We are EssilorLuxottica. Combining two centuries of innovation and human endeavor, we are a global leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of advanced vision care solutions and iconic eyewear. We are a vertically integrated business, uniquely positioned to address the world's evolving vision needs and the global demand of a growing industry. We are a diverse and inclusive community of 180,000 talented employees in over 150 countries, driven by our mission to help people around the world to see more and be more. With a portfolio of over 150 renowned brands, EssilorLuxottica is home to the most loved and well-recognized vision care and eyewear brands in the world. Through our 18,000 stores worldwide, we offer consumers high-quality vision care and the best-in-class shopping experience, always setting new standards for vision care.
Rooted in our origins, innovative thinking is our way of life. The future of the industry, with all its untapped opportunities, is a source of inspiration that drives us to create, experiment, refine, and implement new ideas and technologies. From online interaction to the supply chain, taking in telemedicine along the way, we are leading the digital transformation of the industry, connecting the group with millions of consumers and patients around the world in disruptive ways. With more than 11,000 patents and designs, we ensure the excellence, uniqueness, and superiority of our products. Expertise and knowledge are at the foundation of our vision care products. Thanks to our open platform, Leonardo, we're supporting the growth of our employees and the entire industry. Redefining how we learn about eyewear and eye care, Leonardo delivers premium content focused on eyewear, lenses and optics, brand storytelling, and business management.
Doing good for our customers, consumers, and communities while doing good for the planet is at the heart of the company's strategy. Through our Eyes on the Planet program, with commitments towards carbon, circularity, world sight, inclusion, and ethics, we're taking a step toward a more sustainable future, finding groundbreaking ways to minimize our environmental footprint while maximizing our social impact. Promoting good vision as a basic human right, we're working through the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation to eliminate uncorrected poor vision by 2050. Together, we'll continue to protect and frame the beauty of the most precious gift, our eyes. See more. Be more. EssilorLuxottica.
Hello. Good afternoon to everybody. Welcome the one that are here in person in our venue, and welcome to the other one that are connected in webcast. This is for us is quite special moment. I would like to spend just few words to celebrate our chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio. As you can feel, we all miss so much. We lost a visionary, we lost an entrepreneur, we lost our chairman. First of all, we all lost a friend. I believe that this place is telling a lot of him, is telling his dreams, how he project the future. He design pieces of this building personally, and we spend the last two years really trying to shape the place in the way he can really share the vision that he had.
Now, we start this Capital Markets Day. It is the second after the one that we had in London, and we are so happy to be in person again, connected, and really take the best of the two experiences. My job today is very easy. I will be very short. I will not explain pieces of our group. I really try to give you some keywords, some password maybe, to better understand our industry, to better understand our strategy, and at the end also to better read our numbers. We had this feeling in the past that we couldn't good enough to share completely the vision of our group, what we really are. We try to fill today this gap, and we started with the visit.
If you had the chance to visit our showcase, showroom, or what we call Tortona Experience Center, the first time you touch and see all together all products and services that we manufacture and distribute. You can feel the technology ones. The market you will see is so unique that if you don't start sharing the clear understanding of the market and the competitive dynamics, it's become difficult to share numbers and our vision. I start from a video that we already had in London. This is just a different phase. Anything that you see is already done. This is how it's structured, the competition in our market. Not because we want to be bold. It's not how we don't want to show our muscle. It's totally opposite.
In a market like us, this kind of competition puts many constraints on the leadership. Obligations, some ethical problems sometimes, and the responsibility really to think about the entire industry and not just to the group. I go ahead. I try to share some view of the market and the industry. We are the biggest in the industry, of course, but really what has to be understood is the disparity in scale. That is something that will influence all our decisions in the future, and is something that matters for everybody, first for the final consumer. The second, our industry is unique, not just because there is so big a leader, but also because we don't see any other global players. We compete against niche players.
