TOKYO— Hoya Corp. (TOKYO: 7741) credited the strong performance of its eyeglass lens business for a 19.9 revenue increase over year-ago in the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2014.

Hoya reported that revenue for its Life Care segment, which includes eyeglass lenses and contact lenses, grew 26.1 percent to 74.2 million yen during the quarter, as its eyeglass lens business recovered from the flooding in Thailand. The transfer of the eyeglass lenses operation from Seiko Epson Corporation and healthy sales growth in both the contact lens and endoscope businesses also contributed, apart from the effect of a weak yen, to increased sales, the company said. As a result, Hoya’s fourth quarter sales totaled 115,224 million yen, up 19.9 percent from the same period the previous year.

“Both revenues and profits of the eyeglass lens business fully recovered from the flooding in Thailand in the fourth quarter. We are planning to increase production capacity by opening a new plant this year,” said Hiroshi Suzuki, Hoya’s chief executive officer.

Hoya reported that its profit before tax totaled 19,892 million yen, while profit for the term amounted to 12,758 million yen, a decline of 37.1 percent and 47.5 percent from the previous year, respectively. In the same period, the previous year included insurance income of 14,275 million yen as compensation for damage suffered from flooding in Thailand. Excluding this one-off factor, profit before tax increased from the same period last year, according to Hoya.

For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014, Hoya’s revenues totaled 427,575 million yen, up 14.8 percent year on year. Profit before tax was 85,486 million yen and profit for the term was 60,140 million yen, a decline of 6.3 percent and 16.9 percent respectively year on year.

The company’s Life Care unit posted revenue of 265,470 million yen for the fiscal year, up 27 percent versus the prior year.