Welcome to the Synsam Q3 2022 presentation. Afterwards, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Today, I'm pleased to present Deputy CEO and Chief Innovation Officer Martin Daniels and CFO Per Hedblom. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We will go through the Q3 results and, of course, also open up for Q&A after the presentation. To start with, let us give you a summary of how the quarter has evolved and where we are at the moment after nine months of 2022. To start with, we continue to take market share in a slightly weaker market environment. We have a growth of above 12% during the quarter. We see that our ongoing investments into the business is affecting the results slightly during the quarter. We have a organic growth of 9.6% during the quarter and an EBITDA margin of 22.7%.
We see that the gross margin during the quarter has been affected by both a consumer pattern which is changing towards in terms of the mix, but also an increase in purchasing costs from a number of suppliers. Measures are already implemented, and we are continuously monitoring this to make sure we stay ahead of this trend. What's very exciting to see is that the subscription business continues to be strong also in an environment which is a bit more uncertain for consumers. We have a 23% growth during the quarter. If we go down a bit in the P&L, we see that on the OpEx side, the shortage of opticians, which we've mentioned in the recent quarters, has affected the OpEx.
The situation has stabilized during the quarter compared to previous quarters. The investments into the business that we're doing are affecting the results with SEK 34 million during the quarter, and Per will come back to that later on during the presentation. In this changing consumer environment, we see that the recycling outlet format and also the Synsam mega store format continues to fulfill a role in the market where more customers are looking at the price tag compared to before. We also see that the recent launch of our own production site has benefits that we've just seen the first examples of. The first collection being produced in Sweden, Jämte, has been launched into the Swedish market and has become an immediate success in terms of sales.
It is actually the best performing collection that we have launched to date. That is promising and also for the future will continue to strengthen the business. If we look a bit outside of Synsam and to the market that we're active in, we see a slightly changing situation. Of course, the electricity cost, inflation, rents increasing, interest rates increasing, that is, of course, affecting consumers. The sort of competition in the market for consumers is getting more and more challenging. We see that competitors and players in the optical retail space in the Nordics are even more campaign-driven than before. Getting people into stores generally more campaign-driven.
We also see that consumers tend to trade down, choose cheaper alternatives on frames and also lenses, and that they're a bit more careful. The process of buying a pair of spectacles is slightly longer than it has been in the past, and more consumers are taking a bit more time to consider their options and go home and think about it before they actually make the purchase. Promising though is that in these times, we see that consumers are increasingly choosing our subscription model, which creates certainty on the price level and which is also flexible in the sense that it can be adopted to different cost levels depending on an individual's needs and opportunities.
Underlying, again, important to emphasize that vision correction and eye health continues to be a fairly must-have purchase that it is something that consumers need to engage in on an ongoing basis. That provides some stability in the volume and the demand, but we're seeing that consumers are changing a bit the product mix that they are buying compared to before. That is sort of the market that we are seeing right now, and that's sort of emerged in the recent quarters and we also believe that this will continue to affect the business in the coming quarters also into 2023. Coming back to subscription which is an important part of our offering and one which continues to be in demand among consumers.
Again, we're reaching a 23% growth during the quarter and we're seeing that the growth is seen across all four markets, with some differences in growth rates depending on primarily the competitive intensity, which is more aggressive in Denmark and on the other end of the spectrum for us, we're seeing Finland growing by almost 70%. Of course, driven by a growth in number of stores. The reason why we see a continued growth in this offering is that the subscription still is the best way for customers to take care of their vision correction need. The stability of the cost, the monthly fee, is something that a lot of consumers value in these times.
In terms of numbers, you're seeing it's closing into half of the net sales in the last 12 months, Q3. Two sort of underlying key performance indicators for us when it comes to subscription is of course the intake of new subscribers less the churn i.e. the active customer base which you see on the left-hand side continues to grow. We added 29,000 active subscribers during the quarter and we are now close to 480,000 active subscribers. On the right-hand side we also see the churn rate continues to be stable and actually below Q4, Q1 and slightly higher than the Q2. Still on a manageable level for us.
