Latest Headlines – Page 194
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Allison's Sales Go Up 40% In First Quarter, And New Brand Is Likely
A surge in sales for Allison during the quarter marked a turnaround for the Italian eyewear producer, boosting the results of its parent company, IT Holding, which has publicly denied a rumor that it plans to sell this division. Allison is thus in a position to enlarge its portfolio of ...
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Marchon Has Been Doing Better Lately, And Some Pollsters Think That The U.S. Market Is Improving
Marchon is predicting a double-digit sales increase for this year. The big US company's sales rose by between 15 and 20 percent on a global basis in the first quarter, following a relatively difficult year in which is still managed to grow to a new record, in spite of erratic ...
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The German Market Grew By 12.2% In 2003 And Became Again More Concentrated
The planned phase-out of public health care subsidies for eyewear led German opticians to book an overall 12.2 percent increase in their combined sales to €4.44 billion last year, according to ZVA, the national optical retailers' association, with a 21 percent increase in the subsidies provided by the country's various ...
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French Market Went Up By 5.6% In 2003
The French optical retail market rose by 5.6 percent to €3,285 million in 2003, according to GfK, with a much better performance than in 2002 in all the major product segments except contact lenses. While the study doesn't include sales of sunglasses through department stores, supermarkets and other sales circuits, ...
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Ocular Sciences Grows By 14% In Quarter
Ocular Sciences has announced net sales of $80.6 million for the first quarter ended March 31, up 14 percent in dollars and up 6.2 percent in constant currencies. Net income stood at $6.0 million, but it would have reached $8.6 million before restructuring and expenses associated with the manufacturing consolidation ...
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Fielmann Expects A Sales Drop Of 10-15%
Fielmann predicts that its consolidated sales will decline by between 10 and 15 percent this year, with a drop of about 15 percent in Germany. The evenues were off by only 0.4 percent to €173.5 million in the 1st quarter ended March 31, with a slight increase in German retail ...
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Luxottica Reports Good Results At Retail And Wholesale
Luxottica raised the operating margin of its vast and growing retail operations to 12.7 percent in the 1st quarter ended March 31 from 11.6 percent a year ago, and it would have been about 1 percentage point better without the diluting effect from the OPSM Group, which the management says ...
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Moulin Expects A Rapid Decision On Cole Bid, Improves Sales And Profits
Moulin International has reportedly indicated that it expects Cole National's board of directors to give its opinion on its own counter-bid for the large US retail group by the end of next week. HAL Holding, the largest shareholder in Cole at 19.1-19.2 percent, is participating financially in Moulin's bid with ...
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Guildinvest's Sales Grow By 11%
Krys, Vision Plus, Vision Originale, Lynx Optique and Entendre, the retail banners under which the French voluntary group trades, reached total sales of €704 million in 2003, rising by 11 percent in absolute terms and by 8 percent on a same-store basis. In the optical retail sector, where 1,147 stores ...
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Romain Afflelou Sets Up His Own Firm
Romain Afflelou, 24-year-old son of Alain Afflelou, has set up his own company, Romain Afflelou Créateur (RAC), stressing that it's financially independent from that of his father, the big French optical retail franchisor. RAC's goal is the design, development, production and marketing of optical frames and sunglasses for brands that ...
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The Italian Superottica Chain Is Expanding On Many Fronts
Superottica has signed a joint venture deal with a Brazilian company, Especialista, that calls for the opening of 10 new stores in the country over the next 12 months, growing to 100 over the next 5 years. The management of the fast-expanding Italian company declines to provide other details about ...
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Currency-neutral Sales Grow By 15.3% At Essilor
Essilor has announced sales of €569.4 million for the 1st quarter of 2004, a 9.9 percent rise on a comparable basis from the year-ago period. The increase was driven by the launch of new products, such as the Crizal Alizé anti-reflective treatment, Varilux Ellipse small-frame progressive lenses and the Varilux ...
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Hoya Reaches 21.3% Margin In Vision Care
The operating margin of Hoya's vision care segment shot up to 21.3 percent in the 4th quarter of its financial year, which ended on March 31, as compared to 16.0 percent in the same period a year ago, in spite of a sales increase of only 1.2 percent to 24,428 ...
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Oakley Trusts In The Recovery Of Its Sunglass Business
Oakley's management feels that it has finally gotten its act right in sunglasses, after a tough 2003 in which its new models failed to impress the market. At $64.0 million, its sunglass sales were flat in the 1st quarter ended March 31, with a 3.6 percent drop in unit shipments, ...
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Vuarnet Teams Up With Signature
Vuarnet France Master Distribution, the new exclusive distributor in the USA of the Vuarnet brand, has entered into a strategic sales and marketing distribution alliance with Signature Eyewear. Under this agreement, 35 of Signature's sales representatives will provide sales coverage and support to opticians, optometrists and ophtalmologists in various areas ...
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U.S. Market Figures Are Not Rosy
Following a depressing year in 2002, the US sunglass market remained sluggish in 2003. US sunglass imports remained essentially flat in volume, increasing by just 0.2 percent to 376.8 million pairs. Of the top 10 source countries, only China improved, expanding by nearly 2 percent and accounting for over 80 ...
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Gerber Forms Interesting Alliances
Customer service is expected to improve strongly at Gerber Coburn as the 250 service technicians employed around the world by its parent company, the Gerber Scientific group, are being cross-trained since last Jan. 1 to provide maintenance and support for all the components of the group, which also include laser ...
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Specsavers Enters Sweden
The leading British optical retailer, which already claims 30 percent market share in its home ground, goes on with its policy of entering one new market at a time. Encouraged by its relative success in the Netherlands, where it has become the third-largest player after only 7 years, and two ...
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Fielmann Achieves A 13.7% Pre-tax Margin
More details will be available at the company's annual press conference in Hamburg next Apr. 29. For the time being, Fielmann has announced a 78 percent increase in pre-tax earnings to €112 million for 2003. Consolidated sales grew by 24 percent to €814 million. Including VAT and sales to franchisees, ...
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Grandvision's Sales Up By 7% In Quarter
The final tally was still missing at the time that we went to press, but it seems clear that Multibrands, the new company controlled by HAL Trust and shared with GrandVision's founders, will go ahead with its plan to acquire the French-based group, which ended up the 1st quarter with ...
