Simon Jones: The youth of today

Despite two days of listening to presentations about photochromic lenses and market penetration at the Transitions Academy event in Orlando recently (February 11-13), I still find myself with more questions than answers about the reasons behind low take up in UK and mainland Europe.

According to Transitions, one in 10 prescription glasses in Europe are sold with its lenses. Naturally, the company wants to increase this figure, but to me, it seemed like decent penetration. If the penetration increased to North American levels, which is two in every 10 pairs of prescription glasses and four in every 10 pairs of glasses with progressive lenses, I imagine the company would be very happy indeed. With all the extra people it would be helping with their vision, of course.