NEW YORK—It was a busy year in 2016 across the U.S. optical industry. On top of a continuing run of acquisitions and consolidation, the year was marked by a broader penetration of new technologies that are reshaping the business, a more finicky and value-focused consumer, and mounting challenges for mall-based retailers, to name just a few of last year’s key challenges.

The industry snapshot that emerges from this potpourri of factors is the new 2017 Vision Monday annual Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers report. The exclusive 2017 report, which will be released Monday, May 15, mixes this stew of business drivers and industry data to produce the much-anticipated annual ranking of top optical retailers.

This year’s report unveils a some new movement among the companies in the Top 10, and also further validates the industry trends that have emerged over the past few years.

For example, following the trend of previous year’s, the VM Top 50 U.S. Optical Retailers group in 2017 accounted for 1.4 percentage points more (36.7 percent) of the total U.S. Vision Care market than the Top 50 group (which had a 35.3 percent share) of a year ago. The Top 10 retailers this year similarly grabbed a significantly larger piece of the Vision Care marketplace, 31.6 percent for this year’s Top 50 versus 30.5 percent for the Top 50 of a year ago.

Mass merchants, too, accounted for a larger market share this year, with the seven retailers in this segment pulling a 9.7 percent slice of the Vision Care pie this year compared with 9.4 percent a year ago.

Check out VMail and/or the Vision Monday website early Monday for more analysis of the Top 50 Optical Retailers and a complete rundown of the 2017 list with the key industry data.