Revenues increased 13% for the quarter versus last year and adjusted operating profit reached $70 million delivering an adjusted operating margin of almost 11% and adjusted earnings per share of $0.62 versus $0.58 last year and $0.22 in the pre-pandemic third quarter.
Our Board's commitment is evident with the previously announced plans to our unused $200 million share repurchase authorization.
We have aggressive internal targets to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and supply chain emissions by 30% by 2030 and to achieve net zero by 2050.
Our Europe segment performed well positively impacted by a shift in business to LLY due to the timing of inventory receipts, and I am proud to say that we closed the spring-summer order book for our European wholesale business this quarter with orders up 12% to LLY.
Regarding our store fleet, we opened 55 new stores so far this year, most of which were pop-ups with new gas and factory stores, but also specialty conference like accessories, activewear, Marciano, kids and our Gen Z concept Guess Originals.
In connection with the elevation of our brand, we embarked on our remodeling program that will ultimately touch roughly 630 stores.
Including new stores, this would represent 80% of our entire fleet in Europe and North America by the end of next year.
Our e-commerce business continues to grow with sales in North America and Europe in the third quarter, up 15% to last year and 37% to LLY.
Regarding customer analytics, we have nearly 6 million contactable customers in our databases in North America and Europe and have added 1 million new customers this year so far.
Over 85% of this customers provide us with their mobile phone number and over 20% with their home address.
As part of the Customer 360 projects, we recently launched our CRM platform, which gives us a 360 view of our customer and enable us to improve the way we segment and personalize our communication marketing and promotional strategies.
Our work to consolidate our vendors going from over 500 to around 135 as well as the execution of the global line which reduce SKUs by over 40% has enabled us to leverage higher volumes to push through production.
We are also moving roughly 10% of our apparel sourcing to locations that are closer to the final distribution to get out and tighten costs as well as exploring alternative shipping methods like to change to move product faster between China and Europe and we are certainly investing in air transportation when it makes sense to get our product in time to sell.
This year, we have gone through above at 7% usage of air freight versus a prior average of about 3%.
Importantly, we have been successful in increasing prices with AURs up 15% to 20% alongside our innovation and product quality to mitigate the impact this cost increases are having on our profitability.
As of the end of Q3, we had over a $100 million of inventory in transit representing almost 25% of our total ownership compared to 12% in pre-pandemic Q3.
We are expanding the use of direct mail and catalog pieces planning to send out 1.2 million pieces during the quarter as well as increasing our investment in digital marketing to drive traffic to our sites.
When you put it altogether, we see top line growing in excess of 20% in the fourth quarter period versus last year and operating profit exceeding $100 million.
Looking past this year, we remain confident in our longer-term goals to reach revenue of $2.8 billion and operating margins of 12% in fiscal year 2024.
In closing, let me just say that I could not be prouder of what our team has accomplished in the last 2.5 years since I've been back.
We now expect to reach an 11% operating margin this year, double our margin of two years ago and well ahead of our initial plans.
Third quarter revenues were $643 million, up 13% to last year and up 4% compared to LLY.
Overall, the 4% revenue increased to pre-pandemic LLY with the result of growth in our European business driven by wholesale including shift to sales from Q2 to Q3 as well as e-commerce.
Excluding sales from the over 170 stores that we have closed since the pandemic, Q3 revenue would have been up 9% to LLY.
And let me just remind you that these stores are accretive to operating profit by about $20 million on a run rate basis.
In Americas Retail, revenues were up 30% versus last year and down 5% versus LLY, better than our expectations.
Again this quarter, the declines for LLY was driven entirely by permanent store closures which are worth roughly 7% of sales.
So we're constantly US and Canada were up 2% in constant currency versus LLY.
Same-store sales in the US remain positive despite continued negative traffic trends with positive conversion and AUR growth over 20%.
I'm happy to report that sales in our over 70 stores in Canada have improved substantially driven by a material increase in traffic in that region as the pandemic there is beginning to wane.
