The cost increase, partly unexpected, made the last quarter weaker compared with the previous year. Let's look at the highlights. First of all, revenue was reasonably good considering the great sales from previous year, and of course in Finland the uncertainty caused by the pandemic with our customers. Gross margin was lower due to the attractive benefits offered to loyal customers and as well as the fact that Tokmanni didn't do large scale increases with the sales prices in the end of the year. The operating profit was lower due to the increased costs compared with the previous year. Some positive things. Tokmanni Klubi, Tokmanni's customer loyalty program, has attracted more customers than planned.
Well, let's look at the figures. First of all, revenue grew by 2.3% compared with the very strong figures from previous year, 14.6%. Like-for-like revenue actually decreased slightly, but still 0.3%. This is actually the first time in more than four years when the like-for-like revenue decreased. So we take this actually very seriously. Comparable gross margin was lower compared with the previous year, 36.2%. On the other hand, it was on a pretty good level. As you can see, sales were higher and actually the gross profit also was a little bit higher compared with previous year. When the EBIT actually was clearly lower compared with previous year, it's all about the costs.
The EBIT was EUR 40.5 million, representing 12.1% of revenue. Cash flow from operating activities amounted to EUR 71.6 million, clearly lower compared with previous year, and this is something to do with the inventory level. Due to the supply chain issues, actually the global problems with the supply chain, we actually, by the end of last year, we had a big part of our spring season products actually here in Mäntsälä in our warehouse. This has an effect on the cash flow, obviously. Earnings per share was EUR 0.52 compared with previous year's EUR 0.57.
If we look at the non-grocery market in Finland and the development, as you can see, we actually lost market share during the last quarter and the second quarter of last year. We definitely take this very seriously. However, if you look at the market share development during 2020, it's obviously Tokmanni was a real winner that year. Obviously, it's good to take these two years as one period to understand a little bit better the market situation in Finland. Then, the highlights of the whole year. Revenue growth was very good, 6.4% compared with very strong growth, 13.6%.
We reached the record sales EUR 1.141 billion. Like-for-like revenue growth was also good, 4.8% compared with the strong figures. A slight improvement with gross margin, 34.7% and the EBIT amounted to EUR 105.7 million compared with the previous year's EUR 99.7 million. The profitability level was basically exactly the same, 9.3%, 2021 as well as 2020. As mentioned already, the cash flow was lower, EUR 126.8 million due to the high inventory level. Earnings per share, EUR 1.33 and Tokmanni's board of directors' proposal of dividend is EUR 0.96.
By the way, on the figures for 2020, there has been some adjustments, minor effects on the business, but Markku will explain a little bit more detailed about these adjustments in short while. Let's take a look at the retail environment for Tokmanni. A couple of things which are affecting the business for Tokmanni. First of all, raw material prices are on a very high level, but we actually don't see at the moment any further increases. Obviously, it's all about the demand, how the demand is developing with this inflation, price inflation, cost inflation. We could see a little bit lower levels of demand, but let's see anyway.
Yes, of course, if the demand stays on a very high level, the raw material prices, they won't go down. Operating expenses are largely increasing when it comes to the, for example, property rents, maintenance costs, like electricity, freight costs, especially, when it comes to the, transportation in Finland due to the high gasoline prices. Obviously, there are some salary increases also, coming up later this spring. These all have to be taken into consideration with the business. Tokmanni's supply chain has been working very well during the pandemic. We're very happy, very satisfied with professionals with Tokmanni who have been managing this part. The cost pressure at the moment is very well in control.
However, obviously, we've been forced to invite products, for example, seasonal products for springtime, they're in a very early stage to Finland, as mentioned already. The customer behavior will probably change due to two facts. First of all, the development of the pandemic. There will be some developments anyway, so obviously it will affect on the customer's behavior. Of course, the rising inflation level will also obviously affect on the shopping behavior. That's at least our idea that there will be effects on the business. In Finland, we see that the sustainable choices are becoming more and more important for, first of all, discounters and customers.
