You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: We are pleased to report strong financial results again this quarter, which reflects the consistent execution of our strategic priorities as the global markets continue to recover.
As we size up the business climate and how we are managing through the recovery, we can report the GPC team is generating positive momentum in both our sales and operating results.
And we are well positioned for both near and long-term growth.
Despite inflationary pressures, our margins reflect the success of our category management initiatives in cost control efforts which have offset these increases.
And finally, our strategic efforts with our global supplier partners have prevented significant shortfalls and our overall inventory levels allowing us to deliver quality customer service.
Taken a look at our third quarter financial results, total sales were 4.8 billion up 10% from last year and up 11% from Q3 of 2019.
We also produced our 16th consecutive quarter of gross margin expansion.
And we further improved our productivity and customer service capabilities with the ongoing execution of our operational initiatives.
As a result, segment profit increased 14% and our segment margin improved 30 basis points to 9.3%.
This represents our strongest margin in 2 decades and confirms our key initiatives are driving meaningful improvements.
Net income was 229 million or a $1.59 for diluted share and adjusted net income was 270 million or a $1.88 per share.
This is a 15% increase from 2020 and establishes a new record for GPC's quarterly earnings, so just an outstanding job by the GPC team.
Total sales for global automotive also set a new record at 3.2 billion for the quarter.
This represents an 8% increase from Q3 2020, and a 15% increase from Q3 of 2019.
On a comp basis, sales were up 5% from last year and up 7% on a two-year stack, with our strongest year-over-year automotive comps coming from the U.S. business.
In addition, from a cadence perspective, sales held up well through the quarter with the strongest average daily sales volume in each of our geographies coming in September.
The broad strength in our global automotive sales reflects a number of factors.
First, we're proud of our team's efforts to shore up our supply chain amid the difficult backdrop of product delays and logistics challenges.
Supply chain disruptions have been more substantial for U.S. automotive than in our international or industrial operations.
And we continue to work closely with our global suppliers to manage through these issues and ensure we have the right inventory available for our customers.
We are confident in the effectiveness of our global sourcing team and believe we are well-positioned in the industry.
We also continue to benefit from our key growth initiatives and market tailwinds.
Among our growth initiatives, our emphasis on innovative sales programs and sales force effectiveness are positively impacting commercial sales.
As examples, we recently finalized an exclusive partnership in the education space for technician recruitment with over 10,000 active tech students in the process of earning their credentials.
We're also excited that NAPA and AAA have executed an agreement for NAPA to be the exclusive auto parts supplier for the new AAA branded premium battery.
This battery will be available to all consumers with a focus on the over 62 million AAA cardholders and 5,400 approved auto repair centers.
We're also equipping our sales team with incremental resources, training and development, which have led to more productive, customer-facing calls.
In addition, our omni -channel investments continue to drive strong B2B and B2C digital sales.
And finally, the international rollout of the NAPA brand is driving significant growth in both our European and Asia-Pac operations.
So now turning to the market tailwinds, these macro drivers include the following: The ongoing reopening of the economy, and improving miles-driven which generate the need for more repairs and more maintenance.
A robust used car market, that is keeping more cars on the road longer.
And improving the aftermarket fundamentals, such as the growing and aging vehicle fleet, which will continue to benefit the industry over the long term.
Looking next at our automotive highlights by region, total U.S. sales were up 9%.
Comp sales increased 8% from last year and are up 5% on a 2 year stack.
In Canada, total sales were up 1% with comp sales essentially flat both year-over-year and on a two-year stack as lockdowns in major markets have slowed the recovery.
it's been encouraging to see these restrictions of easing of late, which should lead to stronger demand through the final 3 months of 2021.
Our U.S. sales were driven by strong demand for product categories such as exhaust, ride control, brakes, tools, and equipment which all outperformed.
In addition, both retail and commercial ticket and traffic counts were positive for the third consecutive quarter.
By customer segment, sales to both commercial and retail customers held strong, with DIFM sales outperforming DIY for the second straight quarter.
We do remain pleased, however, with the continued strength of our DIY business and believe we can drive additional growth with ongoing initiatives, such as B2C digital investments.
These include new search features, improving catalog functionality, and enhanced payment options, such as, buy now and pay later.
NAPA online, B2C sales continue to grow at a rapid pace, up over 40% from the third quarter, and up 2x from 2019.
The strength in commercial sales in the quarter was driven by several of the initiatives mentioned earlier, as well as the ongoing economic recovery in the U.S..
