Good morning and welcome to Oriola's quarter three result presentation. I am Elisa Markula, and I started here in Oriola two and a half months ago. Now let's review quarter three highlights. This was the quarter for improved profitability and the start of turnaround activities. In the third quarter, the pandemic situation continued to improve in both in Finland and Sweden, with most of the government restrictions removed by the end of the quarter. The volume demand for pharmaceuticals and other health and well-being products recovered and nearly reached 2019 levels. At the end of the quarter, that is what I mean, it is before the pandemic levels. Continued market recovery was reflected in our invoicing and net sales, which were both up by 4.8% in constant currencies.
As demand picked up, our adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 10.4 million, exceeding clearly previous year and also 2019 year. All our business areas, especially retail, improved their profitability, and we will look at their performance shortly. We started turnaround activities now in August, and the first results were actually visible at the end of the reporting period. In the beginning of October, we announced further turnaround measures, and I will come back to turnaround activities and action program in more detail later in this presentation.
Pandemic still had an impact on the market and also all here in Oriola's operations. Our priority has been to ensure and secure health and safety of our own personnel, and we have been actually performing very well in our role to ensure distribution and availability of pharmaceuticals on the markets. Let's review a little bit more detailed invoicing and net sales. The market recovery was visible in our net sales and invoicing, and both actually increased 6% and in constant currency, roughly, 4%-5%. So the market recovery was here visible clearly. Adjusted EBIT, as I said already, increased to EUR 10.4 million, which is a strong evidence of recovery and also the fact that change is possible when the market environment is improving and when focusing on right things internally.
EBIT was above last year and 2019, and at the end of this quarter, we started also to see the first impacts of our cost savings, which were initiated in August. They were coming through already, helping to push Q3 above 2019. It is worth to mention that this was the highest quarter since actually 12 quarters, so since Q3 2018, so quite a remarkable achievement. Considering the business areas here and the impact on profitability, we can state actually two things. First, all business areas contributed positively to the EBIT development. Second, the retail business area supported the result very well, and that was thanks to the good performance in the dose dispensing business.
Actually, retail was the key contributor here, as you can see from the numbers. Let's have a review about the year to date performance and invoicing and net sales. Invoicing increased EUR 4.3 million to almost EUR 2.9 billion. On a constant currency basis, invoicing was increased by 1.4%. Net sales increased by 4% to EUR 1.4 billion, and on constant currency basis, the net sales increased by 0.6%. This was impacted very heavily by the first quarter this year when the net sales were declining and due to the decreased demand and low volumes due to the pandemic.
The profitability, adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 14.7 million, which is above last year, EUR 1.7 million. It is important to note that the generic cost increases, mainly salaries in Sweden, has been affecting this year- to- date result negatively. This was year to date result, and let's have a look at our market environment. First, pharmacy market. Value development has been growing in Q3 4.7% and year- to- date by 1.7% in Swedish kronor.
Oriola was very close to this market development, and the market recovering from pandemic-related decline in customer traffic was meaning the low demand in physical pharmacies. The physical pharmacy market demand started to slowly recover towards the end of the Q3 as the mobility of the people was increasing. It is obvious that the digital transformation of the pharmacy market is actually continuing, but not anymore as fast as in 2020. Year to date, the total online pharmacy market grew by 24%, clearly slower than in 2020. In Q3, Oriola's online channel grew faster than the market, actually double, and that was also visible in our net sales, where we will come back to that shortly.
also year to date, our online sales have been growing double the market growth and online pharmacies reached approximately 19% share of the total market by the end of September 2021 in total pharmacy market. 19% compared to a previous year when it was 16. Oriola's market share in the middle here in the pharmacy market in Q3 was 16.2 and this is the Q3 number. there were no big movements either in the split or the sales between product categories inside the pharmacy market, so prescription products pharmaceuticals were prevailing with the 73% of the total Q3.