You know very well, the name that you usually underline that are in the arena, like, I don't know, a Specsavers, poor player in retail. Then you have Marchon, Marcolin, Thélios, that are manufacturers. We have VSP that competing with us on the managed care. We see some producers of machinery, like Schneider, that is competing with us on the big machinery for labs. But as you can understand, we are the only one that take responsibility to play in all segments, to follow the strategy, to unify the offer. Because what you have in mind is clear, the customer at the end is one.
Despite that, we don't see any players that is taking this challenge and try to manage all the technology and all the product to improve and to better serve our customer. Another things that you really have to understand is also the market, the geography of the players. We don't see any players playing everywhere. VSP is playing in U.S. Specsavers is playing in U.K. and in Australia and New Zealand. And everybody is taking one market and try to take out of the market the best they can. We decide because of our mission really to play everywhere.
In markets where it is very hard, maybe it is not what really is good in the short term for the company, but we try to be everywhere because we think that our customer needs to be served in the service, in the same way everywhere. Fourth, this is really to complete the set of information that you have in mind to read better our strategy, that our industry is deeply interconnected. We are not just selling frames or lenses or machinery or services. We are supplying most of the players in the market, and we do not supply just finished goods. We supply acetate, we supply lenses. When you buy Maui Jim spectacle frames and lenses, you buy Barberini, fully owned by the group.
Also all the, our, the brand, the luxury brand in the market are using, as a key supplier, one of our company, Fedon. I can make hundred of example. You see that the value added of the market is created through a full interconnection from our company to all players. Just to say that we are the biggest customers of Gucci or Thélios or Marcolin or whatever, but we are also the biggest customer of Hoya, that is sometimes not so easy to understand. We decide to play in this way. We arrive very quickly to the decision that we took some years ago, and now we are executing. To be an open company, to support, to help everybody in the market.
That is really not easy because when we have meeting and we have to judge our new strategy, usually the only question that you have to answer is, how profitable for a group? How good for our strategic position? But this is not the approach that we are taking anymore. Now we ask if what we are doing, it will be good for entire market. That is not just because we want to be as a fair, as a good company. We believe this is an obligation from one side, but what's more, really this is constraint. We are, in many part of the world, we are proxy of the market. That means that if the market will grow, we grow, maybe better, more profitable than the other, but we grow.
If the market, it will not grow, we will be at a certain point in trouble. That is the position, that is the information that I'm trying to give you. To really end in the best way, fortunately, we are in the market that is growing naturally because of aging population, because of myopia is more present in the faster-growing population and so on. We believe that we are in the best position now to change our strategy, to adopt this new model and support the market. We believe that this can be a model that really can inspire our industry, others industry that are really struggling. They are competing while the market is dying. That is something that we don't want for our industry.
Fortunately, the industry is in great shape, but I believe that big change has to happen when the industry is doing well. With that in mind, I hand over to Paul du Saillant, and he will give more color on our assets.
Thank you, Francesco. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening. My pleasure to be with you here after three years ago, like Francesco was reminding us, being in London. Very special. I will try after what you heard from Francesco, the strategic vision, which is very powerful, to give you granularity on what has become EssilorLuxottica, since the last time we were together, a lot have happened, and what we are aiming to deliver. I will take three prism to explain and give some strong substance on what we are doing. First, I remind you, we are really a new integrated end-to-end omni-channel company. Francesco referred to our chairman, and he had a very strong vision about this integrated end-to-end omni-channel. It's a great legacy that we have.
I put the word new because I think the company that you have in front of you is a very young company. Three prism. First one is, what are we in terms of assets? I will really try to give you good color on that because it's important to understand what we have become. Second, how we have successfully integrated two world-class companies, and more recently, GrandVision, and then how does the M&A activity fit into that. Very simple, a few pictures on the company. People-wise, you have 180,000 people, 60% female, representing all of the competency, expertise, craftsmanship of this industry. Half of us being less than 35 years old, I am unfortunately not in that category, and 40% of our employees being shareholders. Very important element. Second, we have a unique brand portfolio, product portfolio.