Operating margin in Q3 was over 14% versus less than 1% in the prior two years and operating profit is 15 times what it was in pre-pandemic LLY even on lower sales, what an incredible business transformation.
In Europe, revenues were up 3% versus last year and 19% versus LLY.
Store comps for Europe were down 13% in constant currency versus LLY, a 7% improvement from down 20% last quarter as a result of improved traffic and continued increases in AURs.
In Asia, revenue was down 8% in the last year and 31% to LLY, nearly half of this decline was driven by the permanent store closures.
Our store comps were down 25% in constant currency versus LLY, 5% better than Q2 with negative sales comps in South Korea and China more moderate than other areas in the region.
Our Americas wholesale sales were up 64% to last year and 5% to LLY driven by higher sales in the US and licensing revenue continues to outperform, up 37% to last year and 20% to LLY in Q3 driven by strong performance in shoes, perfumes and watches.
Total company gross margin for the quarter was 45.7% more than 800 basis points higher than two years ago.
Our product margin increased 340 basis points this quarter versus LLY primarily as a result of lower promotions and higher IMU, partially offset by business mix and increased freight, which was worth about 100 basis points this quarter.
Occupancy rates increased 500 basis points driven by business mix, lower rents and permanently closed stores.
Adjusted SG&A for the quarter was $223 million compared to $206 million two years ago.
Adjusted operating profit for the third quarter was $70 million versus $55 million last year and $23 million two years ago.
This is a 27% increase to last year and an over 200% increase to pre-pandemic levels.
We ended the third quarter with $391 million in cash, $26 million higher than last year's sales at the end of Q3.
Our cash balance was impacted by an $80 million US tax payments made in connection with the IP transfer that Carlos mentioned.
We expect to receive this amount in Switzerland over the next 5 to 10 years.
Inventories were $482 million, up 23% in US dollars and 22% in constant currency versus last year and down 8% in constant currency to LLY.
Year-to-date capital expenditures were $41 million up from $12 million in the prior year, but below pre-pandemic levels, mainly driven by investments in new stores, remodels and technology.
Free cash flow for the first three quarters of the year was negative $41 million driven down by the $80 million US tax payments that I previously mentioned.
Excluding the tax payments, our free cash flow would have been positive $39 million.
As you recall, last quarter we expanded our share repurchase program to $200 million.
Today, we announced that our Board of Directors has approved a 100% increase in our quarterly dividend from $0.1125 to $0.225.
As a reminder, our dividend was announced earlier [Phonetic] before we executed the $300 million convertible notes to fund share repurchases in April of 2019.
In terms of profit, adjusted operating margin for the fourth quarter is expected to be about 100 basis points better than LLY.
Gross margin is expected to expand by around by 500 basis points to LLY driven primarily by business mix, lower occupancy, lower promotions and improved IMU.
We anticipate that the adjusted SG&A rate will be up around 400 basis points as cost savings are offset by business mix, investments in labor and higher incentive-based compensation.
For the year, we now expect revenue to be down in the low single digits versus LLY and adjusted operating margin to reach just over 11% for the year versus 5.6% in LLY.
This represents a doubling of adjusted operating margin with margin expansion of over 550 basis points to our pre-pandemic business despite a lower revenue base.
To break it down for you, this margin expansion comes from about 250 basis points of lower promotional activity, 200 basis points of IMU improvement, 150 basis points of lower occupancy expense and 200 basis points of channel mix and onetime benefits.
This was partially offset by about 150 basis points of higher inbound freight and 100 basis points of increases in G&A, mostly higher performance-based compensation for this year.

Summary:
Revenues increased 13% for the quarter versus last year and adjusted operating profit reached $70 million delivering an adjusted operating margin of almost 11% and adjusted earnings per share of $0.62 versus $0.58 last year and $0.22 in the pre-pandemic third quarter.
Third quarter revenues were $643 million, up 13% to last year and up 4% compared to LLY.