Our customers in Finland, the level of awareness with the sustainable choices are getting higher all the time, which is very good. I think that we're also able to serve our customers so that they can rely on Tokmanni's sustainable way of doing business. Definitely, the low prices will be more important for customers in Finland when prices and costs are increasing. This is how the retail scene looks at the moment from our perspective. We launched a year ago the Tokmanni strategy for the period 2021 to 2025. Basically, we divided it with sources of growth, sources of profitability, and sources of success. A couple of words about these, how we're basically implementing these strategy projects. First of all, the sources of growth.
We opened four new stores last year. Now, we have 196 stores, and the target is to have over 220 stores in Finland by the end of 2025. We actually bought last fall the first large-scale Tokmanni or actually large-scale store in Tornio, which is actually a twin town on the border of Finland and Sweden. The size is over 10,000 sq m and at the moment we're basically building the new concept over there. The target is to have 10 of these large-scale stores in Finland by the end of 2025. Online sales, it's still increasing almost 60% last year. We started with 25,000 SKUs in our online stores.
Now, it's 32,000 SKUs, and the target is to have 50,000 SKUs in online business. Obviously, this is online, the route actually or the channel that we're using with a higher amount of SKUs. Of course, we have these destination categories for Tokmanni, where we want to be the number one retailer in Finland, for example, garden, apparel, leisure, and home decoration. They increased very well. The sales increased very well during the last year, so we're happy, and we can see that we are on the track with this strategy. The target is to have EUR 1.5 billion turnover by the end of 2025. As you can see from here, we're very well on the track. Then, the sources of profitability.
First of all, the sales of our private labels, the biggest one, Kotikulta, and then, Future TT Sport, Pola, Vaeltaja, Brücke, and Noixx. They grew very well, and we are very happy about the development with private labels. Product labels managed by Tokmanni were actually 32.5% of the total sales. The direct imports also growing. Share of sales was 16.8%. Then, in two weeks time, we will be launching a new private label range called Miny. In Finnish, it's called Miny. It's a new product group for youngsters. It's actually also a shop-in-shop concept.
We will start with five stores in two weeks' time, and there will be several new stores also with the Miny concept later on this year. Actually, if I talk about this Miny, it's basically very important also to delight our customers with new concepts, new ideas, new products. It's also for Tokmanni itself. It's basically a way to renew the business, which is of course very important for a discounter like Tokmanni. As mentioned already, supply chain management succeeded very well already. Actually, two years ago, we said that the supply chain efficiency is very important for our profitability.
But then the pandemic started, and basically it has been like a game of survival with the supply chain. Now , we're in a situation where we can start improving the supply chain efficiencies again. I'm very happy about the fact that actually the construction work of Tokmanni's new warehouse has already started here in Mäntsälä. Obviously, for the coming years, this has a key role also for the efficiencies with our supply chain. Here's the route with the EBIT target, which is basically EUR 150 million by the end of 2025. As you can see, we are on track.
As you can also see, and we can definitely see, that we also need to speed up a little bit during the coming years, starting already this year. Last but not least, the sources of success. Over 800,000 customers have already joined Tokmanni Klubi, Tokmanni Club. Actually, it's getting closer to 900,000 customers by the end of this year. This year, we will be launching also personal benefits and services for our customers. The development of Tokmanni's sustainability work has also been very active. For example, most risky raw material practices are defined.
I think one of the key issues over here is definitely the sustainable cotton, which we also defined very clearly with our suppliers. We started four years ago with a bonus program for the whole Tokmanni personnel, and this is now the fifth year in a row when we're continuing a bonus program for everybody, all the 4,100 employees of Tokmanni. In addition to that, we also included an ESG target with management incentive program. Good development with this one as well. Well, during the pandemic, it's been a lot of talk about remote work.
