all of them. David Roche here from the FP&A team. We appreciate your participation in today’s Skechers conference call. I’m going to read the safe harbour declaration immediately. This document contains some information that may be considered forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the company’s views, plans, goals, projections, or expectations, as well as comments about future events or performance.
These forward-looking statements contain both known and unknown risks, such as the effects of inflation, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, difficult consumer retail markets in the United States, wars, acts of war, and other conflicts worldwide, and supply chain delays and disruptions generally and specifically as they relate to the retail industry and the company.
None of our forward-looking statements can guarantee that the actual future performance, results, or accomplishments that are stated or suggested by them will materialise. The company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including the most recent annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and all other reports filed with the SEC, as required by federal securities laws, are encouraged to be reviewed by users of forward-looking statements in order to obtain a description of all other material risk factors that could have an impact on the company’s operations, cash flows, and financial condition. I now want to pass the call along to John Vandemore, Chief Financial Officer, and David Weinberg, Chief Operating Officer of Skechers.
Many of our coworkers, partners, and clients are going through a very trying and unsettling moment right now, and we are staying in regular contact with them to give any consolation and support we can. With a new quarterly sales record of $2.025 billion, a robust gross margin of 52.9%, and profits per share of $0.93, our financial performance once again exceeded expectations. We expanded our product line in tandem with our ongoing success during the quarter, which we think will help us take a stronger stand in the worldwide footwear industry.
We extended our reach with fans of the iconic entertainer and garnered media interest when we published three capsules from our new cooperation with Snoop Dogg across North America, Europe, and numerous other important areas. Together with our partnerships with Martha Stewart and the Rolling Stones, our line featuring Snoop Dogg increased customer awareness and engagement with the Skechers brand. With boots designed for speed and control, we also introduced an exciting addition to our Skechers Performance division: Skechers Football, or football as it’s known in the US.
We hired Harry Kane, the captain of the England national football team and the top scorer for Bayern Munich, to help with this endeavour. Harry has played a key role in the product’s testing and introduction, as have a number of athletes from the Premier League and Women’s Super League.
Harry’s transfer to Bayern Munich sparked further buzz and made news when he scored and assisted in his first Bundesliga match while wearing Skechers footwear. Currently available in Europe online, at certain Skechers locations, and at major football specialised merchants are the SKX_01 and Skechers Razor.
We recently revealed the SKX Resagrip and SKX Float, as well as the addition of Skechers Basketball to our collection of technical performance footwear. We have teamed with two-time All-standout Julius Randle of the New York Knicks and local standout Terance Mann of the Los Angeles Clippers, who have both been practising and playing in Skechers Basketball sneakers leading up to the 2023 NBA season. This strategy is similar to how we approach football.
The biggest basketball markets in the world—China, the Philippines, and North America—will soon carry Skechers Basketball. In addition to our collection of coveted running, golf, and pickleball shoes, we extended our Skechers Performance business with the introduction of Skechers Football and Basketball, two of the biggest sports in the world. The growth of Skechers Performance footwear and our partnerships with Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart, the Rolling Stones, and other artists demonstrate our dedication to innovation and our goal of providing comfort, style, and quality in each and every pair when combined.
In addition to many more designs, we are always creating new interpretations of our popular and well-liked Skechers Hands-Free Slip-ins, Arch Fit, Max Cushioning, GOwalk, and street collections.
Whether they are performance- or lifestyle-related, all of our major projects have distinctive and focused marketing efforts to raise awareness and encourage purchases. This comprises well-liked sportsmen and brand advocates in their own nations, such as the recently signed former football player Fabio Cannavaro in Italy and the actress and TV personality [LilLi Co] in Japan. As we evaluate our achievements throughout the third quarter, we would want to emphasise that our aims and objectives have not altered.
Our goals are to improve the Skechers shopping experience, provide the world with the best comfort technology products, and run our business in a way that is more impactful, sustainable, and efficient than before. examining the outcomes of our third quarter. Our sales reached a record $2.025 billion, up 8% from the previous year.
