CHARENTON-LE-PONT, France—With senior executives pointing to fiscal 2023 sales rising 7 percent at constant exchange rates, "nice acceleration" in North America in Q4, its investment in new innovation technologies such as Varilux XR, Stellest and Ray-Ban Meta, and a strengthening of its luxury frame brand portfolio, EssilorLuxottica reported record revenues for the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2023. The company's board met on Feb. 14 to approve the consolidated financial statements for the period, statements audited by Statutory Auditors whose report is in the process of being issued.

Francesco Milleri, chairman and CEO, and Paul du Saillant, deputy CEO at EssilorLuxottica commented,“We’re proud to share these strong results with our stakeholders, delivering another year above 7 percent revenue growth, including an acceleration in Q4, with every one of our regions doing its part. Our profitability remained strong, with a record adjusted Group net profit close to €3 billion and free cash flow at €2.4 billion.

"It was also a year of major investments: growing new product categories, with Stellest in myopia and Ray-Ban Meta in wearables, adding beloved brands like Moncler and Jimmy Choo to our portfolio, leveraging artificial and business intelligence, expanding our operations footprint and reinforcing the retail presence globally. This will support the evolution of the company and the transformation of the industry over the next decade."

They continued, "Moreover, Nuance Audio’s debut at CES created a resounding buzz around EssilorLuxottica and our disruptive proposition in the audio space that bridges two industries combining good vision and better hearing.

"We also progressed on our sustainability roadmap, Eyes on the Planet, reaching carbon neutrality in Europe and continuing our journey to connect our communities around the world with a common culture and shared values, growing our employee shareholders globally to almost 80,000.

With all these positive results and momentum, we are confident that we will keep the pace and meet our long-term targets," the executives said.

During the year the group also renewed its Kodak (perpetual) license, and established a co-branding agreement with Roger Federer for Oliver Peoples. On the retail side, the group renewed its licensing agreement for Target Optical stores and signed a joint-venture agreement with Chalhoub Group to develop the retail business in the GCC area.

In 2023, EssilorLuxottica recorded its third consecutive year of revenue growth at constant exchange rates above 7. The full year closed at +7.1 percent year over year, after +7.5 percent in 2022 versus 2021 and +7.4 percent in 2021 versus 2019. The EssilorLuxottica group revenues were reported at €25.4 billion for the year. Adjusted operating profit grew respectively 7.7 percent and 9.4 percent at constant exchange rates "in a year where the inflationary headwinds impacted various cost items and in particular the cost of labor," the company said.

In North America for the year, collective sales rose 4.2 percent to €11.6 billion. Internationally, the developing regions were the best performing in the quarter, both Asia-Pacific (+10.3  percent at constant exchange rates) and Latin America (+12.7 percent) were up double digits, respectively, driven by the key markets of China and Brazil. The mature areas also contributed with North America (+5.9 percent) accelerating nicely versus the third quarter, driven by both wholesale and retail, and EMEA (+6.4 percent) confirming the sound pace of the previous quarter in both segments.
 
The full year mirrored this picture with Asia-Pacific (+14.3 percent) and Latin America (+9.9 percent) growing faster than EMEA (+8.2 percent) and North America (+4.2 percent).

On a full year basis, the performance confirmed the stable weight of the company's two major divisions on the group’s total revenue, 48 percent for Professional Solutions and 52 percent for Direct to Consumer. The brick-and-mortar comparable-store sales advanced by more than 5 percent in both the fourth quarter and the full year, with the optical business as the sole driver with sunwear flat in both periods. E-commerce revenue closed just slightly positive in the fourth quarter, in excess of €1.65 billion in the full year (at 7 percent of the group’s total revenue).

In terms of its overall business mix, the group confirmed with optical at approximately three-fourths and sun at approximately one-fourth of the group’s total revenues.

In terms of profitability, the group’s performance was temporarily under more pressure in 2023, due to surging inflation at the global economy level together with the major currency headwinds as well as the addition of costs to support the aforementioned new initiatives, the company reported.

The adjusted group net profit amounted to €2,946 million in the full year, representing 11.6 percent of revenue, compared to 11.7 percent in 2022, a margin dilution of 10 basis points, while at constant exchange rates the margin expanded by 20 basis points to 11.9 percent of revenue.
 
The operating profit and the group net profit directly stemming from IFRS consolidated financial statements amounted to €3,176 million and €2,289 million respectively in the full year.

The company ended the year with €2.56 billion in cash and cash equivalents and a net debt of  €9.10 billion (including €3.24 billion lease liabilities) compared to a net debt of €10.25 billion at the end of December 2022.

The company confirmed its target of mid-single-digit annual revenue growth from 2022 to 2026 at constant exchange rates (based on 2021 pro forma revenue) and expects to achieve an adjusted operating profit as a percentage of revenue in the range of 19 percent to 20 percent by the end of that period.

The total number of the group’s active employee shareholders, distributed in 86 countries, is currently 77,500, from 72,000 in 2022 and nearly 67,000 in 2021. The “Boost 2023” international shareholding plan reached a subscription rate of 67 percent. "This reflects the team's confidence in the company's strategy and performance. Employee Shareholding is a cornerstone of EssilorLuxottica’s culture, aligning employees’ interests with those of the group and other shareholders," the company said.

In 2023, the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation significantly scaled up global actions, accelerating progress against the Group’s ambition to help eliminate uncorrected poor vision in a generation. In collaboration with like-minded partners, the Foundation provided 177 million people with permanent access to vision care, dispensed more than 14 million pairs of eyeglasses to those in need and established more than 4,900 permanent access points, bringing vision care to areas where it was previously unavailable.

Notable achievements in 2023 included establishment of the Foundation in Latin America, aiming to provide vision care to 190 million beneficiaries living with uncorrected poor vision in the region. On World Sight Day, over 270,000 beneficiaries were screened as part of the company's global efforts, and 108,000 pairs of glasses were distributed in 49 countries. Over the course of the year, more than 3,800 EssilorLuxottica employees and 2,120 non-EssilorLuxottica volunteers supported the Foundation through traditional volunteering and skills-based initiatives, elevating the delivery of vision care in their respective regions.

Since 2013, the Foundation has established a presence in 130 countries globally, cumulatively providing vision care to over 762 million people, distributing eyeglasses to 71.8 million individuals and establishing 27,700 rural optical points.

The group updated its Code of Ethics and took a significant step by formulating a new Code of Conduct for business partners to establish harmonized practices, clarify expectations and ethical principles, along with protecting human and labor rights across the entire value chain.

EssilorLuxottica introduced its internal reporting system, SpeakUp, as part of its broader ethical framework. This system not only empowers employees but also extends its reach to certain external stakeholders, providing a platform for them to confidentially report unethical or illegal behavior.

In 2023, the Group's Leonardo learning platform embarked on a series of impactful initiatives across diverse regions, with the primary objective of fostering open dialogue among employees and to nurture an inclusive work environment. These efforts were aimed at advancing individual skill sets and also at promoting a workplace culture that values diversity, encourages communication and champions inclusivity.

EssilorLuxottica in 2023 engaged in a collaborative campaign with the United Nations Special Envoy for Road Safety. The goal is to advocate for good vision among all road users. Additionally, the company undertook corporate citizenship actions directed at preserving cultural heritage.

In the early stages of 2024, EssilorLuxottica achieved what it described as a significant milestone in its cultural journey by setting its new values. In line with the Group’s open and inclusive business model, tens of thousands of employees actively engaged in shaping these values by responding to a questionnaire or participating in workshops.