Comparison of soft contact lens markets in Europe

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Previous reports have demonstrated marked difference in the nature of contact lens markets around the world, in terms of both the number of wearers1 or practitioner prescribing habits.2

A fundamental measure of the success of contact lenses within a market is the 'wearer base' which is the fraction of adults (aged 15 and over) who wear contact lenses within a population. The countries with the biggest contact lens wearer bases are the US3 (all lenses: 38 million wearers, 16 per cent of adults; soft lenses: 29 million wearers, 12 per cent of adults) and Japan4 (all lenses: 16 million wearers, 15 per cent of adults). These two countries account for over 40 per cent of contact lens wearers worldwide. The next largest world markets are those in the major European countries and this report presents recent calculations on the number of contact lens wearers across Europe based on manufacturer sales information.