Sales to our major account partners were strongest with mid-teen growth, followed by sales for our NAPA AutoCare customers, which were up low double digits.
We would add that our NAPA AutoCare membership has surged with the reopening of markets and includes nearly 400 shop upgrades thus far in 2021.
So really terrific momentum for our premier independent garage program.
Rounding out our commercial segments, fleet, and government and other wholesale customers, also posted high single-digit growth for the quarter.
So really strong results across all of our commercial accounts.
These are encouraging trends and as we look ahead, we remain confident in our growth strategy and our key priorities to deliver customer value and ultimately sell more parts for more cars.
Our AAD team in Europe continue to perform well with total Q3 sales up 8%, were up a strong 23% on a two-year stack.
Comp sales increased 2.5% from last year and were up 14% on a 2-year stack.
While the UK and Benelux continue to stand out with really strong results, we were pleased with the solid results in each of our 7 European markets.
A reflection of stable market conditions and execution of our key sales initiatives.
These include the continued roll-out of the NAPA brand and ongoing emphasis on key account development, which are driving market share gains.
Now looking at our Asia-Pac business, total sales were up 2% from 2020 and up 18% on a 2-year stack.
Comp sales were up slightly from last year and up 15% on a 2-year stack.
With both commercial and retail sales up double-digit, driven by positive growth with both the Repco and NAPA brand.
We're really pleased with these results given the severe lock downs and the major markets of Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland during much of the quarter.
We're energized to see the reopening of these markets is finally getting underway, and we expect a surge in demand in the coming month.
So now let's discuss the Global Industrial segment.
Total sales for this segment were 1.6 billion, a strong 15% increase from last year, and a 5% increase from 2019.
Comp sales were up 13% and up 4% on a 2-year stack.
Through the quarter, average daily sales in July and August were in line with the second quarter, while our strongest results were in the month of September.
This quarter's positive momentum and industrial exceeded our expectations, which is a reflection of the great work by our motion team, and the strengthening of the industrial economy.
Both the PMI and industrial production were positive for the quarter and these indicators correlate closely to the overall healthy state of the industrial sales climate.
For the second consecutive quarter, we had positive sales growth across each of our industries served.
The industry's sectors that stood out with double-digit growth include our largest customers segment, equipment and machinery, as well as iron and steel, automotive, aggregate and cement, lumber and wood, fabricated metals, equipment rental, and oil and gas.
In addition, our newly added fulfillment and logistics industry experienced tremendous growth.
So as you can see, the current growth in our industrial business is quite broad across the markets we serve.
As we have conveyed in our prior calls and in our industrial Deep Dive event on September 15, our Motion business is a market leader in the industrial distribution space in North America and Australasia.
DMI team strive to be the preferred industrial solutions provider in the industries we serve.
We partner with the best manufacturers in the industry to provide Tier 1 brand, our customers demand.
In addition, we are constantly broadening our product offering, as well as our service capabilities to maximize our sales potential and drive market share gains in a very large and fragmented market.
With these fundamentals of our business in mind, our focus on continued profitable growth in this segment remained grounded in 5 key initiatives.
An omni -channel build-out to accelerate e-commerce growth and drive sales with new customers.
As examples, Motion.com and our inside sales center, which has grown from 15 to now, 35 reps in just 6 months continue to drive incremental sales from new motion customers.
The expansion of our industrial services and value-add solutions in areas such as equipment repair, conveyance, and automation.
Strategic M&A to generate significant growth in new markets and new products, and services as an industry consolidator.
Enhanced strategy to create a dynamic pricing environment that provides us a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
And lastly, network optimization and automation to further improve our operating efficiencies and productivity.
We're pleased with the progress from these initiatives, thus far, and we are excited for the opportunities ahead.
Another third quarter highlight, is the publication of our 2021 sustainability report update.
Our initiatives and activities over the past year have lead to continued progress toward our goal of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.
We've also taken steps to reduce the environmental footprint of our operations by reducing energy and emissions while increasing recycling opportunities across the globe.
2020 tested all of us and accentuated the importance of supporting our people and our communities.
We're really proud of our GPC teammates around the world for their resilience and contributions to further in our sustainability goals.
We invite you to learn more about these initiatives and our full report which you can find on the GPC website.
So in summary, we made great progress in several important areas during the third quarter.
And we're very pleased with the strong result in our automotive and industrial businesses, and the continued improvement in our sales and operations.
