Luxottica once again reports an excellent quarter. Sales increased, compared to the same period last year, with 2,1% to 2.060 million euro. Without the still negative impact of the current exchange rates, the growth would have been 7%. Ray-Ban and Oakley are still the major money makers for the wholesale division. As far as the retail division is involved, Sunglass Hut again performed very well with a like-for-like growth of 9,9%. Remarkable however is that the company still has a lot of problems to realize an increase in sales at its other major retail operations. The result is, despite the excellent figures of Sunglass Hut, a decrease of 1,1% for the retail division this quarter at current exchange rates and a limited growth of 4,3% at constant exchange rates. But even that figure shows that the other stores cannot follow Sunglass Hut. Apparently it is easier to realize growth with Luxottica’s strong sunglasses brands than to make a significant difference with the optical frames of the same brands. It might illustrate what we wrote earlier this week. Fashion brands with only their logo or brand name are not enough to realize growth today, simply because they don’t offer enough added value and similar frames can be found anywhere else for a lot less. To win new clients and keep them loyal the traditional optical store should offer a more distinctive, more interesting and most of all more innovative collection!
