fulfill our promise for future generations. Going forward, our climate actions will be in focus, where we will work with our supply chain for energy efficiency and transition to renewable energy. Also, October is coming to a close, and we will soon know how much we have raised this year to the cancer research. It looks like we will strike a new record this year, which is great.
We have supported the Pink Ribbon campaign for 18 years now, and it is fantastic to see the great commitment. Since the start, we have, together with our customers, raised a total of EUR 60 million for the cancer research. This year, we have designed a loungewear collection with matching clothes for mother and children, where 10% of the sales in October goes to the cancer research. We, as Lindex, have got many proofs that all of our effort and actions during this extraordinary past 1.5 year have been meaningful. I remain humble for the future, but thanks to the wholehearted commitment and fantastic effort of all Lindex employees every day, we stand stronger than ever in front of the future here. By that, I would like to hand over to Pekka.
Thank you, Susanne. Let's look at the quarter three figures from the group point of view. Before that, I would like to begin with the restructuring program execution. As you know, Stockmann, the parent company, Stockmann plc, has been executing the restructuring program since February this year. We have taken many actions regarding our financing structure throughout the year. First, we combined our A and B share classes in April, and half of the hybrid bond was cut during Q1. We have also converted EUR 72 million of unsecured restructuring debt and hybrid bond into shares in Stockmann. That happened in July this year.
We have also issued a EUR 66 million bond, and that took place also in July. The participation of that or funds for that bond came from the unsecured restructuring debt holders. The sale and leaseback process of the properties in Helsinki, Tallinn and Riga proceeds, as Jari explained. As a result of those, we have a stronger balance sheet after the conversions, and the combination of share classes has been increasing the share liquidity in Helsinki Stock Exchange . Good to highlight also that the remaining undisputed restructuring debt currently is EUR 21.8 million.
To the Q3. As discussed, our top line grew by 12%, and our gross margin consolidated grew nearly 2 percentage points. Operating costs grew in line with the top line development. As a result, our operating result ended at EUR 33.2 million. Very nice improvement from the previous year. From the graphs, I would like to highlight that the quarterly operating result on the right-hand corner graph you can see that we have been improving quarter after quarter our operating result. Moving on to key figures.
All in all, starting from the bottom, we have EUR 1.4 billion cash tied in our operations. Lease liabilities currently are EUR 322 million. That figure is going down as planned from the beginning of the year or end last year, and clear reduction versus previous year as we renegotiated the lease agreements as a part of the restructuring preparations. Our cash, like Jari said, is very strong. It is EUR 171 million. Our inventories are in good control, EUR 168 million.
When we look at our quarterly figures in more detail, we see that our earnings per share was EUR 0.15, when last year it was EUR 0.01. Nice improvement. Also year- to- date, we are showing a nice, very nice improvement in the earnings per share. That is coming from the fact that we have been improving our operating result not only this quarter, but throughout the first nine months during this year. Our operating result has been improving, as we can see from last year's EUR -14 million to this year's EUR 32 million.
Nearly EUR 60 million improvement. Our net financial items has gone down partly due to the renegotiated lease agreements and also partly due to the restructuring proceedings. As a result, our equity ratio is trending upwards, as you can see from the figures as well. Guidance. We kept our guidance, so no changes. The guidance and outlook is unchanged from July. We see that the uncertainty in the global economy is expected to remain throughout this year, and COVID pandemic is having impact on the economy.
Stockmann division will continue to execute the restructuring program this year and Lindex to drive efficiencies and explore new growth opportunities, as Susanne explained. The guidance, as said, unchanged. We expect a clear increase in the group revenue and the adjusted operating result to be clearly positive, assuming that no major COVID restrictions are imposed for the rest of the year. With this, I would like to thank you and open for questions and answers.
Yes. Only one topic at this point. Question from Rauli Juva concerning properties. On property divestment, just to make sure, does the changed timeline mean you now expect the deal during the first quarter 2022, and does that apply to all of the properties?
Well, as the program is saying clearly, that we had two years to do this property sales, and we are in a close cooperation with the supervisor. As I said, our aim is that we will close the deals as soon as possible, but we have three big properties, and it's in the best interest of the company and the creditors that we use the time needed.
That was the answer to all questions so far. Thank you.
If no more questions, I would like to thank you all for participating in this webcast, and we welcome you for Christmas shopping. Christmas is close by. Have a nice day.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.