Welcome to EssilorLuxottica Q4 revenue and full year 2021 results call. At the end of the presentation, there will be a 30-minute Q&A session where you'll be allowed to ask a maximum of two questions. If you would like to ask a question, you may do so by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. I now hand the call over to Giorgio Iannella, Head of Investor Relations.
Good morning, everybody. I'd like to share with you the company's statement we published yesterday on social media. We have been deeply saddened by the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, and we stand in solidarity alongside all those impacted. At this difficult time, the safety of our people remains our priority, and we are providing all the support possible to our affected teams in the region. Due to uncertainties and significant disruptions, we are temporarily restricting our operations in Russia. In line with our mission, we are committed to continue providing essential medical vision care services. We will monitor the situation and adapt our response accordingly. With that, I leave the floor to our CEO, Francesco Milleri.
Good morning all, and thank you for joining us. Today, we are proud to share with you EssilorLuxottica results for 2021, an extraordinary year in which we achieve a lot. We succeeded not only from a financial perspective, but we also completed some of the most strategic projects of the last few years that will shape the future of the company and all the industry for the years to come. Despite a still challenging environment, EssilorLuxottica embarked on a remarkable recovery journey in 2021, growing sales and profits compared to pre-pandemic levels. The company met the guidance on sales and beat its twice-upgraded targets on the operating margin. North America was the key driver thanks to our excellent execution in both Professional Solutions and the Direct to Consumer segment. On top of that, all the other regions accelerated in the fourth quarter, closing the year on a positive note.
Our ability to translate the business growth into operating margin expansion, drove up our profit, and generate an all-time record amount of cash flow. Stefano will further elaborate on all these trends later. If we look behind the pure financial results, 2021 was also an outstanding year in terms of transformation. With the interim period now behind us, we kicked off the next stage of integration. Company structure were merged and leaders for each of the business segment worldwide were appointed. This has given way to an experienced and talented top management team able to fulfill and execute our vision. We have finally completed the acquisition of GrandVision, which after the successful mandatory tender offer and its consequent delisting, is now fully consolidated in EssilorLuxottica's accounts.
We are now a EUR 21.5 billion company with an adjusted operating margin of 16.1% and net profit of EUR 2.3 billion. A dream has come true. On the product side, we brought to the market yet another groundbreaking innovation, Ray-Ban Stories, the next generation of smart glasses in partnership with Meta and rolled out to two new markets, Stellest, our lens innovation that slow the progression of myopia. The group is at the start of a new era. We are now richer in resources, faster in taking decisions, and ready to lead the evolution of the industry for higher standard of vision for people worldwide. You have heard us talk about the concept of network company.
While we continue to compete in our market, we also keep building a network, connecting to many other players to share with all the best we have and accomplish our mission of promoting good vision everywhere. At the same time, we deliver strong result to our shareholders and stakeholders. With that in mind, I would like to underline the great progress we have made reaching our mission, as well as our commitment to sustainability thanks to the Eyes on the Planet program. The improved ESG ranking of the group reflect all the hard work done so far, and Paul will tell you more about our initiatives as a key pillar of our identity. Last, we are updating our long term guidance for the next five years.
Until 2026, we are targeting to achieve mid-single-digit annual revenue growth and an adjusted operating margin in the range of 19%-20% at the end of the period. With that, I leave the floor to Stefano and Paul.
Thank you, Francesco, and good morning, everybody. As you remarked, 2021 has been an outstanding year for EssilorLuxottica, and the results on this page very much confirm that. On the upper part of the slide, you have a summary of our 2021 results, including the impact of GrandVision, while at the bottom of the page you have the results reported excluding the impact of GrandVision. On a full year basis, our top line grew on a high single digit territory at constant currency with a strong acceleration in the fourth quarter, where our top line accelerated in a double digit pace, 11% on a pro forma basis, including GrandVision, 11.8% excluding the impact of GrandVision. Actually, Q4 has been the best quarter for the group with and without the impact of GrandVision.
The last comment on our operating profit, where you can see that we accounted for a marginal dilution of approximately 90 basis points by including GrandVision into the EssilorLuxottica results. Therefore, on a pro forma basis, you're looking at an adjusted operating profit at 16.1% for the full year 2021. Now let's look at our results for 2021, comparing those results with the target provided at the beginning of the year in March and upgraded twice throughout the year. On a full year basis, we guided for a top line growth mid to high-single digit, and we actually deliver 8% growth rate for the full year 2021.