Domestic sales climbed by 7%, while international sales increased by 9%, accounting for around 61% of our total sales. Our Direct-to-Consumer category had a 24% growth, which drove the gains. Our wholesale sales fell 1% during the quarter, mostly as a result of fewer distributor sales, which caused a 2% decline in foreign wholesale. When distributor sales are excluded, international wholesale increased by 5%. Due in large part to faster delivery in the third quarter, domestic wholesale performed far better than anticipated at flat to previous year. Positive indications from the domestic wholesale market, such as requests for early delivery, strong sell-throughs, higher inventory levels, and—above all—booking patterns for the first half of 2024, give us hope.
We are hopeful that, thanks to our amazing product portfolio, Domestic Wholesale will resume growing in 2024, despite a challenging year. Getting back to Direct-to-Consumer, our 24% growth was fueled by a 33% rise overseas, which was well received both online and in physical shops, and a 14% increase here, which was spearheaded by our stores. This comprises expansion of 24% in APAC, 61% in EMEA, and 17% in the Americas. Our Direct-to-Consumer business, accounting for 42% of our total sales, is a critical component of our long-term growth plan.
In order to increase demand and guarantee that we have a steady supply of new product, we are concentrating on streamlining operations and giving customers a more seamless experience. We launched 72 company-owned Skechers locations and shuttered 23 during the third quarter.
There were 43 new store openings in China, five large box shops in the US, five in Vietnam, four in South Korea, three in Chile, two in Hong Kong, two in France, one in Israel, and one in Canada, Colombia, and Peru. During that time, 324 third-party stores opened, including 282 in China and 11 in India. As a result, there were 3,399 third-party stores globally and 4,992 Skechers outlets overall.
We have launched three company-owned stores in the US and one each in the UK, Chile, and Colombia as of the current fourth quarter. For the balance of the year, we plan to open 45 to 55 company-owned locations throughout the globe. As a result of our careful inventory management, levels decreased by 24% from year-end 2022 while still sustaining growth and raising our gross margins.
Additionally, we have started shipping from our recently established distribution hubs in Chile and Canada. By the end of the year, we want to have operations running at our facilities in Panama and India. For additional information on our financial performance, I’d like to hand the call over to John at this time.
Skechers continues to have record-breaking sales in the quarter, exceeding $2 billion and expanding by 8%. This was largely due to the robust performance of our Direct-to-Consumer sector, which had double-digit growth across all markets. This ongoing momentum demonstrates the power of the Skechers brand on a global scale as well as the effectiveness of our long-term growth plan. Let’s now examine our financial performance for the third quarter. Sales to consumers increased by 24% annually to $850.4 million, mostly due to gains of 14% locally and 33% abroad. We observed significant outperformance on our foreign e-commerce platforms and sustained good performance in our retail outlets across the world.
We saw a slowdown in our domestic e-commerce channel as customers moved to our stores, which are once again at target inventory levels, which is consistent with what is happening around the industry.
Direct-to-Consumer sales are increasing as a result of our plan to improve our omnichannel capabilities and the ongoing demand for our cutting-edge items. At $1.17 billion, wholesale sales declined 1% on an annual basis. Because of the faster order scheduling, domestic sales were flat compared to the previous year, which was a far better outcome than we had anticipated.
International wholesale sales decreased by 2%, mostly as a result of lower sales to our distributor markets—which are very susceptible to order timing—and are particularly challenging to compare to the previous year. International wholesale sales increased by 5% when distributor sales were excluded. Overall, the Wholesale segment’s success throughout the quarter and the encouraging booking patterns we have seen for the first half of 2024 gave us hope.
Driven by growth across regions, the Americas’ third-quarter revenues rose 7% year over year to $1.02 billion. Growth in the area, especially in our retail locations, is still being driven by the strength of our direct-to-consumer business. Strong growth in direct-to-consumer sales drove a 2% year-over-year increase in EMEA sales to $480.4 million, almost offsetting a decline in sales to our wholesalers. When distributor sales are taken out of the calculation, EMEA had double-digit growth annually, which is especially indicative of the robust demand in our Direct-to-Consumer channels for our brand and creative product selection. Sales in Asia Pacific rose 14% to $527.1 million in the year prior thanks to strong sector growth in the majority of regions.
Sales increased by 18% in China as a result of double-digit growth across all channels. We are delighted by the consistent growth rates and encouraging retail trends we have observed, which have beyond our expectations, as this market continues to rebound. Gross margins for the third quarter increased by 590 basis points to 52.9% over the previous year. Reduced unit costs along with a favourable channel mix and pricing were the main drivers of the improvement. Operating expenditures climbed by 230 basis points to 42.4% of sales year over year, driven by higher investments in retail store expansion, demand generation, and enhanced distribution capabilities.