Out of 4,100 Tokmanni people, 95% are working basically in stores, in our warehouse. It's been a very tough period for these people who've been in contact with colleagues and customers and so on. That's why we're starting a well-being and recovery program for everybody in Tokmanni during this spring. We're actually very proud of this because we want to be the number one retail employer in Finland. This is one crucial part of it. Here was a short recap on the development of our strategy plan.
At this point of time, I would like to say many, many thanks to all Tokmanni people over here in Finland, as well as in Shanghai, China, for very good work. Thank you very much. We're gonna dive deeper with the key figures. Markku, please, your turn.
Okay. Thank you very much, Mika. Good morning from my side also to everyone. Mika already mentioned or explained a little bit about these figures, but let's look them a little bit deeper. First, starting about this adjustment which we made to the comparison year 2020. There has been some adjustments due to the correction made to the figures from previous financial years, but these corrections concerns the method of recognizing purchase rebates and IFRS 16 rental agreements. Still, we have to remember and say that as a whole, these adjustments has a very marginal effect to the figures of 2020. Let's go to the figures then.
As earlier, we have also this time taken three years development that we get some kind of a little bit longer period view. Starting from revenue, and here on the left-hand side, these bars are quarter-based, and these three bars on the right-hand side only are yearly figures. Okay, starting from quarters, we can say that we achieved a decent growth in revenue when we look at Q4 2021, 2.3%, especially when we think how strong growth we have in 2020. But some small disappointment was, of course, this like-for-like revenue development and slight decrease there, 0.3%. If we look what we're selling well during Q4 2021, they were apparel, leisure, and home electronics products.
Moving to comparable gross profit and margin, first of all, saying that in fourth quarter, the gross profit was increasing a bit in euro-wise, but at the same time, we have to say that gross margin was a bit lower level during Q4. We achieved 36.2% when it was in 2020 Q4, 36.7%. Of course, looking at 2019, we were at the level of 35.2%, so now we were a bit, not a bit, but quite clearly on higher level when we compare these two figures. When we are looking what affected to Q4 2021 that why the gross margin was on a lower level, there are two clear explanations behind on that. First of all, benefits what we offer to Tokmanni Club members affected.
We offered very good discounts and also one-time discount when you join the club. This same effect was also during Q3 and then now Q4. This is of course when we are looking at the gross margin percentage, it looks here in a negative way, but at the same time we have to be very glad that we have got more members to the club than what we planned at that time. Other thing which of course affected was that we made a decision to still refrain from large scale increases in our sales prices, even our sourcing costs were increased. At the same time, we can look how we sourcing costs or higher purchasing prices are going through to our books.
They are coming step by step when we are looking what is our inventory rotation speed. Then, of course it takes a while when the whole purchasing price increases are affected to us. Next thing is the direct import and product labels managed by Tokmanni, meaning basically private labels. This is the issue which clearly affects to our gross margin, and we have a target to increase the share of these two. First, looking at the direct import during Q4, small improvement, and looking at the whole year in direct import share, quite a good jump, up to 27.3% compared to previous year, 26.5%. Product labels managed by Tokmanni, and as said, mainly private labels. During Q4, the share was decreasing a bit.
It was 34.2% compared to last year, 34.7%. Again, when we look at the whole year, the development was good. We achieve d 0.5% improvement in this share, ending up to 32.5% in 2021. Next, the operating expenses, which was clearly the challenge for us during Q4. First, looking at the Q4, we are seeing here that in Q4 2021, the share was 19.1% compared to the previous year, 18.4%, which is not, of course, the good development. When we look euro-wise, the total expenses was increasing EUR 3.8 million up to EUR 63.9 million, and of course one part of that euro-wise increase is coming from the fact that our business is growing and we have new stores and so on.