From a profitability standpoint, we actually guided for an adjusted operating profit versus 2019 as a percentage of revenue that would improve up to 100 basis points. We actually delivered 130 basis points of margin improvement compared to 2019. Therefore, our two KPIs were either fully met or exceeded for our target with respect to 2021. Now, let's leave behind 2021 and let's look at future and a bright future for EssilorLuxottica and share with you a revised long term outlook for the group. An outlook that is a story of top line growth as well as margin expansion. You can see here that our top line growth expectation for the period 2022 to 2026 is to grow our sales in a mid-single digit territory.
From a profitability standpoint, we have an expectation of an adjusted operating profit to land at between 19%-20% by year 2026. Just to qualify a little bit more our outlook for the period, I want to share with you that the figures provided today are at constant currency, that we included bolt-on acquisition as part of our top line growth. From a profitability standpoint, our operating profit is fully loaded with synergies as well as investment activity that the group will undertake during the next five years. Now, let's start looking at a little bit closely our two different segments before we start our journey across the four regions. On page eight of the presentation, you have the fourth quarter results for Professional Solutions and Direct to Consumer.
You can clearly see the Professional Solutions segment reported a top-line growth of approximately 7% at constant currency w ith EMEA, North America and Asia Pacific around mid-single digit territory, while Latin America posted a double-digit growth during Q4. From a channel mix standpoint, our growth was very much driven by key accounts, online partners, and by a tighter relationship with our ECPs around the world, thanks to specific programs like EL360 we're now deploying in different parts of the world. On the Direct to Consumer side, very pleased to see our brick-and-mortar division on a double-digit pace, while our e-commerce grew in excess of 60% during the course of the fourth quarter, with all four regions at double-digit pace. Now let's start our journey across the different regions, beginning as usual in page 11 for the biggest one, North America.
In North America, we posted another outstanding quarter in top line growth. 14% was our growth, very much in line with what we've seen during the course of the third quarter, with both Professional Solutions in mid-single digit and our Direct to Consumer at the double-digit pace. If we look closely at our Professional Solutions performance during the course of the fourth quarter, we're very pleased to report that Ray-Ban and the Oakley brand delivered double-digit growth, while our branded lens portfolio grew on a mid-single-digit territory with Transition, Varilux and Eyezen that all delivered positive growth during Q4. If we now move to the Direct to Consumer segment, our brick-and-mortar part was up double-digit. LensCrafters and Target Optical were high single-digit, very much supported by a strong lens mix.
We're pleased to report that Sunglass Hut posted the third consecutive quarter at double- digit comps, finally supported by international location as the U.S. border reopened to the international tourism. Last touch on e-commerce. E-commerce was up 75% versus 2019 after a strong holiday season with Oakley, Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, EyeBuyDirect, that all doubled the size of the business during the course of the fourth quarter. Now let's move to Europe, and very, very happy with the 8% top line growth on the fourth quarter. Again, another performance in continuation with the delivery that we've seen in Q3. In the Professional Solutions side of Europe, Italy, Scandinavia, Turkey, Eastern Europe, they were all up double digits. United Kingdom was up on the mid-single digit territory, while France that was slightly negative, very much due to a deceleration that we experienced in our frame business.
While our lens business was actually up on the high single-digit territory for Q4. From a channel mix standpoint, our growth was strongly driven by key accounts, buying group, ECP, while our travel retail business was in the negative territory due to the restrictions that we still experience due to COVID. Moving to our retail brick-and-mortar now. Very pleased to see top line accelerating close to the double-digit pace after the first nine months of the year, we were flat on a pro forma basis. Salmoiraghi & Viganò, our optical retail chain in Italy, performed on a double-digit pace with October, November and December, all of them in a double-digit territory. The U.K. business of GrandVision posted a top line growth up 20% during Q4. Finally, Sunglass Hut delivered comp in the positive territory for the last quarter of the year.