We could not be more proud of the GPC team.
It's always a proud moment to have the opportunity to showcase our global teams hard work, relentless customer service, and winning performance.
It's a challenging environment and teams have done an exceptional job to adjust and deliver results.
We continue to remain focused on our key pillars, including talent, sales effectiveness, digital supply chain, and emerging technology.
Teams are executing initiatives well and consider s strategic initiatives a central part of our operating cadence.
The teams have rigor around measurement and progress visibility.
We measure unique global initiatives and are ahead of our 2021 plan established at the beginning of the year.
As we execute our GPC strategic planning process for the upcoming year, we reflect on learn from and refine our priority initiative execution.
In addition through the year, we share best practices around the globe for common strategies to help us continuously learn and improve as one GPC team.
While our geographies and end markets are diverse, we share similar GPC global initiatives, all designed to deliver profitable growth in excess of market growth, operating leverage, and free cash flow.
Despite a challenging environment, we're pleased to see more normal team activities and customer activities starting to be possible in most of our geographies.
We recently had the opportunity to meet in person with the U.S. Automotive Executive and Field Management team in Atlanta.
We listened to field feedback, shared performance trends, enjoyed team camaraderie, introduced new talent, and collaborated on strategic priorities for the upcoming year.
Similarly, approximately 70 of our motion Executive and field leaders from around the country, recently had the chance to meet in person for the first time since early 2020, to detail business performance and review strategic initiatives priorities.
In Europe, our AAG executive leadership team recently met together in person for the first time in nearly 2 years.
Our Atlanta-based GPC and U.S. NAPA field support teams also hosted an employee appreciation event for 400 teammates, that included a well-received visit from our celebrity NAPA racing teammates, including Chase Elliott.
We're cautiously optimistic our teams in Australasia will soon be able to exit lockdown in November and also return to a more normal in-person routine.
At each of these events, it's energizing to see the positive attitudes, strong team alignment, and visible excitement about our GPC momentum and vision.
It's also reassuring to see our differentiated GPC culture up close and intact.
Paul and I have also had the opportunity to spend time in person with customers and vendors this quarter.
These discussions are critically important as we share our growth visions, listen to feedback, and explore ways to deepen our strategic partnership.
These conversations not only reinforce our GPC core strategic priorities, talent, sales effectiveness, digital and tech, supply chain and emerging tech; b but also always affirm the unique customer value propositions across our GPC businesses.
Growth, technology solutions, supply chain excellence, products and technical expertise, and long-standing local relationships are always key themes.
As an example, we recently visited with an industrial customer who is enjoying exponential growth.
Our Motion teammates co-locate associates at the customer facility to provide real-time expertise on the plant floor to ensure the facility is operating to its potential.
Part of the discussions with this customer explored the use of embedded technology solutions that will make customer ordering from motion easier and faster.
We're building plans to triple the size of this customer relationship over the next few years.
In our customer discussions or recent common theme is the supply chain challenges that face all Company.
We explained, we believe our global scale in-country resources, data and analytics, investments in our supply chain, strategic inventory actions, and proactive daily team approach, position as to navigate the headwinds relative to others.
We're in constant discussion with highest levels of our supplier partners, many of which for whom GPC represents a large and important global customer.
Over the past quarter, we've held numerous top-to-top meetings with our global executive leadership and vendor partners to review progress and jointly problems solved.
It's a challenging environment, but our global teams and partners are proactively acting each day to navigate it.
Turning to our focus on talent, we recently completed an end-to-end strategic review of our global GPC employee value proposition, and talent initiatives.
This disciplined work ensures we have the right capabilities aligned to our current and future business strategies.
The work also ensures we're constantly striving to be an employer of choice in this dynamic and competitive talent environment.
Around the globe, we continue to take deliberate actions to lead, recognize and ensure the well-being of our teams.
For example, we recently streamlined recruiting processes to move faster to attract talent, introduce new wellness incentives, improved holiday schedules, enhance vacation eligibility and flexibility, invested in healthcare costs to reduce the burden on our associates, improve tuition reimbursement programs, and relaxed dress code policies to name a few.
And talent's our most important advantage, we'll always work to take care of and invest in our people.
We also continued to execute well against our broader digital and technology initiatives.
During the quarter, the teams have made exciting progress under leadership of our new Chief Information and Digital Officer, Naveen Krishna.
We're focused on building high performing teams that engineered technology to solve customers problems at scale.