Selling expenses climbed by 80 basis points to 8.8% of sales year over year, mostly as a result of increased brand marketing expenditures made internationally, which included investments in brand development and consumer awareness-raising for our line of comfort technologies and recently introduced categories.
The percentage of sales attributed to general and administrative expenditures grew by 150 basis points to 33.6% in the last year. The development of our distribution infrastructure to enhance our global capabilities and volume-driven growth within our Direct-to-Consumer business were the main causes of the increased expenditures, which also included additional labour, rent, and depreciation.
Our operating margin for the quarter was 10.5%, up from 6.9% in the previous year, and our earnings from operations were $213.2 million, a 64% increase over the previous year. In comparison to the previous year, when our effective tax rate was 17.9%, it was 19.5% during the third quarter. With 156.2 million diluted shares in circulation, earnings per share increased by 69% to $0.93. With the exception of exceptional circumstances, this raises our year-to-date earnings per share to $2.93, exceeding all previous full-year results—a noteworthy achievement.
Now let’s look at our balance sheet. Thanks to better working capital management and operational efficiency, we concluded the quarter with $1.27 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and investments—a $591.5 million increase over the previous year. Inventory was $1.38 billion, down $397.3 million, or 22%, from the previous year when we were severely limited in our ability to handle orders at our distribution centres.
Compared to the previous year, we notably reduced inventory levels across the Americas and EMEA by 33%, or more than $400 million. As of the end of the quarter, accounts receivable were $929.4 million, largely unchanged from the previous year and consistent with our wholesale business. We feel that our present inventory levels are strong and well-positioned to satisfy demand over the important Christmas shopping period and early 2024.
$91.3 million was spent on capital projects during the quarter. Of that amount, $32.9 million went towards general corporate purposes, such as building our new corporate offices in the transportation sector, $25.6 million went towards investments in our retail locations and Direct-to-Consumer technologies, and $19.2 million went towards expanding our distribution network internationally. Our capital expenditures are directed towards advancing our strategic goals, which include developing our direct-to-consumer business and strengthening our brand’s international recognition.
We paid about $40 million to repurchase about 805,000 shares of our Class A common stock during the third quarter. In order to finance this liquidity, we continue to allocate our resources in accordance with our declared strategy and keep an impressive balance sheet.
We are confident in our brand’s strength worldwide and in the underlying customer demand for our unique product selection and attractive value offer. Now, let’s look at some guidance. However, given the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the macroeconomic landscape in general and the consumer spending environment in particular, our assessment for the remainder of the year is still cautious.
We project sales to be between $7.95 billion and $8.05 billion for the entire year, and net profits per share to be between $3.33 and $3.43. This indicates that net profits per diluted share will be between $0.40 and $0.50, while fourth-quarter revenues will fall between $1.91 billion and $2.01 billion. As we continue to invest in our strategic initiatives, we anticipate that our effective tax rate for the year will remain between 19% and 20%. In addition, we anticipate that total capital expenditures will fall between $300 million and $325 million.
Skechers increased our footwear offering to two of the biggest sports in the world and produced record-breaking quarterly sales. We think this strengthens the Skechers brand, sets us up for future success, and demonstrates our dedication to providing our customers with the highest calibre comfort and performance innovations. We acknowledge that the global political and economical climate had an influence on our company in the third quarter and anticipate that these challenges will persist throughout the rest of the year.
We think our wide distribution and ability to deliver our product more effectively will allow us to maintain our positive momentum as our values of comfort, style, innovation, and quality at an affordable price resonate with customers. We are well-positioned to reach our goal of $10 billion by 2026.
In actuality, Skechers caters to all lifestyles. Whether it’s on the basketball court, pickleball court, soccer field, golf course or trail—we are the brand that people turn to when they need comfortable, functional footwear for lifestyle and work. We are appreciative of the whole Skechers team for yet another productive quarter. We’re thrilled to close out the year on a high note, anticipating setting new annual sales records, achieving more noteworthy milestones, and accelerating growth in the years to come in a profitable and efficient manner.