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Mister Spex up double digit, opens first stores abroad
Mister Spex, the German-based omnichannel retailer, announced last week that its 2020 revenues grew by 18 percent last year as compared to 2019, reaching €164 million. The company registered a double-digit hike in sales both in Germany and in its international markets. Dirk Graber, founder and co-CEO, highlighted that Mister ...
U.S., Smith and e-commerce drove Safilo’s growth in Q1
Safilo reported a 13.7 percent year-on-year increase in Q1 revenues to €251.4 million, or 20.0 percent in constant currencies, largely driven by its American business, the newly acquired e-commerce businesses and the good performance of Smith Optics. Significant improvements were also reported in the Italian group’s core licenses, but the ...
Carl Zeiss Meditec sees Covid-19 impact fading
Providing more details on its H1 2020/21 performance after an initial announcement at the end of April, Carl Zeiss Meditec confirmed a 7.3 percent year-on-year hike in total revenues to €767.4 million. On a constant currency basis, sales increased by 10.5 percent.
Bausch gears up to spin off B+L
As part of its quarterly results’ announcements, Bausch Health said that it was accelerating the preparations for the spin-off of its Bausch + Lomb business. Having just completed its financial segmentation of the unit, the company said it expects to be ready for the operation in Q3 2021. The process ...
INDO invests to become a Mediterranean leader
INDO, the Spanish-based lens manufacturer, increased its market share in Spain by 1.5 percentage points last year, consolidating its position as the third largest lens brand in the country. According to figures provided by the company, its revenues in the lenses’ category went down by 4 percent for the whole ...
Visottica Comotec reinforces, diversifies portfolio with new acquisition
Visottica Comotec, the Italian supplier of eyewear components, announced on April 10 the takeover of Eurodecori, another Italian company that specializes in the supply of small metallic parts and accessories for the eyewear industry as well, but is also active in the fashion, leather goods and giftware sectors. According to ...
ECOO, ZVA criticize EU decision in Essilux-GV case
The European Council of Optometry and Optics (ECOO), the Brussels-based umbrella association, and the Zentralverband der Augenoptiker und Optometristen (ZVA), the German association of opticians and optometrists, both released official statements at the end of last month criticizing the terms of the European Commission’s clearance of the takeover of GrandVision ...
New owner for Rodenstock
Apax Partners, a private equity firm based in the U.K., has agreed to acquire Rodenstock from Compass Partners, another investment fund and the majority shareholder of the German brand of high-end lenses and frames since February 2016. Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed. It is subject to ...
Razer partners with online optical retailer for smartglasses
Razer, an international brand of IT and lifestyle products for gamers and e-sports fans with 100 million users worldwide, is launching its first smart glasses this month. Called Razer Anzu, the new product combines Bluetooth functionalities with 35 percent blue light filtering lenses that can be easily replaced by a ...
Pro Optik goes online, plans to add 200 stores by 2025
Pro Optik, a German optical retail chain with about 150 stores, opened its first e-commerce website in January, offering direct purchase and delivery for most of its ranges as well as live consultations with opticians. Products offered online include single vision glasses, sunglasses, contact lenses and eye care products. For ...
Digital natives are the most frequent cross-border e-commerce shoppers
A recent survey by eShopWorld, a privately held Irish company headquartered in Dublin with offices around the globe that provides a technology platform for brands and retailers looking to sell online to global markets, found out that younger, digitally native consumers aged 25 to 34 are the group that most ...
Mastercard hikes fees on U.K. e-commerce purchases from EU
Mastercard is preparing to increase fees charged to EU merchants when British cardholders buy their goods online by at least 400 percent, a move it said is being made due to Brexit and could lead to higher prices for consumers should merchants decide to pass on the higher costs of ...
New results of large-scale research on children myopia in France
KRYS GROUP, a leader in the French optical retail sector, and the Poitiers university hospital, started in 2013 a large-scale research on the progression of myopia among French children aged between 4 and 17 years old. The latest results of this ongoing research, which was based on data collected for ...
ZVA sees German market down 7.4 percent last year
Like for most other business sectors, 2020 turned to be a difficult year for the ophthalmic optics market, as shown by the latest figures published by the Zentralverband der Augenoptiker und Optometristen (ZVA), the German association of opticians and optometrists. Overall, the German eyewear sector faced a 7.4 percent drop ...
The Vision Council reports signs of recovery in the U.S. market
The U.S. vision care market declined by 17.4 percent year-on-year to $36.05 billion at retail between December 2019 and December 2020, according to The Vision Council that just published its quarterly VisionWatch report for last year’s Q4. The market started to recover at the end of the year with retail ...