Now it's time to move east. Let's touch on Asia Pacific, where we're very pleased to see our top line on a positive territory at constant currency after two consecutive quarter of sales decline. Our growth in the region was very much driven by the Professional Solutions segment, where our Direct to Consumer segment was slightly negative. In Professional Solutions, our two key countries, India and China, delivered both double-digit growth. In particular, in China, we sold approximately 350,000 pairs of Stellest lenses. Stellest lenses today represent approximately 50% of the revenue growth in our lens business. In the fourth quarter, we also experienced strong delivery of our frame business, also thanks to a strong double-digit pace of our Bolon brand in China. If we now move to Direct to Consumer, I want to begin from the Australian retail business.
You remember that Australia suffered a strong lockdown and restrictions during Q3 and the earliest part of the fourth quarter. As we exited the restrictions in the fourth quarter, we actually experienced an acceleration and restart at a strong pace of our business. OPSM, our leading retail chain in Australia, delivered double-digit comps in Q4, very much reassuring the demand in the market is still there. While conversely, if we look at China, we're still in the negative territory due to localized lockdowns that impacted mainland China as well as Hong Kong. Now let's complete our journey around the different geographies with the last one in line, Latin America.
We see and observe in Latin America a very different pace between the first half of the year, where our top line was up 1.6% versus 2019, still on a pro forma basis. The second half of the year, where we deliver a +18% top line growth with a fourth quarter in further acceleration at +25% w ith both segments, Direct to Consumer and Professional Solutions, on a double-digit pace. On the Professional Solutions side in Brazil, the biggest country, we posted a strong growth on the prescription business, both lenses and frames. With our ECP, which accounts for about 50% of our business, that very much led the growth in the country.
In Brazil, we also experienced a successful pilot of the EL 360 program, where we had, at the end of 2021, about 1,000 doors enroll into the program. There will be more in 2022, as we're gonna go on a larger scale in Brazil for this initiative. With respect to the other geography, Mexico was up in the high- single digits, thanks to independent channel as well as department stores. Argentina was up triple digits, thanks to a strong price mix, but also supported by volume. If we move now to the Direct to Consumer segment, our GMO was up double digits, thanks to a strong lens mix and volume growth.
Last but not least, our Sunglass Hut business in the region that posted double-digit comps in Andes as well as in Mexico, and high single-digit growth rate in the Brazilian Sunglass Hut business. But now let me close our chapter on financial and let me close with cash. In 2021, the group delivered EUR 2.8 billion of free cash flow generation, approximately EUR 1 billion more than the free cash flow that we generated in 2019 and in 2020. That despite the currency headwinds that we experienced in 2021, and that despite the higher capital investment profile that we had this year, with the CapEx that were slightly over EUR 1 billion for the full year.
Excluding the impact of GrandVision, our free cash flow generation would be approximately EUR 800 million higher than the one that we recorded in the last two years. Very pleased to get into 2022 with a very strong balance sheet position. Now let me hand it over to Paul, that will walk us through our support to the EssilorLuxottica mission.
Thank you, Stefano, and good morning to you all. You have just heard from Francesco and Stefano about all the great things we have accomplished and the strength of our performance in 2021. I believe it was made possible thanks to three things. First, the incredible passion and engagement of our 180,000 people around the world. Second, continued trust of our customers and consumers. And third, our commitment to our mission and sustainability, which are strongly intertwined with our business strategy at EssilorLuxottica. Sustainability has always been deeply rooted in both founding companies. One of the first things we did in the construction of EssilorLuxottica as one company was to embed sustainability at the core through our Eyes on the Planet program. Since launching it in July last year, we have made good progress in each of the five key pillars.
On the first pillar, Eyes on Carbon, we announced today that we have become carbon neutral across our direct operation in France and Italy, our two historic home countries. This is an important milestone on our journey to reducing and neutralizing the carbon footprint of our direct operation worldwide by 2025, starting with Europe from 2023. We did this through a constant monitoring of our energy consumption and investments in renewable energy with a focus on self-production close to our facility. Residual emissions are compensated by two important reforestation projects, one in Italy near our site in Agordo, and the other one in the rural region of Le'an in China. In addition to protecting and restoring natural ecosystem, this project supports the well-being of local communities.
