Good morning and welcome to the Q1 2023 earnings conference call. All participants will be listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal an conference specialist by pressing Star and zero on your telephone keypad. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star and one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star and two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Håkan Lundstedt, Deputy CEO, and Per Hedblom, CFO. Please go ahead, gentlemen.
Thank you and good morning, everyone. We are happy to present the Q1 2023 results for Synsam Group. Let us start off with a summary. Net sales amounted to above SEK 1.4 billion with a very strong growth of 19%. We are continuing to drive a strong top line growth even in this challenging market. Also very positive to see that the growth margin has now stabilized, following up an improved Q4 compared to Q2 and Q3 of last year. We're now at a good level of 76.6%. The growth, very strong during the quarter as mentioned, and the underlying like-for-like growth, i.e. the stores that we had coming into 2022, during the quarter amounted to 14%.
We're also seeing that the activities that we started in the cost reduction and efficiency program is starting to create some results during the quarter, where the EBITDA margin now grew from below 20% in the last quarter to now above 22%. We're seeing that the subscription model, the broad offering that we have in the marketplace and our strong offering, customer reception in store is paying off also in this quarter. That's very good to see. If we go into a segment overview and deep dive a bit into each market, we can conclude that Sweden, who has been the engine, the largest market, is continuing to show very strong growth figures during the quarter.
Also that that growth is translated into a very strong EBITDA result during the quarter, up by almost 30% compared to last year. Denmark, which has been during the last year, struggling a bit from a very tough overall market condition, now growing into a very strong like-for-like and organic growth numbers. Also here, very good to see that that growth is translated into a improved EBITDA growing from 61 to SEK 79 million. Norway, also here we're seeing a strong growth, driven by an underlying strong double-digit like-for-like growth. Here we're not seeing that we're happy with the EBITDA development. We are taking action to improve that, both in terms of cost initiatives, but also a change in the leadership and management structure in that country.
We are seeing that a lot of the things that have been successful in other markets, for example, in Sweden, are being implemented in Norway, and with time, we expect that to also transfer into EBITDA growth. Finland, of course, driven by a strong growth in the store network, is massively growing during the quarter. Also here, despite having a lot of new stores in ramp-up mode, we're seeing that being translated into an earnings growth, fairly substantial in terms of percentage growth versus last year. All in all, three out of the four markets are showing both strong growth on top line and on the EBITDA. Norway, strong growth on top line, but some more actions are going to be needed to grow the EBITDA.
If we are looking into what is driving this growth across the markets, it is very much the same initiatives that we are focusing on also bearing fruit during Q1. It is, of course, the people meeting our customers in each and every one of our stores. It's the broad offering, ensuring that also in these turbulent times where consumers have less money to spend or they're more cautious, that we have offerings that are relevant. Depending on the size of the wallet, and also other needs that may change. We're seeing that the subscription again is attractive also in these turbulent times. Of course, also the store network which has been growing fairly substantially in the last years.
During the quarter, we also opened up stores. For those of you who've met us in big cities, you will recognize an experience like the one you're seeing here on the page. Big visibility, flagship stores, huge stores with an enormous range. True destinations where a lot of people travel from neighborhood to neighborhood to visit these stores. That is of course, you know, a fraction of our network. More importantly, also to put our growth numbers in terms of new stores into perspective is what we're looking like outside of the big cities and actually where a lot of the growth in terms of new stores are coming from. This picture is much more truthful in the sense that these are the newest stores we're opening.
Actually at the lower right, you're seeing Söderköping, a small city in Sweden, which is our latest new store addition. These stores, these places or villages or cities, they're not the major cities in the Nordics. They are cities where you will have 10 to 20,000 inhabitants and where these people have not been able to purchase or meet us in a store because we were not present there. This is really representative for our growth going forward. Also in the last couple of years, the majority are coming from these type of cities where there is no Synsam store in the nearby location. That's why we see a lot of white space going forward in these types of cities.
We can with our model, with the subscription, actually make a good business in these small cities where historically with a fairly similar offering to competitors, opticians would not open new stores in places like this. With the transformation of Synsam, we can actually compete and win in these cities. That's a somewhat of a deep dive, but relevant to understand our growth and how we can actually deliver almost 20% growth in a market like this. If we double click a bit into just some examples of these new stores, and look into both big city locations and also smaller cities.