I won't go in detail. You know it. You have seen it. It's the best way to share it with you. In this industry, to have for all segment, all categories of product at all price point that we can deploy in all geographies is a major asset. Okay, remind, keep that in mind. We have this number that we have 6,000 years of heritage in our brand. If we cumulate all of the life of all of our brand, retail, lens brand, frame brands. Third, innovation. Of course, Federico Buffa, Norbert will give you more color on that. It's important in an industry which is a complex industry to have the portfolio of patent, of knowledge, and at the same time to be able to put to market 3,500 models, new models every year.
It's a major capability for us, for our partners, for the other players. Fourth, we have a go-to market which is quite unique, being able to be balanced in between professional solution and direct to consumer. It's very rare to find an actor that with the assets I described is able in every single geography to go into the market and to contribute to the overall development of that market in a balanced way. It demands very good commercial discipline, segmentation, price management, brand management, and that is a core capability that I wanted to really and you will hear it from our executive as we go through the afternoon. We are global, Francesco said it. We are balanced in between, in mature market, in between North America and Europe, and the acquisition of GrandVision has really rebalanced our presence in the mature market.
We are sub-developed, if I can talk like that, in the emerging market. The entire market needs to be grown. We are only 17% in the emerging market. This is a great opportunity for the group. Because we already have presence, we are already present with our team in 150 countries. Key to keep in mind is that the structure of the group gives us a local presence with local teams, with this omni-channel presence that is different from country to country, and at the same time with global capability. This is a very important aspect. Last, it will be covered in the afternoon, the supply chain. The supply chain in this industry is complex. Frame, lens of all kind of categories, global plant, for frame, for lens, local lab network.
You have a supply chain behind this I just described that is powerful, flexible, agile, but Giorgio will give you color on it. Please be mindful to take the full understanding of what is EssilorLuxottica, because sometimes I get the feeling that it is not totally understood. It is a coherent company, totally under control, and it is not a complex agenda actually, because it's a clear purpose, it's a clear product, and the way we go to market is very clear for our teams. That brings me to the second prism, which is, okay, a few years back, two or three, with this big question, how are you going to make it one company?
I have to say, I have to admit, this was an impressive task that we had in front of us to bring together, to combine Essilor and Luxottica and Essilor, and later on, GrandVision. Okay. I'm quite appreciative and admirative, we say in French, of our teams about what they have done and in such a short period of time. Because of this difficult task, we have been able to become one company, fully integrated in a pretty short time agenda. Okay. Francesco will challenge me, say, "Well, we still have a lot to execute." Yes, we do, and we are working with the team. But we have become really, since 2021, one company. What does it mean? It means that we have created the new culture together.
We have put in place a single organization with clear accountability, which is very well deployed throughout all of the elements of the company. We have deployed the Eyes on the Planet Foundation, which is our sustainability mission agenda, very clearly well positioned at the heart of the creation of EssilorLuxottica. We have, you saw it, a great learning and knowledge platform, Leonardo, that is behind the whole EssilorLuxottica and the industry. Very clear core cement to bring everything together. Two key ideas for you to keep in mind. We have developed a new growth agenda, a top-line agenda. I won't go into detail. You heard us in the calls, in the reports about the top-line synergies, the cross-selling, all of the key categories, how we improve the penetration in each of the segment.
You have heard us talk about all of the product innovation, creating new categories. You have heard us talk about, and you will hear it this afternoon, about the whole new partnering with key customers. There is a new agenda on the top-line growth that is very rich. Third element of creating this one company is, of course, the backbone, the infrastructure. Big work on the supply chain, big work on the IT digitalization agenda, simplification of all of the back office, unification of the process. This is a two or three or four minutes summary of the integration. What I want to leave with you is this company you have in front of you this afternoon is one company, fully integrated, that has successfully become EssilorLuxottica with a very fresh agenda in front.
