Latest Headlines – Page 3
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Kaneko mother company posts very strong 9-month results
Japan Eyewear Holdings (JEH), mother company of the Kaneko Optical and Four Nines (or 999.9) brands, published its quarterly financial results in December last year and for the first time since its IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in November. For the third quarter alone, sales jumped by 33.6 percent ...
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Opal Demetz acquires Roussilhe
In an agreement aimed at ensuring the longevity of both businesses and at developing French manufacturing, Opal Demetz, an eyewear SME based in Lyon has announced the acquisition of Roussilhe, a smaller French eyewear company with a large portfolio of in-house brands produced at its Oyonnax factory. “Together, we ...
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Smart glasses and AR technologies on display at the CES
In our last CES 2024 report, after our previous articles on EssilorLuxottica’s Nuance launch and on the winners of the CES awards, we present a selection of other smart eyewear products and companies that caught our attention at the Las Vegas show that closed its doors last Friday. RayNeo, a ...
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German eyewear industry sales inched up in 2023 as exports slowed down
German eyewear industry association Spectaris has released preliminary data for the sales of its members on both the domestic and export markets at the recent opti trade fair in Munich, based on figures for the January to September 2023 period. As reflected in the table below, the total industry revenue ...
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Eyewear stock price up 8% in Q4, sector market capitalization up 10% year-on-year
Along with our usual quarterly update on public eyewear companies’ stock price variations, we are also publishing in the table below the year-on-year changes to provide a longer-term perspective, as well as our annual market capitalization ranking further down on this page. After a negative third quarter, the average stock ...
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Essilux unveils Nuance, announces U.S. and Europe launch dates at CES
EssilorLuxottica unveiled its new Nuance Audio technology at a press conference on the eve of the CES show in Las Vegas (Jan. 9-12). The group announced that its goal is to “revolutionize” the hearing market and penetrate an industry where, similar to eye care decades ago, consumers are averse to ...
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Guenther Fielmann has died
Fielmann Group has announced the passing of Guenther Fielmann, founder of the company and longstanding chairman of the board, on Jan. 3, 2024, at the age of 84. “My father Guenther Fielmann re-defined optical retail to the benefit of customers. His lifework fills us with respect and inspires us to ...
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“We need to train the eyewear factory workers of the future”
During our previous interview with Giovanni Vitolani in December, the president of Mido also shared some thoughts on the state of affairs in the Italian eyewear district and at ANFAO, the Italian eyewear industry association which he led for six years until December last year. “As anticipated after a solid ...
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AI comes to Meta and Ray-Ban’s smart glasses
Meta is providing “early access” in the US to multimodal AI in the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses – the equivalent of a beta launch for software. The company is seeking feedback from customers, presumably to help tune the AI. Customers can opt in through the latest version of the Meta ...
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ZEISS Consumer Markets unit up 5% in fiscal year, group topline over €10 bn
ZEISS Group has reported record revenue of €10.1 billion for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, up by 15 percent compared with 2021/22 and over the symbolic €10 bn mark for the first time. As shown in the table below, the group’s growth was largely driven by its semiconductor business ...
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Opti gets ready for a 2024 rebound
The numerous changes and initiatives implemented after a difficult edition of the show earlier this year, including a roundtable with stakeholders to rethink the concept this summer, seem to have paid off as opti has announced a significant increase in both exhibiting space and exhibitors’ participation for their 2024 edition. ...
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Mido, ANFAO put CSE front and center in 2024
Just a few weeks before the opening of Mido 2024, we sat down with Giovanni Vitaloni, president of the event, to talk about what exhibitors and visitors should expect for this next edition but also more generally about current and future strategic focus areas for the organizers. In the second ...
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Mitsui aims to boost its Life & Healthcare business’ profits by 2030
During its Vision 2030 business strategy presentation held earlier this week, Mitsui Chemicals has announced that it was planning to increase the operating profit of its Life & Healthcare Solutions division from 36 billion Japanese yen (€229 m) in the current fiscal year to ¥65 billion (€413 m) in fiscal ...
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Double-digit sales growth but lower margin in full year for Carl Zeiss Meditec
Carl Zeiss Meditec has reported a 9.8 percent year-on-year increase in revenue to €2,089 for its full fiscal year ended Sept. 30. In constant currencies, the topline was up by 10.1 percent with market share gains in both business units - ophthalmic devices and microsurgery. The company stressed that it ...
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CooperVision slowed down by production capacity limitations
CooperCompanies has reported an 11 percent year-on-year revenue increase to $622.9 million for its CooperVision division in the last quarter of its 2023 fiscal year ended Sept. 30. Quarterly sales of contact lenses were up by 9 percent at constant exchange rates and by 11 percent organically compared with Q4 ...
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Karün Eyewear to get a Walmart boost
Karün Eyewear, the Chile-based brand of eyewear made from recycled and traceable materials, has signed a nationwide, but non-exclusive, partnership with Walmart for the distribution of its frames in the U.S. retail giant’s Walmart Vision Centers. ”We chose to work with Walmart as our U.S. national retailer to expand access ...
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Report puts fresh numbers on German optical retail long-term trends
Zentralverband der Augenoptiker und Optometristen (ZVA), the German association of opticians and optometrists, has released the four-year update of its BranchenStrukturerhebung report, an analysis of the German optical retail sector’s structure put together with research company GFK. It provides a number of market indicators for the year 2022 and, for ...
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Magrabi aims to consolidate regional leadership before entering new markets
Following up on our article last February about the expansion of MAGRABI Retail Group, the leading optical retailer in the Middle East region, we talked with Yasser Taher, who was appointed CEO of the family-owned group at the start of this year, after having served as Chief Operating Officer since ...
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Shamir launches myopia management lens
Shamir Optical Industry, the Israeli-based lens manufacturer, has announced the launch of Optimee, its first lens in the child myopia management segment. The launch follows the first-year results of a clinical trial with 126 children in Israel which showed that the new lens slowed by 43 percent the axial elongation ...
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Smart glasses win at CES 2024
Four pairs of smart-eyewear are among the winners of the latest Innovation Awards from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), whose 2024 edition is scheduled for Jan. 9-12, 2024, in Las Vegas. Ampere First up – in alphabetical order by company – is Dusk Rx, which the producer, Ampere, describes as ...