When we look in relative-wise, there are clearly different explanations why it was increased and part of these reasons are the ones which were clearly known beforehand, for example, that we didn't have pension contributions during 2021. Other one was clearly our own decisions, meaning these marketing investments which we made to support or launch Tokmanni Club. There was also reasons which were not at least easy to forecast or were unknown beforehand. This increase in sick leaves caused by the pandemic, and other thing was that clearly general rise in costs and really sharp rise in the price of electricity, and especially towards the end of the year. I can pick up the example concerning this electricity.
In December, even we have a quite high hedge ratio in electricity prices. We got EUR 0.5 million extra cost in December from electricity. I would pick up perhaps these personnel expenses in fourth quarter. Even the total development was not satisfactory when we look relatively at these expenses. Q4, the personnel expenses, which are, of course, included in the total operating expenses, the share was 10.7% compared to the year 2020, 10.5%. When we take out this pension contribution, they were almost at the same level, which I think was a good achievement when we think what kind of circumstances we had during Q4.
Looking at the whole year, 2021, 19.9%, some increase from year 2020, which was at the level of 19.6%. When we look at 2019, we were at the level of 21%. We can say that now we are moving to a totally different level, roughly under 20%. Of course, logical way to coming to EBIT. First, revenue, gross margin, and expenses, the end result EBIT and as said, we achieved some improvement in gross profit, but it was not enough when we are looking at increase in operating expenses. Of course, in Q4, the end result was at Q4 2021, EBIT was somewhat lower level compared to 2020. We ended up at EUR 40.5 million, and 2020 it was EUR 44.8 million.
Looking at the whole year numbers, we achieved 9.3% EBIT level, which was at the same level than 2020. The improvement euro-wise, roughly EUR 6 million, ending up to EUR 105.7 million. Next, balance sheet. Here we are seeing when we are looking at the level of inventories and how big they are, we are seeing a different kind of market situation than what we have in logistics and product availability. That, of course, we know all that there has been difficulties.
We have made a decision that we guarantee our product availability in our stores, which , of course, means that we have taken products into our warehouse earlier, and we can see that we got roughly EUR 40 million extra in our inventory levels, ending up roughly EUR 260 million. Other reason for this increase is that we have expanded our product range during 2021. Looking at the cash flow, we had a lower cash flow during 2021 compared to 2020, which is, of course, the end result from this inventory level increase, this inventory level increase was the clear reason for lower cash flow.
The good thing here is the ratio of net debt to comparable EBIT to EBITDA, which was 1.8, and we can say that it's in a good level compared to our strategy target, which is 3.2. There is clear space between these two numbers. Looking at our investments, net capital expenditure, on year level, in 2020, we were at the level of EUR 12.8 million, which was clearly lower. As commonly communicated at that time, we made some postponements in our inventories and due to the corona pandemic and now we can see these investments in the 2021 figures. We ended up in 2021 with a figure which is roughly EUR 22 million, but at the same time, we have to remember that it includes this TEX acquisition.
Now, we are estimating that during 2022, the investments will be at the level of EUR 18 to 20 million, but that's not, of course, including the new warehouse. And when we are looking at this new warehouse, it's roughly total EUR 60 million investment, which will happen during 2022-2024. But I have to say that looking from balance sheet point of view and from cash flow point of view, the plan is that we are selling after it is ready, this building, to investor and we are getting in 2024 this cash back to the company, which we invest now during the two years' time, and it's , of course, a little bit different from cash flow point of view.
Of course, it will be in our balance sheet due to this IFRS 16, but as said, from cash flow point of view, it's a bit different issue. That's shortly about the numbers, and I'll give a speech to Mika.
Thank you, Markku. About the year 2022, we're feeling quite confident regarding this year. We see that the inflation level will be higher, but on the other hand, Tokmanni is among the companies or the retailers with the best or let's say the lowest price image in Finland. It's a valuable asset in this situation for us, and we feel that it will also help us with this year and of course coming years. Another issue is that we will be seeing already the implementation of our strategy, where basically in two weeks' time there will be this Miny concept, and there will be also other new things based on our strategy that we will see this year and of course coming years.