The third, and of course, GrandVision, Max will talk about it, is part of this agenda, absolutely. Third prism, the M&A. Because what I describe is really the, in a way, I know you like to think that way, the organic growth engine. Now, the three companies, Essilor, Luxottica, and GrandVision, have been, I won't say best in class, but have been quite good at doing M&A. What we want to this afternoon is to give you a little bit of color on this M&A activity of the group. The scope, it's simple, is the full playing field. So don't ask me, what are the kind of area in which you do your M&A activity. It's the playing field, as it was described by Francesco and me in the last ten minutes.
What is interesting in this slide is to look at it by saying we have about three ways to M&A in the market. We have acquisition. Acquisition like GrandVision. Acquisition that completely change the scale of our direct-to-consumer presence, as you have, as you know. You have acquisition like Barberini. Barberini is a beautiful brand, and is the world leader in mineral lens. This is a core capability, and they are best in class by far. As Francesco said, on top of that, it's a category that is used by everybody once you have luxury sunglasses brand. Fedon, you saw it in the back. This is a vertical integration example linked to sustainability packaging. Shamir. Shamir is another angle completely.
Ten years ago, we created a JV with Shamir, very innovative, kibbutz-based company with research, advanced research in lens mathematics, and also very good commercial presence throughout North America, Europe, some countries in Asia. We decided to go to 100% ownership, in full support of the kibbutz, and now it's integrated part of EssilorLuxottica. Great asset for R&D, for commercial presence. Last example of many, Walman. Walman was the largest lab, independent lab in the US with a very interesting Midwest presence that came to complement our network, and that is a great asset to continue to cover the market in the US. This is main acquisition. Partnership, you know the importance of partnership. We have 100+ active JVs. We use 51% ownership, 60, 70, 80, 90, it depends.
We have JVs like with Nikon Corp. for which is this Nikon-Essilor JV, the name of it, key for Japan market and for access to a key brand outside of Japan. Bolon, Molsion is an example of a 50/50 JV in China, which is the leading sunglasses and optical frame brand in China. Very complementary to our other portfolio brand. Last one, it will be covered on myopia, is this JV we did with CooperVision to acquire a second technology in the field of myopia management. Now, what might be a bit new for you is what is called this minority investment. It is interesting link to what we explain as this open modern network company. We think it is an interesting topic to have minority position in some key players, key actors of the market.
I took, for example, Mazzucchelli is this company, Italian company in acetate, which is very advanced in bioacetate and the whole circularity agenda. Mister Spex is the e-commerce leader in Europe, based in Germany with a go-to-market, also interesting with an omni-channel approach, excuse me. Paris Miki, retailer in Japan. Synsam, key retailer in the Nordics, and that has some interesting subscription models. Through that, I just wanted to open and to structure a little bit our M&A activity in between the main acquisition, the partnership, and the minority. It gives you color also how we complement the entire strategy of the open model participating in the growth of the industry.
These were my key message, and I hope that you feel from that that you have a unified company with amazing assets in the heart of that industry, occupied to grow the industry and to grow with the industry, and that has successfully, in a short period of time, become one integrated company with, I think, very good values, very good agenda. Francesco, this is what I wanted to share before we invite on stage somebody.
Okay. Thanks, Paul. Now I have pleasure to introduce really a special person, Dr. Amir Khoshnevis. He's a doctor, first of all. Second, he's an entrepreneur. He's run a fantastic practice in U.S. What more for us is the doctor and the person that helping us to really partner, to be a partner with one of the most amazing alliance group in U.S. Amir, come on stage.
Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be with you all. My name is Amir Khoshnevis, and, as Francesco mentioned, I am Chief Medical Officer for Vision Source. My story a little bit, just so you know who I am, I have, I'm owner of two private practices in, in United States, but, for 25 years I've been in practice, in optometry. For the last 20, I've been a member of Vision Source. It's been very near and dear to my heart because Vision Source was the way that I would take on the market as an individual. It would be my X factor in the practice, the thing that accelerates my practice growth because I'll share with you how this organization works and why it's so important.
