NEW YORK—The Vision Council’s latest VisionWatch report showed that the U.S. vision care market sales reached $39.4 billion, reflecting a 6.3 percent gain in dollar sales for the 12 months ending September 2015. All segments, including Rx lenses, frames, exams, contact lenses, plano sunglasses, refractive surgery and over the counter (OTC) readers saw gains for the period.
Among the segment performance in the latest VisionWatch Consumer Barometer report, prescription lens sales led the way rising by 8.9 percent in dollar value to $12.5 billion at retail while frames’ sales during the same 12-month period increased by 5.9 percent in dollars to $9.5 billion.
Contact lenses and plano sunglasses also registered sales improvements of 5.4 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, for the 12 months. Eye exam revenues also grew by 3.7 percent to reach a value of $5.8 billion for the period. The number of eye exams increased from 51.2 million in September 2014 to 51.9 in the 12-months ending September 2015.
Refractive surgery revenues rose by 5.4 percent for the 12-month period to $1.9 billion while over the counter readers also saw growth increasing 1.6 percent to $837 million. The number of U.S. residents who opted for refractive surgery saw a healthy increase to 938,000 for the period versus 893,000 for the 12-months ending September 2014.
In addition, the VisionWatch Consumer Barometer, which regularly tracks consumer purchases and attitudes toward eyewear and eyecare products and services, showed that its Index of future purchasing intent was 112 for the six months ending September, down slightly from the Rx eyewear future purchase intent registered in June 2015 but comparable to the future purchasing intents of consumers in the prior year’s comparable period.
The overall eyeglass purchase intent index remained the same for the period at 106.