The second pillar, Eyes on Circularity, aims to reduce our impact on the planet through the 4 R approach, Research, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. In particular, we are stepping up our investments to create circular products from the very start of the innovation process using eco-design principle. A great example is the collaboration with Mazzucchelli for the joint production of more sustainable acetate to be used in the production of frames. Focusing on waste, we're directing our effort on reducing waste generation and valorizing it with circular closed loops. Another initiative is the recent partnership with ESSEC Business School outside of Paris, joining L'Oréal and Bouygues to launch the first international chair devoted to the circular economy.
As we build a sustainable future for all, last year, we made a lot of progress on our journey towards eliminating poor vision by 2050 in line with our mission. This is what the third pillar, Eyes on World Sight, is about. Despite the ongoing challenges linked to COVID, we provided 50 million people in developing communities with access to vision care, thanks to our inclusive business and philanthropic efforts. In total, we created 7 million new wearers in 2021. We also trained more than 1,600 new vision care entrepreneurs in that year, providing them with a livelihood. In addition, last year, OneSight successfully opened 18 vision centers in China, Liberia, and Zambia. As we are building one company, we are also working on consolidating all our philanthropic and advocacy actions globally.
The fourth pillar, Eyes on Ethics, is at the heart of everything we do. Our vertically integrated model makes us quite unique as it gives us full visibility over our whole business from raw materials to end consumer. As a result, we have greater control over our standards. For instance, in 2021, we continued to leverage, unified, and extend our supplier sustainability standards and initiatives, ensuring they adhere to our commitments in the area of ethics, labor, health, safety, and environment.
Finally, Eyes on Inclusion, the fifth pillar. EssilorLuxottica is a diverse and inclusive company by nature, as we are the combination of Essilor, Luxottica, and now GrandVision. We want to provide our community of over 180,000 talented people of every nationality, gender, age, and ability with an environment in which everyone can thrive, feel valued and respected, and constantly learn.
This commitment extends to the communities in which we operate, eye care professionals, customers, and suppliers. A tangible practical advancement in this respect has been the launch of Leonardo, our innovative learning platform, open to employees, but also to the vision care industry as a whole, offering a wide selection of state-of-the-art content in over already 15 languages. In recognition of our efforts around diversity and inclusion in recent years, we recently earned a spot on the Financial Times Diversity Leaders list.
We are determined to continue to develop in this area. Our International Women's Day, like any day of the year, we honor and celebrate the strength, intelligence, heart, and tenacity of our women colleagues and all women around the world, even more so in the difficult moments we are living. We are honored to have some great women leaders at the helm of some key geographies and function. Like, for example, Chrystel Barranger, leading Wholesale in EMEA, one of the two largest region of the group. Last but not least, employee shareholding is another key way for us to promote inclusion as it fosters a sense of belonging and ownership among employees. It has been present in our culture for decades.
Following the success of our latest employee shareholding plan in 2021, 67,000 of the group's employees in 85 countries now hold a financial stake in the company. You can see sustainability is at the heart of the construction of EssilorLuxottica, part of our new culture and fully embraced by our teams. I hope that what we have shared with you this morning gives you a sense of the momentum that is carrying us forward. With that, I would like to hand over to the operator for the Q&A. Thank you very much.
We now enter the Q&A session, which will be 30 minutes long. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. Please limit your questions to a maximum of two and ensure your phone is unmuted locally. We now take our first question from Elena Mariani from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. Congratulations on your results, and I'm delighted to kick off this Q&A session. I will stick to two questions. The first one is on your new long-term outlook. Your mid-single digit growth target is pretty much in line with what you have communicated before, but your adjusted operating profit outlook looks positive and ambitious. Can you help us bridge the starting point, which is the pro forma 16.1% margin with these 19%-20% targets? How much of these improvement in profitability is due to the synergies coming from the GrandVision deal?
How much from the remaining EssilorLuxottica synergies? W hat are quantitatively the moving parts? So that we can understand the progression, perhaps is the growth margin or more, it's more on the OpEx line. Anything that you can give us to bridge these targets would be very helpful. My second question is on 2022. You have not provided any outlook or any guidance, and I appreciate it's a tough year with a lot of volatility, but if we think about how the year is gonna shape out, I suspect you've had a pretty good start of the year, but then the comp base starts to get very difficult, particularly in the U.S. market.
