2023 Market Size (in '000 EURO)
Data published by EuromContact highlighted that the market value of soft contact lenses at industry to eye care professionals (ECPs) level grew by 5.2% to €2,157m in 2023. The association’s annual report, A Comparison of European Soft Contact Lens Markets in 2023, included data from 32 countries.
In 11 countries, growth of 3.8% to €1,755m occurred in the soft contact lens market with daily disposables growing by 4.3% and weekly/bi-weekly and monthly by 2.8%. There was a significant increase of 16.2% in Belgium and Luxembourg, and 11.7% in Sweden in the soft contact lens market.
Sweden had the highest penetration rank at 13.2%, up 8.6%, of the 15-64 years old population wearing contact lens wearers, ahead of Denmark (12.8%) and Norway (11.0%). These countries were followed by the Netherlands (10.8%), Switzerland at 9.1% and the UK and Ireland at 8.9%, with the latter figure representing a year-on-year increase of 0.5%.
The lowest among the 11 was Germany at 4.5%, which increased 3.1%, and France (4.8%, down 6.6%). Among all markets, there were 20.4m wearers, which was up 0.1%. The lens care market grew by 1.3% to €174m across all countries and there was a 4.8% increase to €146m in the 11 countries covered by the report.
Total soft disinfection (hydrogen peroxide and multi-purpose solutions) makes up 80.2% of the total lens care product market among all countries. Weekly/bi-weekly and monthly wearers, as well as conventional soft contact lens wearers, used hydrogen peroxide and multi-purpose solutions to disinfect and store CLs when not worn.
In value, daily disposables accounted for 58.9% of the market while weekly/bi-weekly and monthly contact lenses represented 41.1%, and both markets saw growth of 4.8% and 5.6% respectively. Daily disposables were worn by 10% in Denmark, and 7.2% in Sweden, 7.9% in Norway, followed by the UK and Ireland (5.9%) and Switzerland (5.1%).
Silicone hydrogels held an 83.8% value share in the weekly/bi-weekly and monthly segment, ranging from 82.4% in Italy to 95.4% in Norway among the top 11 growing countries.
A growing market
In the UK and Ireland, the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers (ACLM) reported the size of the contact lens market in 2023 was £360m, which made it the biggest market with an increase of 5.6% from 2022. There were more than 3.9m contact lens wearers in the UK, which represented 8.9% of the adult population. However, the contact lens care market declined 1.4% to £17.4m.
The ACLM noted that not all manufacturers contributed to the statistics, so rigid gas permeable lenses, some care products and high street own brand products were not reported. Alcon, Avizor, Bausch+Lomb, CooperVision, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Mark’ennovy and Menicon (Europe) all contributed to the wider data collected by EuromContact.
It highlighted that technological developments continued to come on-stream, making the latest designs of contact lenses more suitable than ever for presbyopic treatment and for myopia management, as well as for older and younger wearers.
‘Contact lenses remain popular with the vast majority of wearers and they offer the best opportunity for business growth to ECPs. Managed properly, long-term contact lens wearers are generally more loyal to their practitioner for aftercare,’ the ACLM said.
