07.20.23
Rank: #12 (Last year: #12)
€11.77 Billion ($12.55 Billion)
Prior Fiscal: €10.4 Billion ($11.78 Billion)
Percentage Change: +13.2%
R&D Expenditure: €343M
Best FY22 Quarter: Q2 €3.06B
Latest Quarter: Q1 €3.03B
No. of Employees: 72,000
Global Headquarters: Charleton-le-Pont, France
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Francesco Millieri, Chairman & CEO
Paul du Saillant, Deputy CEO
Jean-Luc Biamonti, Lead Director (Independent)
Leonardo del Vecchio, chairman of spectacles maker EssilorLuxottica and one of Italy’s wealthiest business titans, passed away at age 87 in June 2022. The Italian businessman founded Luxottica in 1961 and built up a firm that owns the Ray-Ban brand and joined forces with France’s Essilor in a megamerger in 2018.
Del Vecchio began his childhood in an orphanage and grew to build a fortune of tens of billions of Euros in what CNBC called “one of the most famous rags-to-riches story in Italy’s post-war economic recovery.”
“Leonardo Del Vecchio was a great Italian. His story, from orphanage to leadership of a business empire, seems like a story from another time. But it is an example for today and tomorrow. RIP,” European Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.
Del Vecchio was executive chairman of EssilorLuxottica until 2021, when he relinquished the reins of day-to-day leadership to CEO Francesco Milleri. He personally supported Milleri as head of the eyewear giant when the merged group began. According to Forbes, Del Vecchio was Italy’s second-richest man behind Giovanni Ferrero of the Nutella-making group.
“With the passing of Del Vecchio, Milan loses one of the most emblematic figures of its recent history,” Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala said on Twitter.
EssilorLuxottica’s “Professional Solutions” business encompasses the Essilor International eyeglass business. The segment posted €11.77 billion ($12.55 billion) in revenue in its 2022 fiscal year, growing 13.2% over the prior year. According to a press release the company issued reporting full-year results, Latin America outperformed in the double-digit growth territory. North America posted single-digit growth despite “softer trends” with independent eye care providers. EMEA and Asia-Pacific reported at high-single digit levels. The lens category supported the business and myopia management portfolio, mainly driven by Stellest lens’ sales, more than doubled.
To start off March, EssilorLuxottica completed the acquisition of the U.S.-based lab network Walman Optical. Walman is a lab partner to vision care practices around America. First revealed in March 2021, the acquisition will draw on EssilorLuxottica’s product and service innovation to create growth opportunities.
The beginning of March also saw the closing of EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision’s transaction for Vision Group to acquire the Vista Sí chain in Italy, which includes the brand and all 99 stores, as well as 75 GrandVision stores in the country. The deal followed agreements made as part of the acquisition of GrandVision by EssilorLuxottica.
EssilorLuxottica finalized a joint venture agreement with CooperCompanies in March as well. The two vision care leaders aim to commercialize novel spectacle lens technologies to expand myopia management. SightGlass Vision’s Diffusion Optics Technology uses thousands of micro-dots in a lens to softly scatter light to reduce contrast on the retina.
A month later, EssilorLuxottica, GrandVision, and the Optic Retail International Group BENE (ORIG/MPG) closed the book on the deal for ORIG/MPG to acquire 142 EyeWish stores in the Netherlands and 35 GrandOptical stores in Belgium.
EssilorLuxottica and Politecnico di Milano revealed the first-ever joint research center to design the “smart glasses of the future”—EssilorLuxottica Smart Eyewear Lab—in July. The over €50 million investment will produce industrial research and experimental development of wearables capable of autonomous network connection. The project aims to provoke development of tech and services by means of eyewear interfaces.
The lab will initially last five years, and when fully operational will employ over 100 researchers and scientists. Its main challenge will be developing core hardware, software, and application tech to interact with the digital world. The project will analyze and develop electronic and photonic components, as well as algorithms to acquire, process, and offer real-world info from augmented reality. The tech will then be integrated into prototype glasses by developing materials, charging systems, and algorithms to validate performance in the real world. An ad hoc curriculum will also aim to foster development of skills in the wearable and smart eyewear field.
The company released three-year clinical trial results for its Essilor Stellest lens in September, demonstrating the lenses continue to show strong efficacy in slowing myopia progression and axial elongation in the third year of the trial. The lenses saved over one diopter of myopia on average over three years as well as a marked increase in myopia control efficiency in children who wore the lenses full-time. Stellest lenses were also shown to be effective to slow myopia progression and axial elongation in older children.
The French competition authority (FCA) published a decision concerning Essilor International in November related to an investigation opened in 2014. An €81 million penalty was imposed for discrimination of online players and protection of brick-and-mortar retailers, connected with distribution of certain prescription lenses.
Essilor claimed its practices were compliant with the competitive and regulatory contexts of the concerned period and they benefitted customers, partners, and the whole industry. EssilorLuxottica “strongly disagreed” with the FCA’s decision in a press release, will appeal it, and is confident it will successfully show the decision is ungrounded.