Regarding this year, we forecast an increase in revenue and comparable EBIT in euros. However, of course, we have to say that the forecast is subject to uncertainties due to the development of pandemic and its effects during the two years' time. Pandemic has been affecting quite a lot with the retail scene, so obviously we have to take this into consideration. That's it. Thank you very much. Operator, now it's time for questions, and I will ask Markku to join me to discuss or answer the questions. Operator, please go ahead.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find it's answered before it's your turn to speak, you can dial zero two to cancel. Once again, that's zero one to ask a question or zero two if you need to cancel. So far, we have one question in the queue. That's from the line of Nicklas Skogman of Handelsbanken. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, hello. Thank you for taking my question.
Hi, Nicklas.
I have a couple, but first of all, I'd be very interested to hear some more detail around the guidance, in terms of what sort of like-for-like sales do you expect in that guidance or what like-for-like sales is baked into that guidance? Then also, is it fair to think that you basically then expect the gross margin to be flat this year considering the input cost inflation, or do you think there is upside there?
Markku, will you take the like-for-like question, and I can go with the gross margin?
Yeah. With like-for-like, we said that the revenue will grow, and of course , one part of that is like-for-like and certainly we are targeting to make some like-for-like growth also.
Regarding the gross margin, obviously as mentioned already, the buying prices are on a higher level due to, for example, the raw material price increases and then there are cost increases. I mean, both raw material prices and cost increases, of course, they are affecting everybody in retail. As a low-price retailer, we have to take the price levels very carefully into consideration. We basically, by the end of last year, already saw that we were the last one to keep the low price level. Obviously, this year we'll also monitor extremely carefully like what's happening with the market. It's very difficult to say exactly what's gonna be happening with the gross margin.
Obviously, we will take care of the company profitability, and gross margin is one of a key part with that. I have to be a little bit round with my answer, but I'm sure, Nicklas, you understand the situation. Obviously, we target to improve the profitability of the company according to our strategy. Gross margin level has a key part with that. We've kind of made the decision that we won't be the first ones with changing the prices, and we're happy with this situation and with this development. That's why we're also pretty confident with also, like, with the sales growth this year.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that. Secondly, I'm interested to hear about the TEX stores that you acquired in August. As I understand it, they are now all converted to the Tokmanni banner. Are they up and running operationally? And then, what's the early lessons learned from there?
Yeah, first of all, we're very happy that we have these two stores. The development, the sales growth has been very good. They are under Tokmanni banner at the moment. The concept, we're basically testing and building the concept at the moment. We see these kind of large scale stores also as online delivery hubs for the bigger cities. Obviously, this will take a little bit more time to work with this. The concept we see that there will be a lot of opportunities with this large scale. A t the moment, it's under Tokmanni banner, but the concept is not ready.
Already now we're very happy with the sales growth under Tokmanni banner. So we have very high hopes when the concept is ready.
All right. Sounds good. Finally, how much CapEx do you expect for the new warehouse in 2022 and 2023?
Sorry, I didn't hear. What is how many?
What's the cash? What's the CapEx that you expect to
Okay. Yeah
... to spend on the new warehouse in this year and next year?
Basically, it's as Mika already mentioned, it started the construction. Looking how the costs are coming, what we said, it's roughly straight line increase in our investments. Total investment EUR 60, calculating straight line, I would say that it is the best guesstimate at this moment.
Okay. Perfect. I think that's it for me. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Nicklas.
Thank you. Once again, if there are any further questions, please dial zero one on your telephone keypads now. Okay, there seems to be no further questions coming through, so I'll hand back to our speakers for the closing comments.
Okay. Thank you very much. We'll talk to you next time. I think it's in April or so. Very good. Thank you very much.
Thank you.