Is it fair to assume that, you know, for this specific year, you're gonna be perhaps below this mid-single digit target that you have in the medium term, and it's gonna be also more difficult to see some margin progression? Or given that you're continuing to gain market share, you have, you know, more synergies coming through FX tailwinds, perhaps also this year is gonna be in line with these medium-term growth options, and you could see also some further margin expansion. Thank you.
[Non-English content], Elena. Good morning. Let me answer your two questions here. First of all, with respect to our long-term outlook for the next five years. Clearly this is an outlook that includes an important part of synergy deliveries. As you remember, in our journey of delivering synergies, we have a first checkpoint very much at the end of 2021, where we expected our synergy delivery to be in the EUR 300 million-EUR 350 million range on the EBIT adjusted basis. We actually exceeded that target for 2021. There will be a portion incremental to that that will deliver and lead us to the EUR 400 million-EUR 600 million.
On top of that, there will be a synergetic contribution from the inclusion of GrandVision into the EssilorLuxottica platform. That will obviously contribute to the progressive margin expansion that I'm sure you've seen it moving from the 16%-20% range. At the same time, I can tell you that it would be a reinvestment profile that would be important to ensure support and evolution in fast-growing market, to ensure further investment in increasing awareness of our brands, to increase further support in myopia management, in the investment for Ray-Ban Stories around the world. Those are critical initiative of product innovation and market expansion that we'll obviously support, and they are fully loaded in the target that we've seen over here.
From a gross margin perspective, we don't expect material lift in our margin. In that respect, we might see a contribution from price mix, although the primary driver of our growth is gonna be volume. Remember the price mix clearly will be a help on a gross margin, but at the same time, we have to take into account the dilution that will derive from the insurance business, in particular in North America. The net of the two pretty much land on a gross margin that won't have material lift versus the number that you're seeing today. For 2022, you're correct. We are now guiding for this year. What you can expect to see it's a story of top line growth and margin expansion.
That story will be very much aligned with our journey to hit the 19%-20% top line operating profit and the mid-single-digit growth rate.
Our next question comes from Susy Tibaldi from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I would like to have follow-up on your last comment. You decided not to guide for full year 2022. You mentioned that there is going to be top line growth, margin expansion. We are clearly in quite a volatile environment. Would you say overall? Are you more uncertain about your top line progression or margin progression for 2022? I guess that also links to the fact that we are seeing an environment with high inflation. Is that perhaps a factor that prevented you from providing a guidance for 2022? Then also to again, just another clarification on your comments for 2022. How has the start of the year been?
Because you clearly saw quite a nice acceleration to the end of last year. Should we assume that these trends have continued to be quite resilient also in the first couple of months of the year, because your tough comps really start from 2022. It would be very helpful if you can help us understand how to think about the progression this year. Thanks a lot.
I'll just start and I leave the floor to Grassi. As you can understand, we feel quite uncomfortable right now commenting result and commenting forecast while a war is going on not far from here. This is the kind of situation that I experience now. We try to respond to all your question. We are confident, quite bold on the future of this company. We really set the course in the last three years, and from now we start to drive, and we like to accelerate. That said, situation is not as usual. Really, war is not something that we had faced in the past, and we cannot forecast what will be in the near future. All our estimation, all our forecast are under this condition. That said, Grassi can tell you little bit more. Thank you.
Thank you, Francesco. Susy, good morning. It's very much here. When we say growth and margin expansion assumption is that there is no material deterioration to the current situation, geopolitical-wise and inflation-wise. Clearly, we are a large company, we play in different countries and regions, but obviously we have an assumption of a situation that is pretty much the one that you see today, and we don't get further deterioration to that. With respect to the starting of the year, the year started pretty well.
I mean, the trajectory is pretty much in line with how we closed the fourth quarter last year, with a good traction on both Professional Solutions and the Direct to Consumer side of a business that is running in a double- digit pace. With e-commerce that is double digit, and we have all the different regions on the positive territory. We got some good momentum, conscious of the fact again that there is a war and a very tense situation in a specific part of the world.
