Optical industry revenue, online sales improve in 2021, report finds
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The Vision Council released its VisionWatch market research report for the fourth quarter of 2021, which revealed that while the industry has rebounded from the challenges of 2020, end-of-year revenue remains lower than in previous years.
According to a Vision Council press release, there was $45.83 billion in eye wear purchases during 2021, which represents a nearly 25% increase over 2020 and a 5% increase over 2019. Still, the fourth quarter of 2021 underperformed relative to the fourth quarter of 2020 or the third quarter of 2021.
“The U.S. optical industry generated $9.72 billion in revenue at the retail level during the Q4 2021 period — down by 0.5% compared to Q4 2020 revenues, but up by 2.4% when compared to Q4 2019 revenues before the pandemic started,” Steve Kodey, senior director of industry research at the Vision Council, said in the release. “Fourth quarter optical industry performance was strong by historical comparison but has also reached a plateau compared to an unusually strong Q4 2020 period.”
The Vision Council further noted that online sales of all eye wear increased by 14% during the 12-month period ending December 2021 — largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic —and generated $3.86 billion in revenue. In addition, online sales of frames and lenses rose by 28.1% and 20.2%, respectively, and sales of frames and lenses as a unit pair increased by 21.1%.
“While online sales continue to grow, they did lose some share to brick-and-mortar purchases during Q2, Q3 and Q4 2021 as many consumers started to return to in-person shopping and buying eye wear in increasing numbers compared to 2020,” Kodey said.
The Vision Council also reported that 126.8 million U.S. adults had some form of managed vision care coverage by December 2021, an increase of 0.8% compared with December 2020.
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