Archive for September, 2009
Luxottica joining a campaign against Fox
As the retail parent of lensCrafter and Pearle Vision, Luxottica Retail has recently joined a boycott against the Glenn Beck program belonging to Fox News Channel. The campaign launched by ColorChange.org is to some extent a combination of political and commercial issues.
All controversies originate from the attack against the US president Barack Obama by a Fox News Channel host several weeks ago. The host charged Obama with a racist that has a deep-seated hatred for white people. This subjective attack caused unpleasant reaction from the public, resulting in the current resistance to Beck.
Before the entry of Luxottica, along with other five companies including Aegon, Ashley Furniture, Humana, United States Postal Service and Wyeth Consumer Healthcare, there are already 56 companies who have been in the campaign. Those companies include Airware Inc., Allergan (maker of Restasis), Ally Bank (a unit of GMAC Financial Services), Ancestry.com, Applebee’s, AT&T, Bank of America, Best Buy, Blaine Labs Inc., Broadview Security, Campbell Soup Company, ConAgra, Clorox, CVS, DirecTv, Ditech, The Elations Company etc.
The only action advocated by ColorChange.org is to cut off or entirely pull back advertisements on Beck. Many firms have made formal contact with FOX through email. The Postal Service’s Advertising Department stopped its ads on Beck immediately when the issue occurred. Through email, Aegon and Ashley Furniture have also required Beck to remove its ads on the program. Other companies including Humana and Luxottica simply take a similar reaction through a phone conversation. Luxottica Retail takes a rapid action of pulling ads and claims that it has no plans to air more ads on Beck.
Besides persuading other companies, ColorOfChange.org has still launched a signed petition among its members, which has attracted as many as 180,000 people. The petition aims at urging corporation to reduce advertisements on Beck.
Recycled eyewear from Revo
There is currently an environmental move from Revo owned by Luxottica. The company has long been one of the industry-leading brands in manufacturing polarized lenses and lightweight frame material. News shows that Revo is quite less than satisfied with its current contribution.
Customers may notice that there are new styles of Revo Re-Use eyeglasses in Sunglass Hut stores, which feature the latest Revo Re-Use technology. Through this August, Revo brand ambassadors Alexandra and Jimmy advocated these new products nationwide. It testifies that there is a new generation of environmental and social program advocates around the world.
In detail, these green eyeglasses from Revo feature a lot both in the lenses and frames. Revo lenses are shatter-resistant, because their materials are the purest form of polycarbonate, Serilium. There are still three types of coatings on Revo Re-Use lenses, namely a selective wavelength attenuation coating, an anti-reflective coating and the Revo’s exclusive Element Shed. The first coating allows usable light and blocks glare and the third coating can reject dust, sand and water. Molded into a single layer, Revo lenses also minimize eyestrain.
Frames of recycled Revo eyeglasses also provide commitment to environment. In essence, the recycling property results from the material of the frame. All Revo Re-Use eyeglass frames are made from 100% recycled pre-consumer nylon plastics, bringing little impact on the environment.
Besides these material features, Revo Re-Use eyeglasses also provide particular comfort. Using its Apatented Motion Fit system, Revo produces sunglasses maximizing comfort and minimizing disappointing pressure points on the nose and ears. This is a significant step of fit improvement.
In addition to environmental concerns, Revo also pays enough attention to the style and design of its recycled glasses. As one of the largest in the circle worldwide, its Revo Re-Use line offers eyeglasses in five stylish frames with eleven colors.
We could not ignore the online optical eyeglasses any more!
Believe it or not, the online optical stores are booming. You can see from the hot group discussions in Ira’s GlassyEyes.com. According to my rough statistics, only ZenniOptical, the biggest online eyeglasses reatiler so far, takes about 2500 pairs of orders throughout the country EVERY DAY from their website, this is almost 1% of the total consumption of all the prescription eyeglasses in US (suppose the annual total sales of 75 million pairs).
No one can say 1% of the whole country’s business is small business! I remember about a month ago, Essilor called on all the ECPs in US to embrace the new technology to let part of their business online, or there will be further headaches.
