The Forbes Love Note to Luxottica

"Go to the sunglass counter of any department store and you’ll likely see a crowd willing to pay hundreds of dollars for the perfect pair of designer shades." Wow! That's a sight every optician would love to see. It's a fantasy, an illusion, which we found in a recent Forbes post concerning what it calls an "obscure" company--Luxottica. "The money they’re spending is going to a single company that makes just about every designer eyewear brand you can think of. The company is called Luxottica, and it made 75 million glasses last year..[Here's the line that caught our attention]: The Italian company has practically taken over [our emphasis] the eyewear market from manufacturing to distribution. Luxottica produced 46.6 million sunglasses and 26.1 million prescription frames...[and] sold them through one of its 7,000 retail stores." Based on our research, Luxottica has a 30-33% U.S. market share--frames, lenses, and retail sales. It's the big kid on the playground, but remember the same was said of General Motors in the 1950's.  Read more of the Forbes post.