Have a look next about the pharmaceutical market in all in Q3, and we saw the slight recovery on the market also here during the third quarter, especially regarding the volume development and the market was close to the pre-pandemic levels. This is very important to understand that the volume development is the first sign of the market to recover and normalizing, and the value is growing by nature because there are always more expensive pharmaceuticals coming to the market. Volume development is here something what we follow carefully. When we look the value development in, then the it's in the price here.
In Finland, the wholesale pharmaceutical distribution market grew by almost 6% in the third quarter, so that was the third quarter number, and then year to date, the growth was 2.5. While in Sweden, the pharmaceutical distribution market value at wholesale prices was 6.5% higher than in Finland and year-to-date number is there 2.6%. Pretty similar year- to- date still like in Finland. Based on our estimate, our market share in this wholesale market was about 42% in Finland and about 46% in Sweden. Then retail market.
In dose dispensing business, Oriola is market leader in Sweden, and we have 42% of the market, and we have been growing also our market share in Finland where we have now 36% from the market. Why this is happening, the growth is the number of patients have been growing in both countries. In Sweden, we have already over 100,000 patients, and in Finland we have grown to 28,000 patients in our dose dispensing business. About the traded goods and OTC market value development in Sweden, they also grew in Q3 almost by over 9%, and year- to-d ate the growth was for a little bit over 4%.
Our market share in the supply of these products for pharmacies was very stable, so 24%. Here below, we are talking about our staffing services and the number of the pharmacies who are using our staffing services in Finland increased slightly to 204 pharmacies. Let's move a little bit more detail to look our performance in business areas. First, about the consumer. The recovery of the consumer consumer traffic in pharmacies became actually fully visible only towards the end of the quarter. The net sales increased by 5% to EUR 200 million. In constant currency, the growth was 3.5%.
Our online channel grew faster as I already stated, and this was the main driver for the increase in net sales. Adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 5 million, which was already slightly above 2020 and in line with 2019 level. All in all, general cost increases, mainly salaries in Sweden, have impacted the result negatively and limited the improvement in the profitability development. Online continues to be our strategic development area here in Oriola, and we have been able to grow both year to date and Q3. This is, and it's already accounting for our total consumer sales 8.5%.
All in all, to support this e-commerce business growth, we have announced that we are investing in the new e-commerce logistics center in Enköping, and the new warehouse will be ready during second half of next year. Then let's move to pharma and our performance in there. Pharmaceutical market value and volume grow against 2020 and was already 2019 levels, especially towards the end of the quarter, as I already said when we talked about the market environment. This means that the market is recovering, and thanks to this, during the third quarter, our invoicing increased 4.4% in constant currency. Adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 4.1 million, driven by the increased volumes.
Retail as our third business area, which has actually progressed very well in many areas. As I told in the market environment part, OTC and traded goods market was recovering during Q3 with a growth of 9%, the total market growth. Reflected in our numbers, our net sales increased by almost 7% , 6.6%, and on constant currency basis, that was 5% to EUR 127 million. This was thanks to the growth in the number of dose dispensing patients and also increased demand for health and well-being products in Sweden. Adjusted EBIT increased to EUR 3.6 million, and thanks to dose dispensing, but also improvements in customer agreements and product mix in health and well-being product category.
That was about it, and then let's see some key financial KPIs, and the recovery is clearly visible on the net result as well. Profit for the quarter increased to EUR 6.8 million, and earnings per share to EUR 0.04. About the cash flow in Q3 shortly. The cash flow was EUR -16 million, driven by negative net working capital changes, which is due to the strong fluctuation, is quite typical to our business and therefore this decrease was happening with the fluctuation in net working capital.
The cash position returned to be normal level at 86, and at the end of the last year, actually, it was abnormally high because we took precautionary measures related to pandemic uncertainty on the commercial papers and loan market. That's the reason we have been repaying pandemic-related precautionary loans back. Let's move to the net interest-bearing debt, and that was EUR 136 million. And also, you can see from the graph and the table on the right-hand side that our gearing is improving, and we are back on normal levels in 2020 for the reasons what I just explained when we actually prepaid back our loans. That was about the financial KPIs.