The next question is from Graham Renwick from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for taking my questions. Just have two. Just again, on the midterm guidance. I think you said that the revenue growth guidance did include bolt-on M&A. So just wondering if you could give us the rough building blocks of that mid-single-digit growth rate. You know, how much market growth would we be assuming each year? How much should bolt-on M&A roughly contribute per year? And therefore, how much are you assuming for synergies and market share? And then over the last three years, your ASP growth has been a big driver for the sales and margin through the pandemic. I just wondered how confident you are that the consumer will continue to trade up in a period where there is sharply rising inflation or in the worst case, a recession this year.
You know, do you see any risks that the consumers could actually start trading down again? Thank you.
Good morning, Graham. With respect to our top line growth, clearly the underlying business growth is gonna be the primary driver of our top line expansion. The bolt-on now will be a nice add-on to our growth. In certain markets, we still have a long way to go, which is really where we see the opportunities in countries like China, India, and even Brazil, where we have a fairly marginal footprint. With respect to price mix, as I said, we continue to see support from price mix, but I don't foresee price mix to be the primary driver of our growth in the future.
Obviously that is in a way a change in certain parts of the world compared to the trend that we've seen before. Again, volume will be the primary driver of that in that respect. With respect to consumer trading down, I mean, we see in North America being still a very, very competitive market. Clearly, for example, LensCrafters continues to stand out for service level, for the value proposition that we offer to consumer and for the quality of the product. I think we have all the assets that allowed us to play even in markets where there's a higher degree of competition.
Our next question is from Veronika Dubajova from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have two please. The first one is, I just would love to understand the bridge, Stefano, from the 16.1% margin to 19%-20%, not necessarily by components within the P&L, but the timing of that. Would you expect that that margin progression is pretty even? Is it more front-loaded? Is it more backend loaded? If you can help us understand the shape of that would be really helpful. And then my second question is just, sort of a follow-on to some of the inflationary questions that have been asked and consumer behavior. And I guess what I'd love to know is how do you guys think about just how defensive the business is if we do see a slightly tighter consumer?
You have been running Optical for a long time, and I just would love to get your sense of what you are watching the most closely as risks to consumer behavior and demand?
With respect, Veronika, to the top line growth, clearly the operating leverage with the top line and mid-single- digit territory is gonna be the primary driver of the margin expansion. There will be years in which the margin expansion will be higher, and the year in which that margin expansion will be lower. It would also depends on the velocity of two variables. One, the synergy realization. On the other side, the investment that we're taking on some of the initiatives that we've been talking about for quite a while: investment on our supply chain, on our lab network infrastructure, the investment to become more visible in certain countries, investment on new brands, in product innovation and new initiatives that we're launching around the world.
The velocity on how we unlock certain investment will guide the operating leverage and ultimately the margin expansion. With respect to inflation and the impact in sales growth, we haven't seen material changes in that respect. No really nothing major to report at this stage.
The next question is from Julien Dormois from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one would relate to an update on myopia management. You guys have been deploying quite a lot of efforts on that side, either internally with the launch of Stellest, but also by doing some external deals with Cooper. Would just like to understand where you stand, particularly in China, where I think you have started to roll out the partnership with Cooper, and interested to know how you're going to sell at the same time Stellest, SightGlass and MiSight as a distributor.
Just curious how you see the situation, going forward in that category, and maybe also if you could update us on the sort of timeline that we should see in the U.S. for all those products to be approved. That would be particularly helpful. My second question relates to GrandVision. It's now been nearly nine months of integration of GrandVision. How do you see right now and having now had the business in house for several months, how do you see the main opportunities and challenges for a successful integration, let's say in the next two to three years? More operationally, I would say, than financially maybe.
I'll try just give you some color about myopia management that is really a new category that we are adding to our portfolio. Results are very good, really in line with our expectation. We focus on China, t hat is what we planned, more than three years ago, just we are executing.
What we see is that we are repositioning our portfolio towards doctors. That is the big change with myopia management. First, we were a company more talking to optician and final consumer. Now, we are giving something in the hands of doctor that can really fight myopia. That is big change. I believe that in the future, we will deliver more products on that area, and it will be one of main part of our result. We are very happy with that. We feel that we are helping people, especially in this case, we are helping kids to improve their life. That is really fully in line with our mission.
