In the third quarter of this year, Luxottica increased sales with 17%. The company was helped by the money exchange rates. In case of constant rates the growth would have been 6,7%. Nevertheless impressive in a difficult market. Sales increased to almost 1,8 billion euro for the quarter, net profit increased to 138,6 million euro. Luxottica realized double-digit growth in China, Turkey, Mexico, India, Brazil and Eastern Europe. In Europe itself the Nordic countries, France, Germany and the United Kingdom did very well. Even Spain showed a slight recovery whereas Italy once again showed negative results. The stores owned by Luxottica also performed well. Like-for-like the Lenscrafters stores in north America increased sales with 2,5%. Sunglass Hut increased worldwide like-for-like with 8,8%. Investments and reorganizations in Australia seem to bear fruit with a like-for-like growth for the stores in that region of 8,5% in this third quarter. Just to give you an impression of the scale of this optical giant: interest over the almost 2,8 billion debts in the first nine months of the year totalled more as 100 million euro.
