Latest Headlines – Page 118
-
Article
Adlens will launch a premium line
After establishing itself in the new category of variable-focus spectacles through more affordable products, Adlens is planning to come out in the next few months with a new series of premium branded eyeglasses based on the same technology, but with tiny dials that will make it almost invisible. They will ...
-
Article
Spy launches a “Happy Lens” while results improve
With many companies introducing “blue light” features in their lenses these days, this American producer of sunglasses and sports eyewear got a lot interest at the recent Vision Expo show in New York around a new patent-pending lens which, it claims, makes the wearer feel good because its filters let ...
-
Article
Google and Sony compete on smart eyeglasses
Google has confirmed that there will be a prescription solution for its soon-to-be-released Google Glass, the new product whose “enhanced reality” features are being revealed bit by bit, generating massive publicity around it. According to Google, the modular design of Google Glass will allow wearers to add frames and lenses ...
-
Article
CooperVision makes an interesting acquisition
In an unusual development, CooperVision has acquired Websystem3, a web-based software company in California. The takeover will allow CVI to offer eye doctors a tool to communicate with their patients automatically over the internet to schedule appointments and for other purposes. CVI expects to improve its gross margins this year ...
-
Article
Safilens cures dry eye syndrome
After three years of research, Safilens has found the technical solution to eliminate problems such as dry eye syndrome for users of monthly contact lenses. The company showcased Open 30 at the last two eyewear shows in Munich and Milan. The product consists of a lens made of silicon ...
-
Article
Coastal raises equity
Coastal Contacts, the Canadian-based online retailer of contact lenses and prescription frames, has closed a public offering of three million shares, as well as the partial exercise of an over-allotment option, allowing the company to raise gross proceeds of $20,682,600. It had initially targeted a minimum of $18 million.The company ...
-
Article
Essilor launches the Vision Impact Institute
Essilor has announced the establishment of the Vision Impact Institute, an organization dedicated to studying the socioeconomic aspects related to vision issues. The institute will work to raise awareness among opinion leaders, public organizations and eyesight professionals about the socioeconomic consequences of impaired vision and the solutions that could be deployed. It ...
-
Article
The Vision Council wants to raise $20 to 25 million for U.S. campaign
The Vision Council announced details of its plans for a major national public awareness campaign in the U.S., intended to stimulate vision correction, at the International Vision Expo East show in New York. Officials of the Vision Council indicated that they were willing to discuss ways in which a similar ...
-
Article
Optrafair will become an annual event
Optrafair, the traditional British eyewear show, has been held for over 40 years in Birmingham every other year in the spring, and its next session will take place as scheduled on April 13-15. The Federation of Manufacturing Opticians (FMO), which sponsors the trade show, has insisted on the location, arguing ...
-
Article
Essilor posts 19% revenue growth in 2012
Essilor saw its overall revenues increase by 19.1 percent to €4,989 million against 2011. The growth on a comparable basis was by 5.2 percent. The management is budgeting organic growth of 7 percent in 2013, driven in particular by emerging markets and by another massive campaign in North America, worth ...
-
Article
Hoya improves sales and profits markedly
Operations at the company's superlaboratory for eyeglass lenses in Thailand have been completely restored. This led Hoya Vision Care to recover around 90 percent of the sales level it had reached before the flooding on the global basis, and to raise its global sales of lenses by 40 percent in ...
-
Article
PFO Global acquires Optima
Optima Inc. is a U.S.-based subsidiary of a Japanese maker of high-index lenses which has developed a patented casting process for polycarbonate lenses, called Resolution, that makes them free of distortions and birefringence. However, it has sold its products mostly to independent opticians in the U.S, where polycarbonate makes up ...
-
Article
Fielmann continues to improve
Germany's largest optical retail chain continued to raise its domestic market share in 2012. In a market that is estimated to have declined by 1 percent, Fielmann boosted the volume of spectacles sold by 4.9 percent to 7.1 million pairs, and the first few weeks of 2013 give it reason ...
-
Article
Salmoiraghi launches an innovative website
Salmoiraghi & Viganò, the leading Italian optical retail chain, has launched a new institutional website featuring an innovative service for “virtual glass fitting.” Visitors can “try on” the new collections of the Italian optical chain from a virtual mirror online. It is the first service of this kind to be offered ...
-
Article
Germany's optical industry grows mostly abroad
Thomas Truckenbrod, president of the German opticians' association, ZVA, reported at the Opti ‘13 trade show in Munich that the German ophthalmic optics market recorded stable sales in 2012, but with a decline of about 3 percent in the number of frames sold in the stores. Higher average prices offset ...
-
Article
Mister Spex grows by more than 50%
Mister Spex, the leading German online retailer, increased sales by more than 50 percent from €17 million in 2011 to €26 million in 2012. While Mister Spex recorded 300,000 clients at the end of 2011, the number of customers increased to 500,000 at the end of the last year. These ...
-
Article
Online sales of contact lenses stir U.K. after reports
The U.K. contact lens community is in an uproar after three articles within a month in The Sun newspaper told of lens wearers losing an eye. An executive from the industry, the British Contact Lens Association and the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers are all getting involved in the commotion.The ...
-
Article
Danish and U.S. companies merge
Bellinger House, the Danish eyewear company, has merged with Los Angeles-based Entourage of 7.Bellinger House, founded in 2003 by Claus Bellinger Diederichsen and his wife, Malene, sells the Bellinger, Blac and Kamaeleon brands. Its headquarters, including design, logistics, accounting, customer service, production and marketing, is based in Aarhus, Denmark. Its ...
-
Article
A.T. Cross may concentrate on eyewear
A.T. Cross Company is looking at strategic alternatives for its Cross Accessory division, home of the 257-year-old Cross pen business. C.W. Downer & Company will advise the company on possibilities. No definite decision has been made about the fate of the division, and no timetable has been set for action. ...
-
Article
Optical Business Barometer sees another uptick
Independent eye care professionals in the U.S. are feeling more positive about their business, according to the latest Optical Business Barometer from Jobson Research. In January, the overall index was 3.8, compared with 3.7 in December, and matching the 3.8 of January 2012. The scale goes from 1, which is ...