CNET’s author Rich Broida wrote about Zenni earlier this year, is this good for country’s optical industry? Rich’s article is here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-10219745-58.html
What do you think?
My thinking: being earlier aware of the matter, taking earlier action, the better!
500 workers will be laid off in Scotland by contact lens giant
The economic downturn is still squeezing the businesses of contact lens manufacturer Bausch & Lomb. Bausch & Lomb plans to stop the operation and production in its Livingston plant in Scotland, which will cause 500 jobs being lost. According to the plans of Bausch & Lomb, they will focus their production in Waterford Ireland and the plant in US. The decision states that the closure of Scotland plant will ne done sometime between 2010 and early 2011.
The Bausch & Lomb decision has triggered the Scottish government to seek discussion with the company. John Swinney, the Scottish finance minister said the government is talking to senior management including CEO Geral M Ostrov. The company recognizes that the withdrawl of Scotland plant will cause tremendous influence on tis employees and their families, and promise to ensure that plant staff’s needs and concerns will be respected to the utmost possible level.
Bausch & Lomb will keep its Rochester (US) and Waterford (Ireland) plants which hold advantages over Livingston (Scotland) in cost and other major assesment criteria.
The Scotland plant used to be owned by Ron Hamilton, who was the founder of Daysoft. Bausch & Lomb purchased the plant in 1996 at the cost of 20 million British pounds. This former Daysoft founder expressed his apology in hearing that news of Bausch & Lomb closing the Livingston plant. He stated that, Bausch & Lomb, just like other struggling optical giants in this downturn crisis, is forced to take the unwilling action of withdrawl.
Some statistics about US optical industry
In USA, statistics about Eye Care Professionals are as follow.
According to the Dept of Labor, as of May 2004, there are about 17000 ophthalmologists, 66000 opticians in the United States. As of 2007, there are 35000 optometrists who are the members of American Optometric Association.
Among the 66000 opticians, which is the biggest group within the ECPs, about 33% working on the optical chain store like Pearle Vision and LensCrafters, 30% working in the optometrist’s offices, 10% in the ophthalmologists’ offices and about 6% working on their own independent business, and the balance 21% working in the optical dept of the dept stores, superstores, warehouse club, and general merchandise stores.
Based on the survey conducted by VisionWatch in 2006, the lenses sold throughout US with the following composition: about 51% of the lenses are the basic single vision lenses, for either distance or reading purpose, 26.7% of the lenses are progressive lenses for people over 40, 22.5% of the lenses are the bifocal or multifocal lenses which is also for older people.
For the tricky add-ons, 22% of patients choose AR coating (Anti-reflective coating), 14% of the eyeglasses wearers select photochromic lenses which automatically darkens in the outdoor, which are refered as prescription sunglasses.
Acquisition actions from Abbott
It is reported that Abbott Laboratories is going to take another action to make an acquisition. The California-based eye-care device company named Visiogen Inc. will be sold in cash. Abbott buys Visiogen for business reasons.
Currently, the market of eye surgery devices and technology is estimated to be $20 billion in international sales every year. Abbott has clearly foreseen the potentially huge profit, so that its latest move targets at Visiogen, which specializes in developing vision devices for cataracts patients.
As the executive vice president of Abbott’s medical devices business, John Capek also expresses good confidence in this acquisition that Visiogen’s accommodating lens technology used to treat cataracts will improve Abbott’s ability in treating refractive visual errors. With Abbot’s new products, ophthalmologists can offer a wider variety of refractive options for their patients.
In fact, this is not the only acquisitive action in Abbott. The firm has just acquired Advanced Medical Optics earlier this year, which is a firm manufacturing eye surgery care equipments. This earlier acquisition directly cost Abbott more than $ 1.3 billion. Within such a short period after a great acquisition, Abbott is now planning to purchase Visiogen.
All of these moves show Abbott’s long-term view and confidence in the vision care and technology industry. The promising company aims at improving the living standards of the millions in the world by creating and innovating visual technologies.
