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David Cameron's exclamation that 'the good news will keep on coming' following the Q312 announcement of GDP growth has been followed more recently with the news that Q412 GDP has slipped back into decline, -0.3 per cent, and that there is a renewed risk of a triple-dip recession in 2013.
The figures for full year 2012 show that economic growth in the UK had been broadly flat, with the growth seen in Q3 offset by smaller declines in the other three quarters.
GB optical practitioners have fared better than the economy as a whole, with total sales value of the product groups tracked by GfK (spectacle frames, contact lenses, care products and sunglasses) up by 1.3 per cent over the year as a whole. These figures highlight that the optical market continues to be resilient over a time where growth has been hard to achieve and within a retail landscape where many high street mainstays have either entered administration or closed their doors for good.
This impressive growth figure for the optical market can be further broken down by product group. Spectacle frames, the largest product group tracked, have grown value ahead of the total rate at 2.1 per cent as compared to full year 2011. Contact lenses also have grown value at 2.1 per cent, maintaining their consistent growth dating back over a number of years.
Care products have grown slightly behind the rate of contact lenses, at 1.6 per cent against full year 2011, as a greater proportion of wearers opt for daily options, meaning the net need for solutions is reduced.
Practitioner value sales of sunglasses, meanwhile, are down 19.7 per cent against 2011. This is in large part due to poor weather damaging sunglass sales levels in April and June. However, there is also significant competition from department stores and sunglass specialists, which are gaining market share of the product group at the expense of optical practices.
Within the growing contact lens market there is a marked difference in performance between lens types. While weekly/monthly lenses have seen their value decline over 2012, daily lenses have grown value as compared to 2011, pushing the contact lens market as a whole into growth.
Material benefits
A key factor in the high growth rate seen within daily lenses is the emergence of silicone hydrogel (SiH) lenses as an increasingly significant sector within the daily market. In weekly/monthly lenses, SiH lenses already account for over 80 per cent of sales value, meaning further growth is increasingly difficult to achieve, but within the daily segment SiH technology is still an emerging presence. By consistently gaining share of the daily lens market in each quarter of 2012, SiH lenses have seen their value share of dailies jump to 19 per cent for full year 2012, up from 15.2 per cent in 2011. An absolute value growth rate over the year of 29.8 per cent against 2011 has meant that, despite still accounting for the minority of total daily lens sales value, SiH lenses have driven the growth seen with the daily segment. Traditional hydrogel daily lenses, meanwhile, have seen a small decline in value sales for full year 2012.
With the introduction of more daily SiH lenses to the market, and the significant amount of headroom for further growth within the daily segment still available, we can expect to see SiH lenses continue to gain share within the daily contact lens market and drive growth over 2013 and the years thereafter.
Data quoted cover mainland GB optical practices only (chemists and supermarkets are also included for contact lens care products).