With the global rise in cases of worsening eye health due to the current lifestyle and work culture, the need for prescription glasses has spiked. Not to mention the launch of trendy eyewear on the best online glasses platforms, which has also captured the fancy of generations of consumers all over the world. According to market analysts and experts at Fortune Business Insights, the eyeglasses market is all set to hit the 178 billion USD mark by 2026, as these trends continue to grow steadily.
Eyewear has been an integral part of our daily lives for ages now. With time and technology, eyewear designs and styles have only evolved. Whether one genuinely needs power correction of their vision or whether they only wear spectacles while working to shut off the harmful light from the computer screen or even if it is just to look nerdy and fashionable, eyewear keeps fulfilling diverse requirements of the consumers. As a result, the sales graph for the eyeglasses industry has always been on the rise. Today, the most popular eyewear are prescription glasses, blue light blocking lenses, sunglasses, contact lenses, and powered sunglasses, among others.
Impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global eyewear market
Last year, i.e. in 2020, the eyewear market was sized at almost 106 billion USD. Like all other industries, this market also suffered a negative impact across all its regions, due to the outbreak of the pandemic. Studies suggest that the eyewear market experienced a decline of about 13 percent in 2020 when compared to its YoY growth recorded from 2017 to 2019.
The spread of the coronavirus brought about a significantly detrimental effect on trades involving all kinds of eyewear products, as worldwide lockdowns started being imposed during the initial part of 2020. It also resulted in shutting down optical retail stores and doctors’ clinics for extensive periods. According to market research, the number of retina clinics declined by almost 62 percent during May 2020 when the pandemic emerged in full swing. Consequently, eye examinations that were not urgent had to be postponed, which further led to the drop in sales of eyewear. Of course, the major disruptions in eyewear production and transportation during the pandemic also resulted in a decline in the eyewear market in 2020.
However, 2021 has proved to be a better year for the eyewear industry.
The eyeglasses market is all set to rise, say experts
With the availability and mass-scale vaccination drives, as the world is trying to get back to its feet, it is also ushering the revival of the eyewear market, like all other industries.
The prescription glasses segment in the eyeglasses industry recorded dominating sales figures before the pandemic. Now, with rising cases of myopia and hypermetropia, one of the immediate effects of the digital overload during the lockdowns, the demand for prescription glasses is expected to bolster the growth of this industry. The rising demand for premium eyewear in North America will spur this growth. It will be closely followed by the demand for contact lenses and also sunglasses.
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