All Eyewear Intelligence articles in Volume 22 No. 19+20
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PDF NewsletterEyewear Intelligence Newsletter: Vol 22 - 19+20
Good restart for Silmo in Paris | Italian exports recover faster than expected | U.S. market back over 2019 level in Q2 | Essilux targets full ownership of GV | Mister Spex’ sales up 25% in H1 | Nordic optical retail leader goes public too | Eyewear industry stocks up 3.5% in Q2 | First launch for SightGlass Vision | Bollé builds up management team | FittingBox welcomes Asian investor | Shift in the French optical market | Sustainability: the demo lens challenge
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News briefs
More than 3 million people commit to an eye exam
Over 3 million people globally have pledged to book an eye exam as part of the World Sight Day campaign organized by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness on Oct. 15. This is more than three times the target number initially set by association, and suggests that the ...
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News briefs
Specsavers to open 200 Canadian stores by 2024
It has been seven months since Specsavers expanded into Canada, through the previously reported acquisition of Image Optometry. Now, the U.K.-based retail group is planning to open more than 200 locally owned stores in the Great White North by March 2024. The first step is to open 16 stores in ...
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News briefs
Ocuco gets ISO certification
Ocuco, the Irish-based supplier of optical software, has received the ISO/IEC 27001:2017 certification for its Practice Management Software (PMS) and related services. The ISO 27001 certificate guarantees that the software works in compliance with the current industry regulations in terms of data protection, such as the GDPR in Europe. Ocuco ...
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ArticleU.S. market back over 2019 level in Q2
The Vision Council has announced the release of its quarterly VisionWatch research report and disclosed some key figures and trends in the U.S. optical market for the second quarter of 2021. According to the Vision Council’s data, the U.S. eyewear market more than doubled in Q2 as compared to the ...
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ArticleSynsam goes public too
Synsam, the leading optical retailer in the Nordics, has announced its intention to launch an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and start trading shares at the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange before the end of the year. The company’s main shareholder since 2014, Theia Holdings, an entity of the international CVC private ...
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News briefs
Draft bill proposes extended prerogatives for French orthoptists
The French government presented at the end of last month a draft bill regarding the financing of the country’s social security for 2022. Willing to facilitate access to eye care and shortening the waiting period to book an eye exam with an ophthalmologist, the government is considering an extension of ...
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News briefs
HOYA partners with Orbis in vision care education
HOYA Vision Care has announced a new partnership with Orbis International, a global non-governmental organization that has been involved in the prevention of avoidable blindness for over forty years, through the strengthening of eye health systems and training programs for eye care professionals but not only. Among other initiatives, the ...
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News briefs
ABDO launches a sustainability self-assessment tool
The Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) has launched a sustainability self-assessment tool, in conjunction with its digital SEE Summit on last Oct. 4. Targeted at employees, business owners and manufacturers in the eyewear sector, the new tool consists in an 80-question survey at the end of which respondents are ...
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ArticleFirst launch and 2-year trial results announced for SightGlass Vision
In conjunction with the commercial launch of the product in the Netherlands, CooperVision released last week the results of the ongoing clinical trial on the performance of its SightGlass Vision lenses in terms of myopia progression reduction after two years of research. The CYPRESS clinical study, as it is called, ...
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ArticleItalia Independent H1 sales jump, losses narrow
The Italia Independent Group saw sales in the first half ended June 30 jump by 272.4 percent compared to the year earlier to reach €9.1 million, as business rebounded and losses narrowed after the company took a hit from Covid-19 lockdowns and the loss of wholesale business due to the ...
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ArticleEssilux launches mandatory public offer for GrandVision shares
EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision jointly announced on Oct. 7 the launch of the recommended mandatory public offer for the purchase by the Italio-French group of all remaining shares in the Dutch retail group’s capital. As already communicated a few weeks ago, the price of the mandatory offer is set at €28.42 ...
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News briefs
Stable average price for a French optical shop in 2020
According to a recent multisector report by Altares, a French research company, a total of 188 optical stores were taken over in France last year, a significant drop from the 230 transactions registered in 2019. While the Covid-19 crisis certainly had a negative effect, the number of such transactions has ...
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ArticleEyewear industry stock prices up 3.5% in Q3
We are publishing here our quarterly update on the evolution in stock prices of public companies operating in our core eyewear market, including manufacturers, distributors or retailers of contact lenses, prescription lenses, eyeglasses and sunglasses. As shown in the chart below, the non-weighted average growth for the 22 companies included ...
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News briefs
First edition of the Great British Eyewear Show
Under the impulsion of Tom Davies, British and international independent eyewear brands will gather for the first edition of the Great British Eyewear Show on Oct. 18 at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. Confirmed exhibitors to date include Booth & Bruce, Cazal, Chrome Hearts, Face à Face, Francis Klein, JF ...
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News briefs
Optiswiss appoints new global marketing manager
Optiswiss appointed last month Johannes Schubart as its new head of global marketing, product, management and tools. A seasoned eyewear industry professional with other twenty years of experience in the sector, Schubart worked for the last nine years at Rodenstock’s lens division, most recently as director of produt management and ...
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News briefs
Partial sales recovery for Fedon
Fedon has announced a 11.6 percent year-on-year increase in total sales to €23.4 million for the first semester 2021, however still much lower than the €32.7 million reported for the same period in 2019. By segment, sales to eyewear companies, which represent over 80 percent of the company’s business, went ...
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ArticleHOYA and Haag-Streit partner in myopia management
HOYA Vision Care and Haag-Streit Diagnostics, a leading manufacturer of ophthalmic instruments and medical equipment, have announced a global partnership in the area of myopia management. Both companies said that the global sales and marketing agreement created a preferred partnership between them to help eye care professionals (ECP) in the ...
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ArticleItalian exports recover faster than expected
ANFAO has brightened its forecast for the Italy’s eyewear industry, as figures for the first half of 2021 are hinting at a brisker-than-expected recovery. As we reported at the time, the association’s president, Giovanni Vitaloni, presented a darker picture at the MIDO trade show back in May, when the pandemic ...
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ArticleGood restart in Paris and new Asian project for Silmo
After a blank year in 2020, Silmo Paris reopened its doors to international exhibitors and visitors from last Sept. 24 to 27 for the first large-scale and in-person eyewear industry event since the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak last year. Although the number of exhibiting companies this year – roughly 500 – ...

