ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The value of optical retail sales in all categories of vision care products and services (except refractive surgery) were up for the twelve month period ending September 2014, when compared with the twelve month period ending September 2013, according to The Vision Council’s latest VisionWatch report. Contact lenses showed the strongest growth of 4.8 percent, followed by lenses, which increased 4.3 percent, and examinations, which were up 4.2 percent. The following chart shows the latest dollar value figures available for all optical retail sales in the categories of frames, lenses, contact lenses, sunglasses, over-the-counter readers, examinations, and refractive surgery.
Source: September 2014 VisionWatch, the large scale continuous research study conducted by The Vision Council with approximately 110,000 respondents. *Optical Retail includes dollars spent by U.S. residents 18 and older at all optical locations on the sale of either spectacle lenses (regular Rx and Rx sun), frames, sunglasses (plano only), OTC readers, or revenue earned from refractive surgery or eye examinations. Does not include sunglass clips or retail dollars spent by/for exams for those 17 years of age or younger. Optical retail includes leased optical spaces in department stores, mass merchandisers with optical locations, optical chains, and independents with optical locations.