Latest Headlines – Page 129
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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. ...
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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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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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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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Progress and new strategies at Fedon
Fedon continues to progress after the difficulties experienced over the past four years. The Italian company, which produces eyewear cases for the major players in the industry, closed the first nine months of this year with sales up by 5.8 percent year on year, reaching a level of €41.9 million ...
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CooperVision plans to invest in China
Commenting on excellent results for the fourth quarter and the financial year ended last Oct. 31, which showed increased profitability and market share gains, the management of CooperVision (CVI) indicated that it plans to invest about $5 million this year to develop its business in China.In the latest quarter, CVI's ...
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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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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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Armani drops Safilo and switches to Luxottica
Safilo admitted last week that it has lost the battle to retain the key A/X Armani Exchange, Emporio Armani and Giorgio Armani licenses expiring at the end of 2012. The Italian fashion group is now ready to re-embrace its former licensee, Luxottica, with which it previously had a 15-year partnership.In ...
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Safilo acquires Polaroid Eyewear
A couple of days after admitting the loss of the Armani licenses, Safilo announced an agreement to take over Polaroid Eyewear with the help of its main shareholder, Hal Holding. Combined with the acquisition of a license for Céline eyewear, previously held by De Rigo, it should offset about half ...
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Safilo booked a loss in the third quarter
After making profits in the first half of the year, Safilo finished the third quarter with a €4.7 million loss stemming from weaker sales and the impact of foreign exchange adjustments. The top line slipped by 3.2 percent to €230.2 million due to negative exchange rates and the disposal of ...
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Antonio Bortuzzo will run Mikli International
Three different managing directors have run the Alain Mikli International Group in the past few years, and the management turnover has not finished. A 51-year-old Italian manager with a strong track record, Antonio Bortuzzo, has now been appointed as Mikli's new chief executive, with an ambitious goal of tripling the ...
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Marcolin lifted by top-tier brands, Asia
In the first nine months of 2011, Marcolin booked an 8.8 percent rise in sales to €169.0 million, driven by growth in fashion and luxury brands and the launch of the new Swarovski line. On a currency-neutral basis, sales were up by 10.7 percent.In Europe, the company's turnover rose by ...
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De Rigo’s wholesale up by 10.5%
No regrets for De Rigo at the loss of the Céline license to Safilo, which has enabled the latter to make up for the far more serious loss of Armani. Céline represented around 3 percent of De Rigo's turnover, but this figure should be compensated for by two new licenses ...
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The industry recovers from the Thai floods
Hoya Vision Care's recovery from the floods in Thailand is coming along faster than expected. The Japanese company had said a few days ago that it was expecting to resume operations yesterday at its production facility in Pathumthani near Bangkok, which have been stopped last Nov. 2. It also ...
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Hoya shipped more lenses prior to the floods
In releasing its quarterly results last Oct. 31, Hoya Corporation said its shipments of eyeglass lenses increased overall in the three months ended Sept. 30, corresponding to the second quarter of its financial year. They rose especially in Europe, which is the company's single largest market for this kind of ...
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Fielmann gains more market share
While the German optical retail market declined by an estimated 1 percent in terms of units in the first nine months of this year, Fielmann managed to post a 4.2 percent increase in units sold over the same period, reaching a new record of 5.0 million pairs of glasses.Sales in ...
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New online shop starts up in France
Customers can now log into the beta version of Sensee.com, the new virtual optical retail store developed by Marc Simoncini, the French entrepreneur who 10 years ago founded Meetic, the leading European dating and chatting website, and then sold it with a major capital gain. It has stated a goal ...
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Nicodesign sets its sights on Brazil
The emerging markets of Latin America are starting to attract Italy's medium-sized eyewear producers, in spite of prohibitive customs duties: 100 percent on acetate and 120 percent on metal. An Italian company, Nicodesign, has consequently identified a chain of luxury stores in which it can position its Made in Italy ...
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Pramaor targets Brazil differently
Like many European eyewear companies, Pramaor is also looking to expand into the promising Brazilian market, in spite of the customs barriers that double the price of the finished product, with duties of 100 to 120 percent respectively on acetate and metal. Calculated on the wholesale price plus transportation costs, ...