€11.77 Billion ($12.55 Billion)
Prior Fiscal: €10.4 Billion ($11.78 Billion)
Percentage Change: +13.2%
R&D Expenditure: €343M
Best FY22 Quarter: Q2 €3.06B
Latest Quarter: Q1 €3.03B
No. of Employees: 72,000
Global Headquarters: Charleton-le-Pont, France
KEY EXECUTIVES:
Francesco Millieri, Chairman & CEO
Paul du Saillant, Deputy CEO
Jean-Luc Biamonti, Lead Director (Independent)
Leonardo del Vecchio, chairman of spectacles maker EssilorLuxottica and one of Italy’s wealthiest business titans, passed away at age 87 in June 2022. The Italian businessman founded Luxottica in 1961 and built up a firm that owns the Ray-Ban brand and joined forces with France’s Essilor in a megamerger in 2018.
Del Vecchio began his childhood in an orphanage and grew to build a fortune of tens of billions of Euros in what CNBC called “one of the most famous rags-to-riches story in Italy’s post-war economic recovery.”
“Leonardo Del Vecchio was a great Italian. His story, from orphanage to leadership of a business empire, seems like a story from another time. But it is an example for today and tomorrow. RIP,” European Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Twitter.
Del Vecchio was executive chairman of EssilorLuxottica until 2021, when he relinquished the reins of day-to-day leadership to CEO Francesco Milleri. He personally supported Milleri as head of the eyewear giant when the merged group began. According to Forbes, Del Vecchio was Italy’s second-richest man behind Giovanni Ferrero of the Nutella-making group.
“With the passing of Del Vecchio, Milan loses one of the most emblematic figures of its recent history,” Milan mayor Giuseppe Sala said on Twitter.
EssilorLuxottica’s “Professional Solutions” business encompasses the Essilor International eyeglass business. The segment posted €11.77 billion ($12.55 billion) in revenue in its 2022 fiscal year, growing 13.2% over the prior year. According to a press release the company issued reporting full-year results, Latin America outperformed in the double-digit growth territory. North America posted single-digit growth despite “softer trends” with independent eye care providers. EMEA and Asia-Pacific reported at high-single digit levels. The lens category supported the business and myopia management portfolio, mainly driven by Stellest lens’ sales, more than doubled.
To start off March, EssilorLuxottica completed the acquisition of the U.S.-based lab network Walman Optical. Walman is a lab partner to vision care practices around America. First revealed in March 2021, the acquisition will draw on EssilorLuxottica’s product and service innovation to create growth opportunities.
The beginning of March also saw the closing of EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision’s transaction for Vision Group to acquire the Vista Sí chain in Italy, which includes the brand and all 99 stores, as well as 75 GrandVision stores in the country. The deal followed agreements made as part of the acquisition of GrandVision by EssilorLuxottica.
EssilorLuxottica finalized a joint venture agreement with CooperCompanies in March as well. The two vision care leaders aim to commercialize novel spectacle lens technologies to expand myopia management. SightGlass Vision’s Diffusion Optics Technology uses thousands of micro-dots in a lens to softly scatter light to reduce contrast on the retina.
A month later, EssilorLuxottica, GrandVision, and the Optic Retail International Group BENE (ORIG/MPG) closed the book on the deal for ORIG/MPG to acquire 142 EyeWish stores in the Netherlands and 35 GrandOptical stores in Belgium.
EssilorLuxottica and Politecnico di Milano revealed the first-ever joint research center to design the “smart glasses of the future”—EssilorLuxottica Smart Eyewear Lab—in July. The over €50 million investment will produce industrial research and experimental development of wearables capable of autonomous network connection. The project aims to provoke development of tech and services by means of eyewear interfaces.
The lab will initially last five years, and when fully operational will employ over 100 researchers and scientists. Its main challenge will be developing core hardware, software, and application tech to interact with the digital world. The project will analyze and develop electronic and photonic components, as well as algorithms to acquire, process, and offer real-world info from augmented reality. The tech will then be integrated into prototype glasses by developing materials, charging systems, and algorithms to validate performance in the real world. An ad hoc curriculum will also aim to foster development of skills in the wearable and smart eyewear field.
The company released three-year clinical trial results for its Essilor Stellest lens in September, demonstrating the lenses continue to show strong efficacy in slowing myopia progression and axial elongation in the third year of the trial. The lenses saved over one diopter of myopia on average over three years as well as a marked increase in myopia control efficiency in children who wore the lenses full-time. Stellest lenses were also shown to be effective to slow myopia progression and axial elongation in older children.
The French competition authority (FCA) published a decision concerning Essilor International in November related to an investigation opened in 2014. An €81 million penalty was imposed for discrimination of online players and protection of brick-and-mortar retailers, connected with distribution of certain prescription lenses.
Essilor claimed its practices were compliant with the competitive and regulatory contexts of the concerned period and they benefitted customers, partners, and the whole industry. EssilorLuxottica “strongly disagreed” with the FCA’s decision in a press release, will appeal it, and is confident it will successfully show the decision is ungrounded.