All Article articles – Page 125
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Luxottica books higher-than-expected sales
Luxottica beat market expectations by reporting a 12.1 percent increase in fourth-quarter sales to €1,509 million ina preliminary statement yesterday. On a similar currency basis, turnover rose by 11.2 percent. Revenues were driven by the group's operations in North America and emerging markets. Market expectations were for quarterly sales to ...
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MPG launches an expanded Red Bull Racing line
The Michael Pachleitner Group (MPG) launched its first lines of prescription frames and sports eyewear under the Red Bull Racing Eyewear brand at the recent Opti fair in Munich. The functional sports eyewear range, which includes goggles, will also be shown at Ispo, the big international sports trade show starting ...
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Luxottica extends working hours at Italian distribution center
Luxottica has reached an agreement with 600 workers and trade unions to extend the opening hours of its Italian distribution center in Sedico to 5 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The center was previously operational from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. With the new organization, the staff will work seven and ...
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Vuarnet goes into children’s, optical and retail
While preparing the launch of a line of prescription frames under its name later this year, the French brand of sunglasses is starting a partnership with a brand of children's clothing, Finger in the Nose. A line of co-branded children's sunglasses will be available at €114 a pair at selected ...
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Italy: Optical Master Club joins Vision Group
Vision Group has acquired Optical Master Club (OMC), another Italian group of opticians with some 100 members in various regions, but mainly in the center of Italy. The acquisition takes Vision Group practically to a total of 1,500 members.The deal is that Vision Group will acquire shares in Optical Master ...
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European software majors come together
The six largest European producers of information technology for opticians and optometrists have formed the Optic Software Vendors Association (OSVA) with a goal of creating and promoting stable and up-to-date IT standards for the European optical market. The companies involved are Bludata, Cristallin, IPRO, Ocuco, Retail Planit and Temáticam, which ...
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Essilor expands on four continents
Essilor International has announced new acquisitions in seven countries over the past few days. Notably, it reported today two partnerships agreements in China that will represent additional combined annual revenues of about €22 million. The French giant has acquired a majority stake in Jiangsu Youli Optics Co., a manufacturer of ...
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Costa and Native grow strongly
A.T. Cross, the American group whose optical division markets the Costa and Native lines of sunglasses, is targeting $83 million in revenues and $15 million in operating income before amortization (Ebitda) in 2012 for its optical group, whose sales have been growing at a compound average annual rate of 24 ...
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Slightly decreasing sales in Germany
Thomas Truckenbrod, president of the German opticians' association, ZVA, reported at the Opti '12 trade show in Munich that the German ophthalmic optics market recorded an increase in sales of about 2 percent in 2011, but with a decline of about 1.5 percent in the number of frames sold in ...
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Spectaris offers insights into European trends
Last autumn's edition of Spectaris' annual report showed that France remained the biggest European importer of ophthalmic optics products in 2010, with an increase in the value of its imports of 11 percent to €1.02 billion. The second biggest European importer was Germany, with an import value of €906 million, ...
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MPG is looking for new growth opportunities
The recently restructured Michael Pachleitner Group (MPG) is open for new investments and strategic alliances, following a rather unique development model that has turned it from a small family enterprise, called Uniopt, to a significant global player in the areas of sunglasses, frames, lenses and jewelry.In the areas of sunglasses ...
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Hoya is quickly healing its wounds
Several important European clients – especially big optical retail chains and buying groups – have completely suspended all relations with Hoya, waiting for its operations to become normal again before placing orders with the Japanese company, whose facilities in Thailand have been idled by floodwaters since last October. Other clients ...
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New licenses for Marchon and L’Amy
Under a new licensing agreement, Marchon will manufacture and distribute sun and ophthalmic eyewear for Chloé, one of the luxury fashion brands of the Richemont group. The first products from the new partnership will hit Chloé boutiques and department, specialty and optical stores in September.Marchon takes over the license from ...
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Spectacles drive Coastal Contacts’s 24% sales increase
Coastal Contacts, a Canadian-based company that claims to be the world's largest online optical retail store, raised its total sales by 24 percent to 50.1 million Canadian dollars (€30.2m-$48.5m) in the fourth quarter ended Oct. 31. While its sales of contact lenses rose by 12 percent to C$38.8 million (€28.8-$37.5m) ...
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Essilor acquires Stylemark
Interestingly, Essilor International's acquisition of Stylemark, a leading U.S.-based distributor and licensee of non-prescription readers and sunglasses, was announced last week shortly after the sale by that company of its premium Polaroid Eyewear sunglass business to Safilo, which we reported in the last issue. This seems to confirm that Essilor ...
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Brazil is big in eye care
Strategy With Vision, the European market research consultancy, has recently carried out a study of the optical market in Brazil. The key finding of the study was that the per capita spending on vision care is the highest there of all the emerging markets researched by SWV to date, including ...
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Rimless frames and the U.K. see the biggest drops in Europe
The economic uncertainty is affecting sales of prescription frames in Europe, judging from some figures supplied to us by GfK and taken from its retail panel. It has hit particularly hard opticians in the U.K., whose sales of this type of product fell by an estimated 5 percent in volume ...
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Luxottica buys Brazil’s Tecnol
Luxottica has agreed to buy Tecnol in a deal valuing the leading Brazilian eyewear company at about €110 million. The acquisition enables Luxottica to reinforce its presence in a market with significant growth potential, where the Italian group has been already growing at an annual rate of more than 10 ...
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Vision care sales decline at Zeiss
Carl Zeiss Vision's revenues dropped by 3.6 percent to €849 million in the financial year ended last Sept. 30, as compared to €881 million in the previous year, and following structural changes, the number of its full-time employees declined by 14.2 percent to 9,941 at the end of the period, ...
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Sagnières is confirmed chairman and CEO at Essilor
The widely expected promotion of Hubert Sagnières to the post of chairman and chief executive of Essilor International will take place from next Jan. 2. It will mark the end of a two-year transition period where the previous chairman and CEO, Xavier Fontanet, relinquished one of the two functions.On Jan. ...