You saw a couple of pages back Synsam Norrmalmstorg and Synsam Hötorget, two flagship stores in Stockholm, where Norrmalmstorg, 57 million SEK sales and SEK 17 million EBITDA is actually delivering 30% EBITDA. Hötorget is also a flagship store in Stockholm, opened almost 15 months ago, is selling SEK 28 million and EBITDA SEK 6 million. You're seeing the ramp up here, the effect, where the EBITDA for Hötorget is 20% roughly and Norrmalmstorg is at 30. If you look at some store like Synsam Täby, row five here, actually an expansion of an existing store in Täby centrum outside of the Stockholm city. We've been able to grow that business fairly substantially by expanding the store size and also here you're seeing a 40% plus EBITDA margin.
Going into the smaller cities, take for example Tierp in the middle here, selling for 11 and delivering SEK four million EBITDA, that's also close to 40% EBITDA. These smaller cities, even though they're not gonna reach SEK 50 million sales, they can be very, profitable. Also, the Roskilde example just being live for four months, selling for SEK five million and SEK one million EBITDA, actually 20% EBITDA in the first 4 months. fairly impressive I think from our end. With that, I'll leave it over to Per to go through the financial development.
Thank you, Håkan Lundstedt. We look at some details of development, first and foremost, organic growth 17.5%, like-for-like 14%. That means we are benefiting from our fast rollout on new stores. We had 37 new stores in 2022, not only because like-for-like growth, which excludes stores which have not been open 12 months, is 40%. That, we're really strong in this market. We also have had a stable gross margin compared to Q4. You may recall then, we had a somewhat lower gross margin in Q2 and Q3 last year due to cost expansion from vendors. We have acted upon that. The same time, we want to maintain our position as being value for money, providing value for money.
We believe we have a stable and good gross margin right now. OPEX-wise, we have been affected of course by the large number of store openings we made last year. 5 openings this year, by the way, it's Q1 so far. Since they are in the ramp-up phase, the new stores have somewhat higher OPEX to sales compared to the rest of the group during the ramp-up phase. Also, the production facility and Production and Innovation Center we established not so soon in August has impacted us. It's also in the ramp-up phase. If according to plan, it affected us negatively by SEK 6 million this quarter compared to 2 year ago on EBITDA level. That's according to our plan on how to ramp this facility up.
On the other hand, the cost and restructuring program has helped us. We would deliver 10, we said in Q1, and we are on plan. That has helped us keeping OPEX at a reasonable level and of course being positive during this quarter. One of our growth drivers is of course Synsam Lifestyle. Growing with 27% compared to Q1 last year. That is faster of course than the rest of the group, and growing strongly in all markets. Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Finland 66% actually, but that's also an effect of lot of new store openings.
As we have said before, and it has been proven, we believe that the subscription is even more relevant and to our customers in times of economic uncertainty, where the consumers can also distribute their cost over time. We have now, roughly a little bit more than 50% of sales is Lifestyle, last 12 months until Q1 2023. Not just sales, but also growing number of customers. We have far more than half million now, and we're grown by 31,000 in the last quarter only, and 123,000 in the last year since Q1 2022. We have also focused a lot on, as we've done before as well, on maintaining a low churn.
We're never satisfied, this is we believe a quite low churn of 2.70%. In line with the previous quarters. That's a figure we monitor very closely. Should not forget the contact lens subscription, which has been successful several years now, growing actually by 40% the LTM Q1 versus LTM a year ago. We have now SEK 255 million is contact lens subscription. A smaller, of course, business than Lifestyle, but growing very, very fast. It affects the gross margin to some extent with lower gross margin. When it grows compared to the rest of business, it's negative effect on gross margin, but it's a positive EBITDA contributor, we like lens subscription a lot.
Cost reduction program, as we have said before, should deliver SEK 102 million in 2023. We're on track and have now passed, of course. We're beyond Q1. Now we're in Q2. We're gonna deliver SEK 25 million. This cost and reduction program is proceeding according to plan. Longer term, if you look back a few years, we have grown significantly. The pandemic year, 2020, being exception, we grow then as well, positively. We now have 14% growth LTM Q1 compared to a year ago. We have reached SEK 5.5 billion in sales. Profit-wise, we LTM-wise, we are of course then, since we had a strong quarter, high EBITDA than 2022 LTM-wise.