Then I became a leader in the region of the U.S. for the company as I started to share my story and helping others grow and succeed. I became an advisor to the company, and eventually over the last few years, I've taken on a role in the executive team as the Chief Medical Officer because I care so much about private practice and the way that we operate. Enough about me. Who is Vision Source? Vision Source is simply put, a collective of private practice optometrists who are outpacing the industry in growth, leveraging the EssilorLuxottica relationship. If I were to share with you what the organization is, I would break it down in these four pillars. It is a very large group of private practice optometrists. Traditionally, groups like this don't operate like we do.
We are very much a group that believes in locking arms and moving forward together. We point our practices in the same direction because we believe that if we were to move together, that we actually have a bigger impact on the industry. The community is by invitation only. They join Vision Source once we invite them. They are leading practices. They're the kind of practices that the industry admires and wants to partner with. We bring the culture to them, sharing, collaborating, meeting, making sure that our doctors are working with one another so that they can solve for problems and move forward. Most interestingly, we bring them resources from the industry. We bring them programs that are curated to their type of practice, and we elevate their ability to compete, to serve, and to hopefully excel in practice.
One of the things that's critical is that we've had a 30-year history, and in that 30 years, we've built a very strong culture of trust, that in fact, our currency is trust. When we partnered with EssilorLuxottica, our goal was to make sure that they understood they had a real partner, that a partner that was gonna invest in their growth. It wasn't apparent initially, but I'm very excited to share with you that over the last six-seven years of our partnership. This incredible network has seen the fastest growth per office in those seven years. It has the deepest penetration of our programs into the practices, and most importantly, member sentiment. We currently have the highest net promoter score in our history.
That should be a perfect proof point that a partnership that's meaningful, that is genuine, that is collaborative, can have a powerful impact even on private practices that traditionally did not partner well with industry. The second thing that's important to note about Vision Source is that it is very mission-driven organization. We believe as optometrists that we have the responsibility to not only protect private practice, but to elevate the care that our doctors are providing to the communities. We are the gateway to the healthcare system in the United States, and we invest a great deal in learning and development, and we teach the ways that they should take their practice to the market so that they are completely taking care of the patient. That is not just refractive or just medical, but the total care of the patient.
This mission to strive for excellence has given us the opportunity to work with the industry to provide those resources necessary for those doctors to reach their full potential. As you can imagine, if you are a doctor-owner, you're so busy seeing patients that it's very difficult for you to actually do all that you wanna do outside of just patient care. We partner together to make sure that their practices have the foundational items needed to be successful without the heavy lift. They get to take care of patients and win. This commitment to excellence has led to not only improvements in patient care, but outcomes. We see in the healthcare system that our doctors are at the very top of the outcomes index. They also are caring for over 10 million patients per year.
That is an incredible feat for a practice for a group our size. That's a deep trusting relationship with the community. The secret sauce of Vision Source by far is what I'm about to share with you. We have recruited the 200 most loved, trusted doctors in the communities, and these doctors now are responsible for their tribes, if you would, their network. These doctors are the people you'd admire in the community. Their practices are the leading practices, and they give us an opportunity to have them vet programs to guide us as we make decisions for our practices. They communicate directly with our partners like EssilorLuxottica to make sure that when we go to market, they have tested the programs, they have proven it to work in their practices, and they carry that to the market from a first-hand perspective.
What that does so beautifully is that it builds a bond that is much more than just a strategy to grow, but it's a deep partnership. A proof point for that is the general ECP community outside of Vision Source, no matter how good a program is, may get adoption rates of 20%-30% on any program for some time. Vision Source almost always can get 75%-80% adoption rate immediately because of the way that we collaborate and work together to bring to market solutions, bring to our members solutions that are advantageous for them and meet our mission and values. Behind me, you see a lot of ways that today we've partnered with EssilorLuxottica. You see all the resources that they bring to us, and all of them are critically important at the practice level.