Besides the lifestyle subscription which can include spectacles, sunglasses, sports glasses, reading glasses and contact lenses, we also have the pure contact lens subscription which is also continuing to grow. This is again a category which is traditionally a very online-based category where half of the sales typically in the market are online. We have as we've talked about before been able to recapture and retake a lot of market share in this space with a unique subscription model combining the benefits of online speed, convenience, price points with the value of our store network in which the contact lens subscribers are allowed to come into the stores, talk to the optician, get advice and so on.
That combination continues to be successful and driving growth year on year and also important when we look at our overall gross margin is to note that this business is at a slightly lower gross margin than the Synsam overall. This type of mix that we're seeing between categories, spectacles, contact lenses and what you see here on the next slide also online are affecting the overall total gross margin of the business. Similarly here on the online category we also see continued strong growth during the quarter LTM of +43% and that is of course a good business but at a slightly lower gross margin compared to the overall.
As we mentioned during the last quarter we held back on new store rollouts during Q3 and now during Q4 from October to mid-November we have opened five new stores and you see them here in Finland and Norway and this is an important driver for us to continue to gain market share and to maintain the growth that is a slightly more difficult in this market to achieve but it's a core focus for us and that's why we're doing this and we're seeing that it helps us to attract more customers and become a better performer over time. It's also of course fun to see that our work is being recognized.
In October, we were given an award for best retail company of the year across all retail sectors by Retail Awards in Sweden. It's a short time to look back and be happy for what's been achieved. We are never satisfied and the journey and the focus on continuing to building the business continues. To summarize, before we go into the financials in which Per will deep dive on the numbers. Some points we want to send across and emphasize the market is slightly weaker from a consumer standpoint, but Synsam is continuing to invest, and we are seeing that we're taking market share across all four geographies.
That's an important strategic decision for us, where the second point, subscription continues to be very strong. That not only creates value for consumers, but also creates a better customer relationship for us and also a longer relationship with the low churn rates that we're seeing. That's also strategically important to grow that base of active subscribers. The shortage of our positions has affected the quarter. It has been stabilized, but it is something that we've mentioned in the recent past, and that's an important topic for us to continue to work with.
We see also that in this weaker consumer sentiment times that the recycling outlet and mega store formats fulfill an important role, and that's why these form the majority of the rollout of new stores that we're seeing. Their own production, which has negatively affected the result during the quarter, is also strategically important investment and initiative that we're driving to strengthen the offering and profitability in the long term. Again, Jämte launched in September in Sweden is the best performing collection that we have launched in all of Synsam's history. It's a great sort of first start, and then we're gonna continue to grow that collection both under the Jämte brand and other brands that we're taking back from Asia.
I also want to leave you with the assessment that the market that we're seeing, the consumer market, slightly weaker, is something that we expect will continue to be present during the coming quarters. Therefore, we are not changing our strategy, but that is the new market that we are active in. With that, I leave it over to Per to go through the financial development.
Thank you, Martin. As mentioned, the quarter showed strong sales over 12% nominally and organic 9.6%. Like-for-like, very important measure as well, 5.5% growth. We're not just dependent on new stores, we grow in our existing stores as well. Gross margin, I will get back to the drivers behind that in a few slides, and lower profitability EBITA margin wise. Earnings per share an increase since last year, 0.53 SEK per share. If you look at the nine-month development, also there we see a very strong growth, 14%. Like-for-like, 7.7%. The gross margin and the EBITA margin then affected also by the third quarter. We are 23.9% EBITA margin for the first nine months.