12.41 now and a 22% gross margin, a little bit more, 20.3. We have a goal of 25% EBITDA margin, and that's what we're striving for. We now set aside the 22.3. The cost efficiency program, our growth and other initiatives, it has a goal of reaching 25%, which is our financial goal. That's important to underline. Cash flow-wise, it's been a strong cash flow quarter with SEK 257 million in cash flow from operating activities. Was negative last year. If you look just at the quarter, not comparing with last year, this was the effects before changes working capital, which helped us, and SEK 26 million in working capital and result in these SEK 257 million in cash flow for operating activities.
Furthermore, investment activities has been reduced somewhat compared to last year. We, I mean, we focus on course opening new stores. We're holding back a little bit now this quarter, H1 year regarding store openings and focusing a lot instead on upgrading and moving stores, which has the best. We do what is best for the EBITDA at each and what opportunities we have in each quarter. Now we see we should really upgrade and move more stores. We opened five in the quarter, but we moved seven more. This has had an impact positive on cash flow, less investments. Also, the production facility in Östersund, we're beyond the large investment phase, which was in 2022.
We will have some more investments, but on a lower level, so that production facility will not generate as much investments as before. This, in combination, help us also cash flow-wise compared to last year. We report in quarter IFRS 16, that means that leasing is put on the balance sheet and affect us regarding net debt. Regardless, we have a somewhat lower net debt than at year-end, SEK 2,919 million compared to SEK 2,969 million at year-end. This an increase since last year, which was SEK 2,635 million last year Q1. One hundred and fifty-three million of the increase since Q1 2022 is due to leasing liabilities, that is, rents for premises, basically.
We also, if you compare to last year, we have made dividends last year as well, which has effect, of course, the net debt. We have seen, though, that the leasing liabilities have been quite stable since New Year, actually declined with a few million from December to March, actually. These lease liabilities, for some... It can be useful sometimes to look at the pre-IFRS 16 way of looking at net debt, just to reduce, cancel out the impact of leasing. We see that, without regard to IFRS 16 leasing, we would have had SEK 2,028 million in net debt.
An increase since last year, but not as much as with leases. We also there, if you look at pre-IFRS 16, we would have reduced the net debt from SEK 2.073 billion December 2022 to SEK 2.028 billion in March 2023. Store network, we talked about that. So we opened five. We merged four stores, so the number of stores was reduced through that by four. Minus four plus five equals net one additional store during the quarter. We now have 539 stores throughout the Nordics. We have won an award. That's good for that our work is viewed well upon.
We're never satisfied, so it's a good thing to get an award, but we continue to develop our business, and we are never satisfied. With that, I hand over to Håkan again.
Thank you, Per. Okay, to summarize the quarter, we saw very strong organic growth and result growing. Actually the strongest ever growth in a Q1 for Synsam ever. Profitability measures EBITDA increased in three out of the four segments. We also have a plan that we are delivering on for improving Norway. The subscription business, as Per went through, growing faster than the overall company, so that continues to be a strong growth driver. Again, with a very low churn, so customers are generally happy in the program. We focus a lot on making sure that in these turbulent times for consumers, we do have relevant and affordable options and solutions for our customers. We're also seeing that the gross margin with the adjustments that we made in the past has stabilized.
We are able to manage the high inflation environment in that aspect. Also, we're focusing a lot internally on the cost and restructuring program to again manage the cost base in this environment. We are seeing that that is progressing according to plan and according to the targets that Per went through. Most importantly, all of this summarizing into seeing some growing market share, which with the model with low churn in the subscription program, we think is a very good proxy for further and future positive development for Synsam. With that, we conclude our presentation and open up for questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Gentlemen, there are no questions over the phone.
Okay. Unless there are any questions, Thank you for listening in. As we said, we think this was a strong quarter for Synsam. However, it's a tough market, and we're continuing to focus on our priorities every day. We look forward to meeting you next time. Thank you.
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.