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If you own a pair of glasses, there's a good chance that the frames were made by a little-known Italian company that you probably have never heard of.
A short thread
on the absolute giant it is and how it became one
A short thread
on the absolute giant it is and how it became one
1/ Leonardo Del Vecchio grew in an orphanage in wartime Milan. His mother was poor and his father had died before he was born. In 1961, at the age of 26, he started Luxottica as a workshop that produced eyewear components in Agordo, Italy.
2/ In early 1971, Luxottica started producing and selling entire frames of glasses. Meanwhile, in 1972, two french companies Essel and Silor merged to form Essilor.
3/ In 1974, Luxottica started focusing on wholesale distribution by acquiring Scarrone S.p.A.
4/ In the late '80s, eyewear had started evolving into fashion accessories. In 1988, Luxottica signed a licensing deal with Giorgio Armani. The deal changed the glasses market and was the beginning point of Luxottica's portfolio of licenses of International fashion brands.
5/ Luxottica was mostly operating on the wholesale side of the industry but Del Vecchio had his eyes (and glasses) set on the retail side of the industry.
6/ In 1992, LensCrafters, a company owned by U.S. Shoe Corp, surpassed Pearle Vision to become the largest chain of eyeglass retailers in the US.
7/ In 1990, Del Vecchio got Luxottica listed on NYSE. In 1995, Luxottica acquired U.S. Shoe Corp for $1.4B - not to get into the shoe business but to take control of hundreds of LensCrafters' stores in the US.
8/ Between 1990 and 1999, Luxottica acquired or licensed some of the most popular brands including Brooks Brothers, Chanel, Persol, Bulgari, and Vogue Eyewear.
9/ In 1999, Luxottica made one of the most important acquisitions in the history of the company - Ray-Ban. For $645M.
10/ Before acquisition, Ray-Bans were being sold at $29 a pair. Luxottica bought the company, stopped selling Ray-Bans and took it off the market, refurbished everything, and started selling those $29 pairs at the price of $150 and above about a year later.
11/ In 2001, Luxottica extended its retail network by acquiring Sunglasses Hut - one of the largest sunglasses chains in North America, which laid the foundation to acquire Oakley - the hottest sunglasses maker at that time.
12/ Luxottica asked Oakley to reduce their wholesale prices. Oakley refused and in November 2001, Luxottica stopped selling Oakleys at Sunglasses Hut. Oakley's share fell by 37%. Eventually, in 2007, Luxottica acquired Oakley for $2.1B.
13/ In 2004, it also acquired Pearle Vision. (See thread tweet 6/). It also acquired Target Optical and Sears Optical that year.
14/ Between 2003 to 2017, it focused on licensing other major brands: Prada, Versace, DKNY, D&G, Burberry, Ralph Lauren, Tiffany, Tory Burch, Coach, Michael Kors, and Valentino.
15/ Here's a list of all the eyewear brands that are either acquired or licensed by Luxottica. The list is so big that I couldn't fit all the names in one tweet.
16/ ... and a list of retail brands that Luxottica owns.
17/ In 2018, Luxottica added the final piece of the puzzle - prescription lenses, by merging with Essilor - a giant that controls the prescription lens market. The new entity is called EssilorLuxottica.
18/ According to an article from The Guardian, Luxottica owns 25% of the frames market and Essilor owns 45% of the prescription glasses market. (2018) https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/10/the-invisible-power-of-big-glasses-eyewear-industry-essilor-luxottica
19/ In a '60 Minutes' interview from 2012, Andrea Guerra, the then-CEO of Luxottica claimed: "At least half a Billion [people] are wearing our glasses now."
20/ The Guardian article also claims that EssilorLuxottica has a customer base of more 1.4 Billion customers, and will sell close to a billion pairs of lenses and frames every year.
21/ One of the lines on EssilorLuxottica's website says:
"80% of what we learn is processed through our eyes."
End.
"80% of what we learn is processed through our eyes."
End.
