MILAN, June 3 (Class Editori) -- China has been the deciding vote for the success of the Essilor and Luxottica merge officially celebrated in October last year, an operation that created the absolute world leader in the field of eyewear with over 16 billion euros combined revenues, more than 150 thousand employees and a portfolio of 9 thousand patents.
Among the many suspensory conditions provided for in the contracts that tied the French visual lens giant to the frame group founded by Leonardo Del Vecchio, the go-ahead by the Beijing regulators represented the crucial one and was also the last in order of time to fail, in July 2018.
As far as the Agordo group is concerned, the presence in China dates back to the late 1990s and is today represented by three production plants and a logistics hub in the southern district of Guangdong, in Dongguan, as well as a network of 300 shops and two laboratories "trend, design and creative" to develop new projects.
According to the latest financial statement filed by Luxottica, together with two small production sites in Japan and India, the three plants in China represent approximately 43% of total pre-merger production. The Dongguan logistics hub manages on average 205,000 units a day and its position in the south of the country makes it a strategic hub for distribution in the entire Asia-Pacific area.
At national level, Luxottica is present in the eyewear retail segment with the LensCrafters and SunglassHut chains, as well as with Spectacle Hut in the neighboring Singapore. About the e-commerce, in recent years some strategic alliances have been established to open Ray-Ban and Oakley stores within Tmall - the largest online platform in the country.
The Essilor landing in China dates back a few years before the former Italian competitor, and the Charenton-le-Pont company today can count on six production plants and on various strategic alliances with local players for development and research. The flagship of the presence in China is a development and testing center in the county-town of Danyang, in the province of Jiangsu.
It is a veritable controller which has the task of evaluating, comparing and improving the performance of products made by Chinese partners. One of the flagships of the transalpine group is the "sun and reading glasses" division, for which several companies operate, such as Xiamen Yarui Optical.
The latter designs, produces and sells mid-range sunglasses, which are then marketed under the Bolon, Molsion and Prosun brands. One of his sister company, Photosynthesis, instead, deals with serving all of Southeast Asia with sunglasses and corrective glasses, in particular with the Mjs brand.
A new center for innovation and technology will open in Shanghai later this year. Its task will focus on the development of new technologies to improve the Chinese customer's experience, on the development of products adapted to the needs of local consumers and above all on myopia.
In recent times, the World Health Organization has estimated that there are 600 million people in China suffering from this pathology, which therefore affects just under half of the population. A study by the University of Beijing has also calculated that the number of Chinese who will need eye correction should exceed 700 million by 2020.
Already today, the country represents the main world market for glasses for volumes, with about 100-300 million pairs sold every year. Considering that the WHO has always found that the onset rate of myopia is constantly increasing, exceeding 70% in high schools and universities and reaching 50% in primary schools, it is natural to think that by focusing strongly on China Essilor managed to anticipate (and ride) the trend.
Without ever losing focus on the social aspect. In fact, the company led by Laurent Vacherot has extended the approach of the Essilor Vision Foundation to China: founded in the United States in 2007, it provides visual care to children and disadvantaged young people. According to the latest updates provided by the institution's website, EVF currently operates in 22 Chinese provinces and has provided visual corrections to 110,547 children, keeping 1.23 million monitored.
(Source:Class Editori)
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