Gucci Is Struggling, But This Division Is Smiling — The Secret Behind Eyewear's 23% Margin
Overview
A side-by-side look at the recent results of the global eyewear industry's Big Four — EssilorLuxottica, Kering Eyewear, Safilo and Marcolin. EssilorLuxottica's revenue is nine times larger than the other three combined, yet the top operating margin in H1 2026 belonged to Kering Eyewear (23.0%), home to Gucci and Saint Laurent. This piece examines why one division kept posting record results while its parent group struggled, and how VSP Vision's acquisition of Marcolin is redrawing the industry map.
The Kering group has been struggling for years now because of Gucci's slump. Yet inside that same group sits a division that keeps setting new half-year records — Kering Eyewear, which makes eyewear for Gucci, Saint Laurent, Cartier and Balenciaga. In the first half of 2026, this division posted an operating margin of 23.0% — higher even than EssilorLuxottica (18.9%), the world's largest eyewear company. On the other side of the industry, the map is being redrawn entirely: in December 2025, Marcolin, the storied Italian eyewear house that private equity firm PAI Partners had held for over a decade, was sold to the American vision-benefits company VSP Vision. By revenue, EssilorLuxottica alone is nine times bigger than the other three companies combined — but a single sales table doesn't reveal who's actually winning in this market.
Four Companies, Four Different Business Models
The way these four companies compete in the global eyewear market is fundamentally different.
| EssilorLuxottica | Kering Eyewear | Safilo | Marcolin | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Public (Euronext Paris/Milan) | 100% subsidiary of Kering group | Public (Borsa Italiana) | Acquired by VSP Vision (Dec. 2025) |
| Business model | Full vertical integration: lenses + frames + retail | House-brand-led luxury manufacturing & distribution | Pure design/manufacturing/distribution (B2B wholesale) | Pure licensed manufacturing/distribution (B2B wholesale) |
| House brands | Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Vogue Eyewear | Lindberg, Maui Jim, Zeal Optics | Carrera, Polaroid, Smith, Privé Revaux | WEB Eyewear, ic! berlin |
| Key licenses | Armani, Chanel, Prada, Burberry, Versace, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren | Gucci, Saint Laurent, Cartier, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Valentino, Alexander McQueen | BOSS, Kate Spade, Levi's, Under Armour, Missoni, Carolina Herrera | Tom Ford, Zegna, Guess, Max Mara, Christian Louboutin |
| Retail stores | 17,750 (LensCrafters, Sunglass Hut, etc.) | None (wholesale) | None (wholesale) | None (wholesale) |
EssilorLuxottica is the only one of the four to have completed vertical integration from lens manufacturing all the way to retail. The other three all make frames — either under a brand-house model (Kering) or licensing deals (Safilo, Marcolin) — and sell them wholesale to department stores, optical chains and e-commerce. That difference explains much of the margin gap we'll see below.
Core Insight #1 — EssilorLuxottica: From Eyewear Company to AI Wearables Company
EssilorLuxottica remains the overwhelming No. 1. H1 2026 revenue reached €14.818 billion, up 9.7% at constant exchange rates year over year — a slight deceleration from Q1 (+10.8%) but still solid in Q2 (+8.7%). More notable is that net profit grew even faster than revenue: net profit of €1.921 billion (+13.3%), while adjusted operating profit rose 15%, pushing the margin up to 18.9%.
| Year | Revenue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | €25.4B | +7.1% (constant FX) |
| 2024 | €26.5B | +6.0% (constant FX) |
| 2025 | €28.49B | +11.2% (constant FX) |
| H1 2026 | €14.818B | +9.7% (constant FX) |
Traditional fashion eyewear is no longer what's driving this growth. Myopia-management lens sales rose 24% in Q2 alone, and AI smart-glasses sales from Ray-Ban and Oakley nearly doubled. A company that once simply sold glasses is shifting its center of gravity toward healthcare lenses and AI wearable devices.