Finally, at the end of the presentation, I would like to talk about the turnaround and also first about the timing and of our focus areas here in the near future. Firstly, turnaround is our first priority and thus also our short-term action plan for the coming months. This is what we do now. I will in the next page then talk more about the content of the turnaround. If this is what we do, the other part is how we do it. As we are also fixing the foundation of this company, which is related to how we operate more efficiently in the new structure, and, which is country-based, this is the plan, and how we handle the customers, and how do we improve processes, practices, our ways of working.
In other words, we are also creating a new working culture here in Oriola. As we are now concentrating into turnaround, in the coming months, we will do the fundamental business strategy during Q1 and Q2 next year. That means that we have also rescheduled our Capital Markets Day into May 5th. This is what we have decided now to do with the CMD. Then let's move into the content of the turnaround and in more detail. We have a concrete action plan, how we improve our performance in all key areas. I see a lot of potential in Oriola, and we have that potential to improve profitability. We know now what to do to improve our efficiency and grow together with the growing health and wellbeing market.
First, we are targeting for cost savings through simplified operational model, decreasing the complexity and moving to country-based model, which is dramatically improving customer focus, reduce costs, and thus improve profitability. We will also cut our cost base by concentrating two relevant value-adding projects which will have value to customers. Strict cost discipline and management has been started. We are also implementing net working capital improvement actions to enhance end-to-end sales and operations planning and all in all our supply chain planning. Operational efficiency will be one of our key focus areas, and it includes also optimizing our portfolio. It means smoother product changes as well as better warehouse management.
Thanks to the planned country-based structure, we are able to serve our customers more individually and also locally with one touch point, which will be important part of our improved customer relationship management. Commercial excellence means all improvements related to the commercial management as well. We will also crystallize our core, kind of core service portfolio and implement value-based pricing models. We will increase internally our margin management and governance. This is our action plan to improve Oriola's performance. Now this work has been started, and I can imagine you will ask how long does this take? To that question, it is hard to say one definite answer, but as this is our primary focus, we will rigorously concentrate on this and delivering results.
To the next question which might arise from this, that how much we will deliver more profit. I want to say that we will inform our progress in every quarter, in our reviews and also every time we have something to inform. This time, we will not give a definite one number target. Not this time. Just like we already did, in the beginning of October, we announced the first phase of this transformation and turnaround. We announced that we plan to simplify our operating model and structure and started the restructuring negotiations. The preliminary estimate of this annual cost saving is around at least EUR 7 million a year. Let's then as a final kind of summary, let's take some key takeaways from Q3.
This was the quarter of recovery in our market environment, especially towards the end of the quarter, and the volume demand picked up, and that is something that we follow very carefully almost reached the pre-pandemic levels at the end of the quarter. Secondly, market recovery was reflected in our invoicing and net sales, and both were around 5% without currency effect. We were very happy to see that we could deliver also in terms of profitability, and this was supported by the improved market environment, but also thanks to strong performance in our retail business, but also all the business areas delivered and helped improve the profitability.
We have started cost savings activities now in August and some of the results were already visible at the end of the reporting period. In the beginning of October, we announced the further measures, and we will then also inform about this in due course. Finally, going forward, we have initiated our strategy process here at Oriola and plan to publish that together with and in the CMD on the 5th o f May. That is the key summary. About the guidance outlook for this year, guidance is unchanged that our adjusted EBIT is in constant currency, stays on the same level or increases from 2020. Thank you from my part for now, and let's review if you have had any questions.
Tua, welcome, and will you guide us through the questions?
Thank you. As earlier, previous webcast, please use the chat area to type your questions. Currently, still not any question. I don't know if you were so.
Comprehensive
comprehensive. Exactly. Please, audience, if you have any further more questions to Elisa to ask now, or then you can also come back to me personally, or and then we will of course answer to your possible questions later, at later stage.
Exactly.
Thank you. As there are no questions, I thank you for your attention.
At least not now.
Today and let's come back to possible questions at later stage. Thank you.
Thank you.