Gross margin 75.4% and earnings per share 1.84 SEK compared to just a year ago. I will continue with the details regarding the Q3 financial overview and to give some more flavor on the result. Martin mentioned the investments, not the CapEx, but the operational activities we're performing in order to ensure our long-term growth has affected the EBITA with SEK 34 million in the quarter and SEK 82 million in the first nine months. This is a combination of the Production and Innovation Center, which started in August, but where we have communicated a negative EBITA impact as we start ramp up this facility.
We have the new stores, and although we didn't open new stores in the third quarter, we have more than 30 if you combine the fourth quarter last year, first quarter this year, and second quarter this year. During a ramp-up phase, the effect profitability. We have our new concept is like Nordic Hearing. Also important for long-term growth, but an impact on EBITA or just margin-wise, but in total. Important to me to mention, we have increased our marketing efforts. The marketing cost has increased. This is also part of these effects I'm talking about, which affect the OpEx. Additionally, opticians has affected us. This is what we have communicated before.
The lack of opticians in the market can lead to either that you don't sell or it can lead to increased costs. We have chosen the latter to be there for our customers and to ensure that we have enough opticians, and then we have to take in external support as well. We have ensured capacity, but at an increased cost, like we've done other quarters, by the way. It has affected us. Whereas inflation starts to bite to some extent also. That also impacts various parts of the OpEx, part of the income statement. If you look at the gross margin, there we have a combination of mix effect and increased purchase prices.
The mix effect is something that, you know, you can't really control as a company always, because it's basically what the customers choose to buy. This quarter, the choice of the customers has affected our total mix of products and therefore the gross margin. I can mention that the mix effect in this quarter, on the one hand, you have to some extent increased sales of the contact lens and online, which Martin mentioned, which is a good thing in itself because gives us extra sales and extra EBTA in absolute terms, but it has lower gross margin than the rest of our business. That is an impact. Furthermore, when people in these times think harder about where they spend their money, to some extent it affects what kind of glass quality they buy.
If they buy cheaper lenses, the mix between lenses where we have a high gross margin and frames affect us with a lower gross margin in total. Furthermore, if we continue to increase our sales in Lifestyle, the subscription program, when we get a lot of new customers, that has an effect on gross margin. These are the mix effects. The purchase prices, we have been able to withstand increases from suppliers regarding COGS. I'm talking about COGS, goods for resale, for a number of quarters. In the third quarter, inflation has started to affect our vendors and ourselves as well. That has impacted us.
We have taken measures to adjust for this, but such measures have a certain lag before they are implemented. They are the adjustments from our side have been implemented in Q4 and are implemented as we speak. We got a sort of an impact in Q3 from increased purchase prices, not fully matched by adjustments. These are the main explanations behind the increased OpEx and lower gross margin. If you continue with the long term, very short, long-term financial development, then looking a few years back, we have grown significantly. We continue to grow. We are significantly above SEK 5.1 billion in net sales last twelve months.
EBTA is basically somewhat higher than it was in 2021, full year. LTM SEK 1,277 million in EBTA. However, as you mentioned, lower EBTA margin as a result of the factors I mentioned briefly. If we go then quickly into cash flow and financial position, what I want to mention is that we have SEK 214 million in cash flow from operating activities, 252 last year, third quarter, so about SEK 200 million. We continue to invest in our store network and other parts of our business. However, if you look, we do invest in increased stock levels inventory, because we believe that to have the products in the stores available for the customers is something that drives sales.
We have sorted a lot of new stores, and we have stocked up to ensure that there is availability in all stores. Also as an effect of the global environment, what's happening in the world around us, and we want to ensure that we don't get disruptions supply chain-wise. Inventory has increased. However, the net debt has increased to SEK 2,864 million compared to a little bit more than SEK 2.5 billion last year. This is mainly due to three factors. One is the increase of lease liabilities because this is IFRS 16. When we get a lot of new premises, IFRS 16 debt from the contracts we have with landlords give an impact on net debt.