Core Insight #2 — Gucci Struggles, But Kering's Eyewear Division Just Had Its Best Half Ever
The most striking reversal comes from Kering Eyewear. The Kering group as a whole is in the middle of a Gucci rebranding and organizational overhaul, and its Fashion & Leathergoods division posted a comparable revenue decline of -1% in H1 2026. Yet over the same period, the eyewear division alone posted revenue of €965 million (+8% comparable, +5% reported) and an operating margin of 23.0% (up 2.9 points) — the best half-year result in the division's history.
| Year | Revenue | Operating income | Operating margin |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | €1.5B | €0.276B | ~18.4% |
| 2024 | €1.6B | €0.277B | ~17.3% |
| 2025 | €1.6B | €0.252B | 15.8% |
| H1 2026 | €0.965B | €0.222B | 23.0% |
What stands out is that the margin, which had been steadily eroding over 2023–2025 (18.4% → 17.3% → 15.8%), suddenly rebounded in H1 2026. Kering attributes this to the Lindberg 40th Anniversary capsule collection, the relaunch of Maui Jim's optical category, and the newly launched Valentino Eyewear. CEO Luca de Meo cited "stronger brand differentiation and organizational simplification" as growth drivers. Within the Kering group, eyewear — alongside jewelry (+20% comparable) — is now one of only two divisions still growing, effectively acting as a cash cow that partially offsets Gucci's weakness.
Core Insight #3 — Safilo: Revenue Down, But Margin Defended
Safilo tells a different kind of story. H1 2026 revenue came in at €512.0 million, down 1.9% at constant exchange rates (-4.8% at current rates), but adjusted EBITDA reached €86 million as the margin jumped from 11.6% to 16.8% — a 5.2-point gain — while adjusted net profit rose nearly 47% to €49.4 million.
| Year | Revenue | Profitability |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | €1.02B | Adjusted net profit €0.014B (-76%) |
| 2024 | ~€0.99B | Net profit rebounded sharply off a low base |
| 2025 | €0.983B | Adjusted EBITDA €0.104B (margin 10.6%, decade high); net profit €0.045B (+30.4%) |
| H1 2026 | €0.512B | Adjusted EBITDA €0.086B (margin 16.8%); adjusted net profit €0.049B (+47%) |
That said, 3.8 of the 5.2-point margin improvement came from a one-off US tariff refund. Even stripping that out, price/mix improvements (+2.3 points) did deliver real, defensible margin gains — but it's premature to call this a full turnaround based on the headline number alone. Safilo's CEO explained that soft US and European demand led customers to place orders more conservatively, though core brands like David Beckham, Carrera, Kate Spade and Marc Jacobs held up relatively well.
Core Insight #4 — Marcolin: No Longer a "Company's Results," Now "Part of VSP"
The fourth company's story isn't really about earnings — it's about a change in ownership altogether. PAI Partners, which had been trying to sell Marcolin since 2022, ran a sale process that drew bids from EssilorLuxottica, Kering Eyewear, Safilo, FountainVest and HAL Investments before Marcolin was ultimately acquired by the American vision-benefits company VSP Vision in December 2025. The last publicly disclosed half-year results (H1 2025 — Marcolin no longer reports separately following its integration into VSP) showed revenue of €0.2957 billion (+0.3% ex-FX, essentially flat) and an EBITDA margin of 17.7%.
| Year | Revenue | Adjusted EBITDA margin |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | €0.558B | 14.0% |
| 2024 | €0.546B (-2.2%, license-mix effect) | 15.6% |
| 9M 2025 | €0.417B (+2.1%) | 16.4% |
| H1 2025 (last public figure) | €0.296B (+0.3%) | 17.7% |
There's an easy-to-miss detail here. VSP Vision has owned Marchon Eyewear — which carries Nike, Calvin Klein, Salvatore Ferragamo, and ZEISS, among others — since 2008. With this acquisition, VSP now controls both of the industry's major independent manufacturers, Marchon and Marcolin. This is America's largest vision-insurance (eyewear benefits) provider vertically integrating into manufacturing and distribution — an entirely different logic from EssilorLuxottica or Kering, built not on brand power or retail but on control of the insurance/benefits channel. It's a third axis being built in this industry.