In addition, we'll optimize human and financial resources to focus on the most critical and impactful activities.
Our emerging technology initiatives, including electric vehicles and related technologies also continue to advance.
The global teams are partnering well to execute a disciplined and coordinated strategy.
We're pleased with the team momentum and will continue to dedicate resources to this exciting effort.
Last, the teams are executing our M&A strategy with discipline.
For example, we added several store groups to our North American and Europe an automotive network to increase local market density and we announced the acquisition of J&S Automotive Distributors, a leading automotive parts distributor in Ireland.
This new geography represents the 15th country in which GPC operates.
In addition, we were pleased to recently sign a definitive agreement to acquire AutoAccessoriesGarage, a leading U.S. based digital platform specializing in automotive accessories.
This strategic digital acquisition adds new capabilities and accelerates a strategic product category for the U.S. automotive team.
The acquisition pipeline is active and we remain disciplined to prioritize transactions we believe meet all of our GPC strategic and financial criterion.
Overall, we are really pleased with the record -setting team performance.
Despite uncontrollable headwind, the teams continue to rally together each day to service customers and deliver performance.
We look forward to working hard to close the year strong and build on our solid momentum as we move forward into 2022.
We are very pleased with our third quarter financial performance and we look forward to sharing a few additional details with you.
Recapping revenues, total GPC sales were 4.8 billion in the third quarter, up 10%.
Gross margin improved to 35.5%, an increase of 50 basis points from 35%, last year.
Our improvement in gross margin was primarily driven by the increase in supplier incentives due to improved volumes and the positive impact of strategic category management initiatives.
In the third quarter, we had continued pricing activity with our suppliers as anticipated, resulting in additional product cost inflation.
Our team was positioned to address these increases with effective pricing and global sourcing strategies and price inflation improve neutral to gross margin.
On a total Company basis, we estimate a 3% inflationary impact on Q3 sales, consisting of 3.5% inflation in global automotive, and 1% to 2% in industrial.
Based on current trends, we expect to see additional price inflation in the fourth quarter, and we will utilize our strategies to protect our gross margin as appropriate.
Our total adjusted operating and non-operating expenses were 1.35 billion in the third quarter, up 11% from 2020 and at 28% of sales.
The increase from last year is due to several factors, including the prior-year benefit of approximately 60 million and temporary savings related to the pandemic.
Additionally, our third quarter expenses reflect the increase in variable costs on the 450 million in additional year-over-year sales, as well as cost pressures in areas such as wages, Incentive compensation flight, rent, and health insurance.
We continue to execute on our ongoing initiatives to control expenses and improve our operations.
While pleased with our progress, thus far, we see room for further improvement in the quarters ahead.
Our total segment profit in the third quarter was 447 million up 14%.
Our segment profit margin was 9.3% compared to 9% last year, a 30 basis point year-over-year improvement, and up a 130 basis points from 2019.
So we're really pleased with the continued improvement and the excellent work by our team.
Looking ahead, we raised our margin expectations for the full year and we currently expect segment profit margin to improve 40 to 50 basis points from 2020 or 80 to 90 basis points from 2019.
This would be our strongest full year margin in more than 20 years.
Our tax rate for the third quarter was 24.9% on an adjusted basis, up from 23.4% last year, with the increase in rate primarily related to income mix shift to higher tax jurisdictions.
Our third quarter net income from continuing operations was 229 million, with diluted earnings per share of a $1.59.
Our adjusted net income was 270 million or a $1.88 per diluted share, which compares to 237 million or a $1.63 per adjusted diluted share in the prior year, a 15% increase.
So turning to our third quarter results by segment, our total automotive revenue was 3.2 billion up 8% from last year.
Our segment profit increased 6% to 281 million with profit margin as solid 8.8%.
While down 20 basis points from 2020 due to the prior-year benefit of temporary savings, this represents an 80 basis point margin improvement over 2019 and reflects the underlying progress in our operations.
For the 9 months profit margin is 8.6% up 80 basis points from 2020 and up 90 basis points from 2019, driven primarily by margin expansion in our U.S. and European operations.
Our industrial sales were 1.6 billion up 15% from 2020.
Segment profit of a 166 million was up a strong 32% from a year ago and profit margin improved to a 10.3%.
This is a 140 basis points from 2020 and up 220 basis points from 2019 and the first double-digit margin for industrial since the Fourth Quarter of 2006.