These liabilities increased SEK 176 million during the nine-month period from January to September this year. We also paid a dividend, as you may recall, SEK 255 million, and then we had currency effects since we have certain loans in other currencies than SEK. Since IFRS 16 includes then the lease liabilities, as you know, we have this time stripped out just to give a better view of where we would have been if IFRS 16 would not have been in place. Then we would have had a net debt of SEK 1.99 billion compared to SEK 1.909 billion. A certain increase, but much less since we wouldn't, would not have then been affected by the leases.
We are in IFRS 16, and this is just to give you a view of how much leases impact net debt. We can continue with the segment's results. We'll go quite quickly through these. Sweden, strong organic or strong like-for-like, but lower EBITDA in Q3 and for the first nine months. This is very much to do with the same effects we have seen in the group in total. We need to ensure capacity from opticians. We have a lot of new stores in Sweden, and we have also spent on marketing to ensure that we deliver on growth. Increased market spend as well. These are the main factors behind the increased OpEx leading to somewhat low profitability in Sweden.
Denmark, there we have a very tough competitive environment. Three point two percent growth in Q3, 7.1% organic growth in first nine months. Positive like-for-like, important, and somewhat increased profitability in Denmark. Norway, slower growth than Sweden, but the same type of impacts on OpEx and profitability as in Sweden. In addition, some new stores, not as many as in Sweden, but some new stores, and then increased marketing costs in order to drive growth. Finland is a special case. Over 40% organic growth in Q3 and first nine months. By the way, also very strong like-for-like, over 11%, both Q3 and first nine months. It's not just new stores, although these have affected the total sales, of course, but also like-for-like, important.
Although we have increased significantly, now 45 stores in Finland, no new stores in the third quarter, by the way. We have increased EBITDA and are at the same level as last year regarding nine, first nine months, even though we have added a lot of new stores in Finland. I will, by that, go into the store overview, and this is, as we said, we wouldn't open new stores in the third quarter, and we didn't. Same number of stores. However, we have started five new stores already in Q4, and the plan for Q4 is to increase totally in Q4 by 11-14 new stores. We have a goal, as you may recall, of 90 new stores, 2021-2023 in total.
You could average 30 per year, but, 90 is the total. Now when we didn't have any openings in third quarter, we will have even more than in the fourth quarter. That's basically what my last point. We go into then Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We'll now have a brief pause while questions are added to the queue. Our first question comes from Carnegie. Your line is now open.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Thank you. Yeah, my question relates to the cost structure. You mentioned here in the report that you had taken measures to compensate for increased costs. Can you specify what type of measures you have taken and what kind of impact can we expect from these measures? Thank you.
Yeah. We of course work on two fronts here. One is adjustment of prices. We need to have value for money offering, but in these times, we have needed to adjust prices. That's one of the measures to compensate for increased costs. That's one measure with impact, starting in Q4. Of course, when we have financial targets that we in the medium term should adhere to. We're also looking at our cost structure in the OpEx part of our income statement. That is an ongoing process where a surgical method where we look at what type of costs do not really add to sales long term.
That's an ongoing process, and we can't really quantify that. It's more like an ongoing operation that we even more and more cost-focused from now on. These are the measures and I wish I could quantify them for you. We have the only thing I can say is that with the price adjustments, we have tried the best possible way to compensate for price increases. There's a limit to how much we can adjust because we need to be value for money. That's very important also in these times when customers are thinking very hard about where to spend their money.
Also, if you look at the mix effect, that's not something we can control, so we can't really price adjust for the mix effect. Not able to quantify, unfortunately, but that's the answer I have for that question.
All right. Thank you.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Once again, we will have a brief pause while questions are added to the queue. We seem to have no further questions on the phone line, so I'll hand back to the speakers.
Okay. Thanks for listening in. As we've said, we are seeing a slightly more competitive market. The investments we're doing, the initiatives we're doing on strengthening the business continues to be our focus, and we look forward to meeting you again next time. Thank you.