All Article articles – Page 113
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Optic 2000 gains market share
Optic 2000 reported direct revenues of €417 million for 2012, or 4.4 percent better than in the previous year. By the end of 2012, the French cooperative serviced a total of 1,944 stores, most of which trade under the Optic 2000, Lissac and Audio 2000 banners. It also supplied 225 ...
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Top 50 U.S. retailers generate sales of more than $8 billion
According to Vision Monday's exclusive report on the Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers, the country's 50 largest chains drove the growth of the American eyewear market in 2012. With sales of $8,064.9 million, they raised their combined market share to a record of 26.6 percent.Luxottica leads the list for the ...
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Valeant will take over Bausch+Lomb for $8.7 billion
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International has sealed a definitive agreement for the acquisition of Bausch+Lomb for $8.7 billion. The Candian company will pay $4.5 billion in cash to the current owners, an investor group headed by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, and another $4.2 billion in cash to reduce Bausch+Lomb's current ...
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Higher profits at Alliance Boots
The Boots Opticians chain in the U.K. raised its sales by 0.9 percent to £335 million (€394.1m-$514.7m) in the 12 months ended last March 31, but on a same-store basis, sales grew by 2.7 percent at corporate stores thanks to a broader range of attractive frames, clearer pricing and improved ...
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Hoya Vision Care is back to normal
In commenting on Hoya Corporation's financial results for the quarter and financial year ended last March 31, officials of the Japanese group declared that its sales of eyeglass lenses have pretty much gone back to the levels that they had reached before the October 2011 floods in Thailand, which paralyzed ...
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Essilor will license the Polaroid brand
Essilor International plans to introduce a new line of corrective polarized sun lenses at the end of this year for the mainstream sunglass market, making it gradually available through its laboratories around the world. Carrying the well-known Polaroid brand name, it will be positioned below its existing premium line of ...
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First European consumer study gives new insights
Some striking consumption patterns have emerged across Europe from the first of a series of quarterly consumer surveys conducted by The Vision Council (TVC) in five major European countries, using many of the same criteria that it has adopted for its periodical VisionWatch surveys of the U.S. market, refining the ...
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Cutler and Gross opens shop in New York
Cutler and Gross has opened its first U.S. store and showroom in New York, joining the six other stores that the British producer of luxury heritage eyewear has in London, Hong Kong and Teheran. The eighth stores will open shortly in the British city of Bath.Located at 110 Mercer Street ...
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Safilo’s financial outlook improves
Safilo was on the brink of bankruptcy about three years ago, but the Italian company has seen a dramatic improvement in its financial situation under the stewardship of its chief executive, Roberto Vedovotto, and thanks to the arrival of a new key shareholder, the Dutch Hal group.On May 24, Moody's ...
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Are French opticians overcharging?
A fierce debate has started in France about the prices charged by opticians after a series of statements made by Marc Simoncini, who launched an e-commerce operation in the sector a couple of years ago, called Sensee. Simoncini, who is very well known in France as the founder of Meetic, ...
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Modo does well with recycled glasses
With 900,000 pairs sold since the full launch of this project two years ago, after some technical adjustments, Modo Eyewear's ecological line has come to represent one-third of the American company's turnover in Europe and one-quarter in the U.S. Under this campaign, consumers are told that Modo will plant a ...
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Italia Independent plans to go public
This relatively young company is going against the trend in the eyewear sector deciding to float on the Milan's Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Like its London equivalent, the Italian AIM enables small and medium enterprises to get listed on the Italian stock exchange with a simplified procedure. Italia Independent's decision ...
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Lower profits for Hal’s optical retail segment
GrandVision and other optical retail companies owned by Hal booked a 4.1 percent increase in revenues to €610 million in the first quarter of 2013, as compared to the same period a year ago, but excluding currency exchange variations and a €27 million boost from acquisitions, their sales declined by ...
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Spy keeps improving
Spy Optic continued to improve its results in the first quarter ended last March 31. Its net losses were reduced to $721,000 in the period from $2,608,000 in the same quarter a year ago, while sales increased by 10.6 percent to $9,008,000. However, the company's sales outside North America were ...
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Ocuco questions Seiko invention
Ocuco, the Irish-based software company that took over Gerber Coburn's Innovations Lab software six years ago, has asked the U.S. Patent Office to re-examine a patent registered by Seiko Epson (No. 6,019,470), which claims to have invented back-surface progressive lenses. The patent was issued in February 2000.The request for re-examination ...
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Luxottica sees Armani sales reaching €130 million this year
Luxottica said that the launch of the three Armani brands it snatched from Safilo has been excellent and that the labels are expected to generate more or less €130 million in revenues this year, and about 10 percent of that amount was achieved in the first quarter. The brands' impact ...
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Europe records mixed CL sales in 2012
In 2012, the value of soft contact lens sales to eye care professionals (ECP) across a combined 31 European countries reached €1,396 million, up by 1.7 percent from the previous year, according to the most recent census released by Euromcontact. However, the data collected and assessed in the study for ...
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U.S. index shows improving ratings among independents
The U.S. Optical Business Barometer (OBB), a monthly gauge of general business attitudes among independent ECPs surveyed by Jobson Optical Research, rose to an index 3.8 in March, as compared to 3.7 in February, reflecting a positive attitude among independent eye care professionals. However, the March 2013 rating was lower ...
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Safilo offsets Armani loss, makes more profits
Safilo managed to offset the loss of the Armani brands in the first quarter of 2013 thanks to organic growth of its remaining brands and the addition of Polaroid Eyewear. Sales rose by 2.9 percent to €297.0 million in the period from €288.7 million a year earlier. The top line ...
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Big temporary drop in Essilor’s growth
A number of factors led Essilor International to book a sales increase of only 0.5 percent to €1,276.3 million in the first quarter ended March 31, in contrast with the strong year-on-year sales increases that it usually reports. On a comparable basis, the turnover was actually flat as the slight ...