Year-to-date profit margin for this segment is 9.4% up a 120 basis points from 2020 and up a 150 basis points from 2019.
So this group is executing very well and posting excellent operating results through the industrial recovery.
So now, let's turn our comments to the balance sheet.
At September 30th, total accounts receivable is down 3.5%, primarily due to the timing of the 300 million in accounts receivables sold in October of 2020.
Inventory was up 10% in line with our sales increase and a reflection of our commitment to having the right parts, in the right place, at the right time.
Accounts payable increased 20% from last year due to the increase in inventory and favorable payment terms with certain suppliers.
Our AP to inventory ratio improved to 129% from 118% last year.
Our total debt is 2.4 billion down 474 million or 16% from September of last year, and down 245 million from December 31 of 2020.
We closed the third quarter with available liquidity of 2.4 billion and our total debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to 1.5 times from 2.2 times last year.
So our teams continue to do an outstanding job of optimizing our working capital and our capital structure.
We also continue to generate strong cash flow with another 300 million in cash from operations in the third quarter and 1 billion for the 9 months.
For the full year.
We expect our earnings growth and working capital to drive 1.2 billion to 1.4 billion in cash from operations.
And free cash flow of 950 million to 1.15 billion.
Our key priorities for cash remain the reinvestment in our businesses through capital expenditures, M&A, share repurchases and the dividend.
For the 9 months we have invested a 138 million in capital expenditures, and we have plans for additional investments to drive organic growth and improve efficiencies and productivity in our operations through the balance of the year.
In addition, we have used approximately a 143 million in cash for strategic acquisitions to accelerate growth.
These investments includes several automotive store groups across our markets, included in the entry into Ireland discussed earlier.
We continue to generate a robust pipeline of additional strategic and bolt-on acquisitions in both automotive and industrial segments.
This would include Auto Accessories Garage as mentioned before, which we expect to close in the fourth quarter.
Consistent with our long-standing dividend policy, we have also paid a total cash dividend of more than 349 million to our shareholders through the 9 months.
The Company has paid a dividend every year since going public in 1948 and has increased the dividend for 65 consecutive years.
And as part of our share repurchase program, we have also been active with share buybacks dating back to 1994.
In the third quarter, we used a $100 million to purchase 800,000 shares, and year-to-date we have used 284 million to purchase 2.2 million shares.
The Company is currently authorized to repurchase up to 12.2 million additional shares, and we expect to remain active in this program in the quarters ahead.
We expect total sales for 2021 to be in the range of +12 to +13%, an increase from our previous guidance of +10 to +12%.
As usual, this excludes the benefit of any unannounced future acquisitions.
By business, we are guiding to +14 to +15 total sales growth for the Automotive segment, an increase from +11 to +13% and a total sales increase of +10 to +11% for the industrial segment.
An increase + plus 6% to +8% On the earnings side, we're raising our guidance for adjusted diluted earnings per share to a range of $6.60 to $6.65, which is up 25% to 26% from 2020.
This represents an increase from our previous guidance of $6.20 to $6.35.
So we're encouraged by the strength in our financial results for the third quarter and the nine months.
And we enter the fourth quarter focused on our initiatives to meet or exceed our outlook for the year.
We look forward to reporting on our financial performance for the fourth quarter in full year in February.
As we close out another strong quarter, we are pleased with our progress in driving profitable growth, strong cash flow, and shareholder We attribute the positive momentum in our business to our global team work and disciplined focus across all of our operations.
Our team has confidence in the strategic plans we have put in place to capture long-term growth and margin expansion.
Our strategic plans combined with an exceptional balance sheet position GPC with the financial strength and flexibility to pursue strategic growth opportunities via investments at organic and acquisitive growth.
While also returning capital to shareholders through the dividend and share repurchases.
So as we look ahead, we are encouraged to see the impact of the global pandemic subsiding.
while the fundamentals of our two global businesses remained rock solid.
Our GPC teams around the world are stepping up under challenging circumstances and taking great care of our customers.

user
q3 earnings per share $1.59 from continuing operations.
q3 sales rose 10.3 percent to $4.8 billion.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.88 from continuing operations.
raises 2021 outlook for revenue growth, diluted eps, adjusted diluted earnings per share and free cash flow.
sees 2021 total sales growth 12% to 13%.
sees 2021 adjusted diluted earnings per share $6.60 to $6.65.
sees 2021 free cash flow $950 million to $1.15 billion.

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