Q3 organic growth was over 6% as we drove innovation across our market-leading businesses, with margins of 20% and earnings of $2.45 per share.
Geographically, growth in the quarter was led by the Americas, up 7%, with the United States up 6%.
Growth in APAC was 6%, with China up 3%, and Japan up 6%, while EMEA grew 4%.
Looking at our performance through nine months, we have executed well and delivered 11% organic growth with all business groups above 10%, along with margins of 22% and earnings of $7.81 per share.
Today, we are updating full-year expectations for organic growth to a range of 8% to 9% and earnings per share to a range of $9.70 to $9.90, reflecting our results to date and ongoing supply chain challenges.
For example, ocean freight costs have more than doubled over the last year and the number of containers on the water is up 70% because of port congestion.
On any given day, we are working with more than 300 suppliers with critical constraints.
With manufacturing sites in 35 countries around the world and as a $5 billion annual exporter out of the United States, we are working tirelessly to serve our customers.
We are moving product in different ways, such as expanding our use of rail, shipping out of more flexible ports, and increasing our use of charter flights by over 40%, while deploying new capabilities to better track our flow of goods in real time.
In home improvement, for example, we have multiple $0.5 billion-plus franchises that keep families healthier and more productive, including our fast-growing Command damage-free hanging solutions and Filtrete home filtration products.
Auto electrification sales are up 40% year to date on the strength of new innovations including advanced display technologies as automobiles become the next consumer electronic device.
In healthcare, the biopharma market is growing more than 10% annually, with our business up more than 30% year to date as 3M Science has supported the unprecedented pace of advancement over the past 18 months to develop therapeutics and vaccines and scale manufacturing to help address the pandemic.
In sustainability, we have achieved 50% renewable electricity use in our operations, four years ahead of our timeline, on our way to 100%.
In Zwijndrecht, Belgium, we are working with government officials to resolve issues related to PFAS and we'll invest up to EUR 125 million over the next three years to improve water quality around our factory.
Sales were $8.9 billion, up 7.1% year on year, or an increase of 6.3% on an organic basis.
Operating income was $1.8 billion, down 6%, with operating margins of 20%, coming in at the top end of the range, which we had previously communicated in mid-September.
Third-quarter earnings per share were $2.45, which was similar to last year.
Combined, these impacts lowered operating margins by 1.4 percentage points and earnings per share by $0.02 year on year.
As part of this program, we incurred a pre-tax restructuring charge of $50 million in the third quarter.
As expected, increases in selling price gained traction as we went through the quarter, with year-on-year selling prices up 140 basis points in Q3 versus 10 basis points in Q2.
Thus, third-quarter net selling price and raw materials performance reduced both operating margins and earnings by 130 basis points and $0.12 per share, respectively versus Q3 last year.
Next, foreign currency net of hedging impacts reduced margins 20 basis points and earnings by $0.01 per share.
First, lower other expenses resulted in an $0.08 earnings benefit.
Consistent with prior quarters, non-operating pension was a $0.05 benefit, along with a $0.02 benefit from net interest due to a proactive early redemption of debt.
Secondly, a lower tax rate versus last year provided a $0.09 benefit to earnings per share.
Our year-to-date tax rate is 18.8%.
Therefore, we now expect our full-year tax rate in the range of 18.5% to 19.5% versus 20% to 21% previously.
And finally, average diluted shares outstanding increased 1% versus Q3 last year, lowering per share earnings by $0.02.
Third quarter adjusted free cash flow of $1.5 billion was down 29% year on year, with conversion of 107%.
Adjusted free cash flow year to date was $4.5 billion, which was similar to last year, with free cash flow conversion of 98%.
Third-quarter capital expenditures were $343 million and $1 billion year to date.
For the full year, we now expect capex investments in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion versus being at the low end of our prior range of $1.8 billion to $2 billion.
During the quarter, we returned $1.4 billion to shareholders through the combination of cash dividends of $856 million and share repurchases of $527 million.
Year to date, we have returned $3.8 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases.
I will start with our safety and industrial business, which posted organic growth of 6.1% year on year in the third quarter.
First, our personal safety business declined 4% organically, up against a 40% pandemic-driven comparison a year ago.
Third-quarter disposable respirator sales decreased 7% organically year on year and 15% sequentially.
Safety and industrial's third-quarter operating income was $620 million, down 20% versus last year.
Operating margins were 19.2%, down 650 basis points year on year as leverage on sales growth was more than offset by ongoing increases in raw materials, logistics, and litigation-related costs, along with manufacturing productivity impacts.
Moving to transportation and electronics, which grew 5.1% organically despite the continued impact of semiconductor supply chain constraints.
Our auto OEM business was flat year on year, compared to the 20% decline in global car and light truck builds.
Third-quarter operating income was $465 million, down 9% year on year.
Operating margins were 19%, down 320 basis points year on year, driven by strong leverage on sales growth, which was more than offset by increases in raw materials and logistics costs along with manufacturing productivity impacts.
Turning to our healthcare business, which delivered third-quarter organic sales growth of 3.3%.
Our medical solutions business declined low-single digits organically, impacted by the continued decline in demand for disposable respirators along with the pace of hospital elective procedure volumes, which came in at the low end of industry expectations of 90% to 95% for the quarter.
Health care's third-quarter operating income was $529 million, up 7% year on year.
Operating margins were 23.5%, up 70 basis points.
Lastly, third-quarter organic growth for our Consumer business was 7.6% year on year with continued strong sell-in and sell-out trends across most retail channels.
Consumer's operating income was $332 million, down 3% year on year.
Operating margins were 21.7%, down 260 basis points as increased cost for raw materials, logistics and outsourced hard goods manufacturing more than offset leverage from sales growth.
We now project our full-year organic growth to be in the range of 8% to 9% versus a prior range of 6% to 9%.
With respect to earnings, we anticipate a range of $9.70 to $9.90 per share as compared to a prior range of $9.70 to $10.10.
Therefore, we are maintaining our free cash flow conversion range of 90% to 100%.
To date, we have incurred over $240 million in pre-tax restructuring charges and anticipate an additional $25 million to $50 million in Q4.
We now expect total pre-tax restructuring charges of $300 million to $325 million versus our original expectations of $250 million to $300 million.
We expect the remaining actions under this program to be initiated by the first quarter of 2022.

Summary:
Q3 organic growth was over 6% as we drove innovation across our market-leading businesses, with margins of 20% and earnings of $2.45 per share.
Looking at our performance through nine months, we have executed well and delivered 11% organic growth with all business groups above 10%, along with margins of 22% and earnings of $7.81 per share.
Today, we are updating full-year expectations for organic growth to a range of 8% to 9% and earnings per share to a range of $9.70 to $9.90, reflecting our results to date and ongoing supply chain challenges.
Sales were $8.9 billion, up 7.1% year on year, or an increase of 6.3% on an organic basis.
Third-quarter earnings per share were $2.45, which was similar to last year.
For the full year, we now expect capex investments in the range of $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion versus being at the low end of our prior range of $1.8 billion to $2 billion.
With respect to earnings, we anticipate a range of $9.70 to $9.90 per share as compared to a prior range of $9.70 to $10.10.
We expect the remaining actions under this program to be initiated by the first quarter of 2022.