Maybe Grassi can give you some numbers, or maybe more detail on that. Regarding GrandVision, we just delisted the company. We are now starting reorganization of the different branches, and integrating really the company in our operation. We see opportunity, of course. W e paid EUR 8 billion because we saw opportunities, and now we confirm that our decision was very good, almost indispensable. GrandVision, more than just added business, added a footprint in Europe for our omni-channel strategy. Our strategy around the world is pretty clear. We announced more than two years ago, we will become a network company, really sharing our capability with all the players in the market.
To do that, you need digital infrastructure, you need e-commerce, you need your wholesale, but also you need a physical footprint with your retail that can show and drive consumer and ECPs and other partners in the way we want. That is why we are more than happy to close that deal. In the next two years, you will see how important it is. We really try to change the shape and the perception of the eye care market in Europe. To do that, stores on the ground, it will be absolutely indispensable. Stefano?
Yes. Thank you, Francesco. On the myopia, just to give you a couple of data point here. We built in 2021 a business that is worth a retail value south of EUR 150 million just in China. That business didn't exist up to a couple of years ago. Just to give you a further magnitude on how well we are performing with the Stellest lenses, you have to bear in mind that just in the first eight weeks of 2022, we sold more Stellest lenses than what we did last year during the first and the second quarter of 2021. We have a very rapid progression and expansion, meaning that there is a high degree of acceptance of the Stellest lenses.
Clearly, in the future, we'd love to talk more about myopia solution. Obviously in that respect, we have new assets that are coming on board. We have the new contact lenses that is starting to be distributed, and obviously we'll give more disclosure in the following touch points. Clearly, we have a family of products and solutions that will become material for our growth in China, but not only there.
The next question comes from Cédric Lecasble from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, team. Most of my questions have been answered, but I have a follow-up maybe on the positives and negatives into one-offs in 2022 versus 2021. Could you please tell us what kind of one-offs you still had in your EBIT margin in 2021 in terms of integration costs or kind of a cost coming from still the consequences of the merger and GrandVision acquisition that would disappear in 2022? And could you maybe help us a little bit on one-off costs that could be linked to the current situation in Russia and Ukraine, assuming no progress if things didn't, you know, improve rapidly from here, just to have the kind of trade-off between the positives and negatives here. And the second one, a follow-up on Stellest.
On your more recent launches, there was a rollout of this outside of China. Can you comment on your first results? Are you happy? How fast is it going into other countries? You were mentioning in another question, there was a mention of the U.S. Maybe you can, beyond China, tell us where you have the greatest hopes for the myopia management. Thank you very much.
I just comment on the second question, Russia and Ukraine. We are not concerned about business. As you can understand, business is materially irrelevant for us. It is below EUR 200 million, less than 1% of our revenues. Right now, our concern is for our colleagues. As you know, we have almost 1,600 people in Ukraine, and we are trying to protect as much as we can as we have colleagues in Russia. And we still have a concern how we can help, and I can support. We cannot comment much more than that. We really have some information on our institutional social media because as you know, since we have colleagues in danger right now, any words can change our result. That said, Stefano can comment on the other two.
Thank you, Francesco. With respect to the one-off figures are provided on adjusted basis. Therefore, adjusting items are excluding from our guidance and outlook in that respect. With respect to the Stellest lens, I don't know, Paul, if you want to give some color with respect to the launch in Italy and in France and the U.S. potentially.
Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yeah. We have been launching in Europe progressively Stellest, starting in France, Italy last year, midyear, middle of the year. We are now expanding progressively also to U.K., Germany, Spain. We also are launching in Brazil, starting LATAM. As you see, we are expanding progressively the Stellest rollout. Like it was explained by Francesco, it is extremely important to establish well this myopia management capability to work with the eye doctors and of course the optician before launching. There is a solid work done by our team with the doctors in each of those country ahead of the launch. So far, if we take France, for example, we are having very good results.
Of course, it is not of the magnitude of China because China, the population of young myopes, as you know, is hundreds of millions. It's an important new capability that we're setting up and very positive result. As we do that, we are working also on the SightGlass Vision new product through the JV with Cooper. There, we are piloting the market in Canada, in the Netherlands, and starting to prepare also for a launch in China. As we've said, it's a suite of different solution that we're progressively rolling out in each geography. The U.S., we are in the FDA approval process, both for the SightGlass Vision technology and to come also for the Stellest technology.