Business Impact — Not Scale, Not Licensing, But "Brand Density" Decides the Margin
Line up all four companies and the real battleground of this market comes into focus. EssilorLuxottica wins on sheer scale (nine times the combined revenue of the other three), yet its operating margin (18.9%) still falls short of Kering Eyewear's (23.0%). Safilo and Marcolin share a heavy reliance on licensed brands, but Marcolin's margin (16–18%, anchored by ultra-premium names like Tom Ford, Zegna and Christian Louboutin) is structurally higher than Safilo's (10–17%, with a heavier mix of lifestyle and mass-market brands). In other words, it isn't revenue scale but how expensive and scarce the brands in a portfolio are that decides margin. And Marcolin's change of ownership signals that this market has become an attractive battlefield not just for brand houses (Kering) or lens giants (EssilorLuxottica), but for players that control insurance and distribution channels (VSP Vision) as well.
Practical Implications
- Eyewear brand/licensing teams: Kering Eyewear's rebound came from a combination of new product launches (Valentino Eyewear) and reactivating existing assets (the Lindberg anniversary, the Maui Jim relaunch). For any company managing licensed brands, this is a useful case for allocating resources to rediscovering existing brands, not just acquiring new ones.
- Analysts/investors: When assessing Safilo's margin improvement, separate the tariff-refund effect (3.8 points) from the price/mix effect (2.3 points). Mistaking a one-off factor for structural improvement leads to mispricing next quarter's results.
- Korea's eyewear distribution/MD teams: Buyers handling these four companies' brands (Ray-Ban, Gucci, Carrera, Tom Ford, etc.) in the Korean market should factor in that each parent's margin strategy — vertical integration vs. licensing — flows directly into domestic wholesale terms and inventory policy, and should shape negotiating strategy accordingly.
- M&A/corporate strategy teams: The fact that EssilorLuxottica, Kering and Safilo all bid for Marcolin and lost to VSP Vision shows that industry realignment can't be predicted by looking only at the traditional competitive set. A player from an adjacent industry (insurance/benefits channels) can emerge as a new axis at any time.
Conclusion
By revenue alone, this market is EssilorLuxottica's stage, uncontested. But look at profitability, and the story changes — inside a Kering group under pressure, the eyewear division alone posted a record-high margin; Safilo defended its profitability through tariff refunds and pricing strategy even as revenue declined; and Marcolin's ownership has shifted entirely from a private-equity sponsor to an American vision-insurance company, redrawing the industry's very boundaries. Overlay all four scorecards, and it becomes clear that the next battleground in global eyewear has already shifted — from "who sells the most" to "who holds the scarcest brands," and "who controls the distribution and benefits channel."
What struck me most in laying these four companies side by side is that Kering Eyewear's 23% margin reads less like a simple "luxury premium" and more like the result of genuine organizational reset. While Gucci has spent years struggling to reset its brand, the eyewear division within the same group rebounded through new products and organizational simplification — proof that a luxury group's overall weakness doesn't automatically mean weakness across every division. If anything, a division's execution tends to stand out more clearly precisely when the core business (fashion, in this case) is struggling.
VSP Vision's acquisition of Marcolin is an event anyone watching this industry should remember. Having already secured Marchon, and now Marcolin, VSP has quietly become a giant of the US market spanning eyewear insurance benefits all the way to manufacturing. If EssilorLuxottica completed vertical integration through lenses + frames + retail, VSP is completing a different axis through insurance + manufacturing. Where these two vertically integrated giants collide next — particularly in the US eyewear distribution channel — will be the thing to watch in this industry going forward.
Finally, Safilo's case carries a real lesson for domestic distribution and licensing teams too. When revenue falls but margin improves, the market tends to read it as a "turnaround" — but this case shows that a meaningful chunk of that improvement can come from one-off factors like tariff refunds. Separating the one-off from the structural, rather than taking the headline number at face value, is the first real step to reading this industry correctly.