Luxottica responds to 'resizing' of market

The global eyewear industry is likely to contract by around 10 per cent, according to eyewear manufacturer Luxottica.

It announced a series of measures to drive sales and reduce costs including a 10 per cent reduction in the entry prices of its luxury and premium frames.Cost-cutting action will include making manufacturing reductions, closing stores, eliminating brands and makingcuts to advertising.

A company statement to analysts said that what the industry was seeing was 'not a temporary crisis, not a drastic and definitive change, but a global structural reset of the relevant market resulting in resizing by 10 per cent'.

Luxottica's announcement follows a drop in net income for the fiscal year 2008 of 17.6 per cent to €395m as well as a fourth-quarter decline in net income of 44.2 per cent to €54.1m, (see News, February 11, 2009).