Our next question is from Domenico Ghilotti from Equita. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two questions. The first is a follow-up on the situation, maybe expanding a little bit more away from Russia and Ukraine, but just to say how much is your exposure to Eastern Europe, and you have seen an impact on the sentiment and the business in markets that are, say, closer to the situation. The second question is on the Ray-Ban Stories. If you can give us a feeling, an update on how it's been, the commercial launch and what is the rollout and in general. What is the opportunity there over the medium term?
Okay. Good morning, Domenico. With respect to our exposure to overall Eastern Europe, we're looking at around 1% of our total revenue. It is fairly marginal. Right now we don't report any material deterioration, obviously with the exception of the two countries involved in the conflict. With respect to Ray-Ban Stories.
Ray-Ban Stories, we really are happy about the launch, the positioning, the perception that the public demonstrate to those product. I would like to underline one thing. The positioning that the company took in the launch.
We had two chances to bring the optical business in the electronics market and really using all the strength that we had and leveraging the high connection of Facebook and Meta group to really push our sales. Our decision has been slightly different. We bring electronics into the optical store. That shows our approach. We are here to reshape the market, to improve optical market and let the optical market evolve. Electronics it will be a big part of the future for store and for product sold in the store. That is how we see this start. Ray-Ban Stories, the first edition is first of all a wonderful sunglasses. Now we are trying to position it much better also as eyeglasses with correction optical lenses.
In the next two or three years, we will start to evolve, first with a new solution and evolution of the capability that Ray-Ban Stories already have. As you know, we will launch in the future something more based on VR, and that will be really the gate for a new, totally new future. So far, very happy. One number that I saw is that one of three Wayfarer are Ray-Ban Stories. Thank you.
The next question comes from James Grzinic from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning, everybody. Just had two quick questions. Firstly, should we essentially take away that you're not seeing a change in consumer behavior in U.S. from what you're saying today? And second, Stefano, I understand the ebbs and flows of investments to develop new markets against timing of synergies. And from what you were saying, I would normally expect a front-end loading, of course, of the synergy benefit. Are you essentially suggesting there's a front-end loading on the investment to develop new markets as well that is a net offset against that? Thank you.
U.S., we don't see big changes. U.S. is so big market. We have demand for high-end, for the low-end, for almost all type and segment of product. We are really leading the market, and we are really guiding the market to better solution and better product. That doesn't mean that we are guiding the market to higher price. So far, we cover all the segmentations of the market. All segments are very well covered by our product and portfolio. Since we are the biggest organization there, we are one of the biggest insurers there, and you know that insurers really cover more than 50% of the market. So far, we are working very well in U.S. It is still one of our best market, and we have a lot of space to take.
We are now reinforcing our reps on the ground. We are bringing and pushing new product. Just to mention two, Vogue Eyewear and Arnette, brand new for the market. Now they can deliver a strong sales network, and they can count on strong communication. We have still space for improving revenues on Ray-Ban, and we are experiencing an amazing result on Oakley. Same for lenses. Branded lenses have very big space to gain in the U.S. Transition, Varilux, Eyezen, Crizal, any brand is still underpenetrated in the market. We see really a big opportunity in that market.
At the same time, we know that now we have two big part of the world that are consistent, Europe and U.S., and the focus really to develop also all the other part, Asia and South America.
With respect to the first question, James, good morning. Sorry, the second question, actually. With respect to the front-end loaded, back-end loaded of our investment profile, let me tell you, yes, we are in a hardcore part of our integration journey. No doubt that from an investment perspective, just to give you an idea, there are three critical areas that are important for us. IT infrastructure is clearly an important one. The other important part is the investment in our supply chain.
The diversification of our manufacturing footprint clearly requires quite a bit of investment. Last but not least is our continuous investment in digital in the stores for the store renovation, investment in digital for our online platform. This is obviously very important for us to continue that journey of the omni-channel proposition, the progressive convergence of physical and online. At the same time, we also have the first year of integration of GrandVision into the EssilorLuxottica platform. We also have the last mile, let me say, calling it that way, of the synergies that will derive from the combination of Essilor and Luxottica. The additional synergies that we're gonna get out of that integration will come very much between this year and next year.
We have a lot of good constituents to be optimistic, let me say, also in terms of margin expansion.
This now concludes our Q&A session.