Coastal Contacts Q3 Net Profit rate 1.6% only
Sept, 9, 2009, Wednesday, Coastal Contacts Inc. (COA, TSX), an online retailer of contact lenses and optical eyeglasses, announces an increase in net profit for Q 3, 15% growth in revenues which mainly can be attributed to the quick growth of eyeglasses. Coastal Contacts started to sell optical eyeglasses from early 2008, and has witnessed great growth in this area.
Though enjoyed by the positive growth both in revenue and net earnings, the whole situation of Coastal Contacts is still not ideal. In the third quarter, this Vancouver-based company posted net earning of C$603,000 (foreign exchange gains at C$252,000 in this quarter), and the total revenue of C$37.51 million, with a net profit rate only at 1.6%, which is below industry everage.
Coastal Contacts spent in advertising C$5.04 million in third quarter, which is 26% more than that of last quarter. The company’s ads can be seen from the Google AdWords and AdSense, to the public transit systems around the selective cities in North America.
One exciting news is that COA is experiencing quick growth of eyeglasses sales to the contact wearers. In July, this Canadian company reached C$ 1 million of sales for the eyeglasses, which is the first time to reach this number, and is a milestone in its history. Most of the contacts wearers will mostly buy the relatively cheaper eyeglasses for back up, for the use of a short period of time at home mostly.
In Canada, Coastal Contacts runs its online business under the name ClearlyContacts.ca. Coastal Contacts is the first and the only company which is listed public in the area of online optical store.
Marcolin in difficulty
As notable as Miss Sixty and Dsquared2, Marcolin is now under decline, according to the report of Fashion Wire Daily. In this July, the eyeglass heavyweight had just built up new cooperation with John Galliano and joined a prestigious organization including leading brands such as Tom Ford, Montblanc, Ferrari, Kenneth Cole and so on. In the past year, the eyeglass giant sold about 5 million frames and sunglasses in over 600 styles. All these signs show that there is a promising future of Marcolin.
However, there is bad news about Marcolin that the eyeglass corporation has suffered profit slump as high as one third in the first half of this year. What’s worse, the company’s overall performance is also affected. All these bad news are closely related with the current global economic depression.
There are detailed figures that prove the above reports. According to official numbers of Marcolin, its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization only reached $15.6 million in the first two quarters this year, which are 32% lower than that of the last year. The total revenues also got a decline of 7%. In fact, profits of the company are not even in different regions. While Marcolin suffered a 16.5% of sales downturn in Europe, its turnover in North America rose by 0.9%.
In addition to the bad news about the company’s turnover and revenues, there are still worse situations ahead. With an $852,000 of debt reduction, Marcolin currently still carries a net indebtedness as high as $41.6 million.
In the company’s side, both conservative and positive news are ready. Marcolin’s managing director pointed out that the firm may encounter an extreme difficulty in this third quarter due to the uncertain international economic situation. But Marcolin also keeps positive expectation about its promising future in the fourth quarter. The company now expects considerable profits from its Tod’s and Hogan new lines.
Marcolin is based in an Italian northern city Domegge di Cadore.
Essilor will nominate new CEO
Essilor will have new CEO from Jan 1, 2010. Hubert Sagnieres will replace the present CEO Xavier Fontanet according to some reports, Hubert Sagnieres likes to purchase companies not owned by Essilor, and he is a French Canadian.
Essilor is the world’s leader of high-end corrective lenses and lenses equipments, headquartered in France.
Safilo not intends to sell Carrera
Recently the Italian newspaper reported that Italian optical giant Safilo may sell its Carrera brand for seeking outside funding from other investors, and reconstructuring of the group’s debt financing structure. Another asset Safilo may sell, according to the report of Milano Finanza newspaper, is its Smith line.
Safilo responded that regarding to the articles and reports by the newspaper, Safilo won’t sell the brand Carrera, Safilo won’t let Carrera have another lover.
With reference to the sale of Smith line, Safilo responded as “possible”, but highly unlikely.
Carrera is one of the brands owned by Safilo focusing on the designer optical frames, prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses. Smith Optics is world’s leader in the production of ski goggles, helmets, optical frames and sunglasses, it used to be an American sports eyewear company, Safilo purchased it in 1996.