We feel very strongly that the support that we're getting from EssilorLuxottica is giving our doctors a chance to truly lead the market. They are the tip of the spear in optometry. I wanna just mention a couple that are really intriguing growth opportunities. We met with the leadership at EssilorLuxottica and shared with them one of the challenges we face at private practice is sort of the inefficiency of practice, the practice management software, the solutions that we need in order to create better patient care, better management of our practices, the ability to communicate better with our patients and draw them to our practices. Private practice is riddled with inefficiencies, and this is a major opportunity.
I am so excited to share that we're working together to launch practice technologies that will improve the practice efficiency and deliver the kind of practice management that we need in our practices. I believe that's a very big deal and a massive opportunity for growth in Vision Source. Another opportunity is myopia. It's no secret that myopia is owned by optometry in the United States. We see those patients today. Vision Source has been on a journey to make sure that our practices are ready. They're already treating myopia with everything that's available today, but they are extremely well-positioned as a strategic partner to go to market and to lead optometry in North America in myopia management. We have specialty protocols, learning development courses. We have practice management courses already done, and the vast majority of our network has already taken part in that.
Another wonderful opportunity to grow together. I'll mention teleoptometry because it's a really neat opportunity. We have been on a journey for five years to look for cases where teleoptometry can support our members. Most notably, we have practices that are rich with patients but cannot see any more patients because they lack doctors, and this enhances the practice as a side-by-side opportunity to continue to grow the practice, see patients in the practice while the doctor is seeing one type of patient, another one can be seen. That's an awesome growth opportunity. Another one is expanding hours, creating new patient traffic, and also we have a lot of rural practices in the United States where no doctor is gonna be present when the senior doctor retires.
We are creating a hub-and-spoke model to make sure those practices are alive and well and thriving in those communities, so we don't lose them. Lastly, what I think is most important to me is practice succession. With the partnership that we have, we've created a solution called Vision Source Next. Vision Source Next is a practice life cycle solution that looks to address the pain points of doctors in the practice. Whether you're recruiting talent into the practice, whether you're looking to expand into new locations, add new practices to the field, or you're looking to transition out but wanna ensure that you sell to another private buyer, we have formed a fund that allows for that transition to happen and to support the doctors through that. This is at the heart of Vision Source.
When you wanna win people's hearts and minds, you take care of them in these pain points in their career. I hope this gives you a sense of how independent or private practice optometrists can partner with EssilorLuxottica to elevate the care and elevate the profession together. I thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thank you.
Thanks.
Hello. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, everyone. Here we are going to introduce supply chain and the carbon roadmap. We will talk about our footprint, our network configuration, and the innovation, and also the sustainability roadmap that we have into our operation. In the past four years, we worked with our organization to create a integrated and resilient supply chain. We worked in a very diligent way through work streams and KPIs that were able to deliver the majority of the total cost synergies of the group in the period. We maximize the in-group production. We rationalize the footprint, leveraging the larger campus for mass production that we have of frames and lenses.
We work on acquisition and joint venture, leveraging brand equity of a selected partner, and we rationalize the organization, announcing a clear governance with clear leadership with the wide group responsibilities. This is what we have done in the previous years. As a result, we have a very integrated supply chain, which helped us to serve better the market. Even during the difficult times, we were able to do that in a very effective way. One single supply chain obtained through simplification and standardization, and unlocking the new opportunity in terms of new product and new services, like the complete pair, like the Sun Rx, like the digital services that we brought into our brick-and-mortar or the wholesale market.
Taking the advantage of the difficult situation of the pandemic, we create alternative production and alternative distribution routes in order to make a more resilient supply chain. A supply chain that is trustable, reliable, and efficient in all conditions. This is what we did in the past four years. With the mindset that always distinguish the product and the operation teams is not just to overcome the difficulties or the specific challenge, but also to look ahead and to be ready to cope for the next challenges according to the strategy that was introduced by Francesco and Paul. We planned the footprint in order to be very specified for service and quality excellence. We leveraged the asset that we had, and we expanded from that.
Of course, we have many different product with different peculiarities: frames, lenses, RX jobs, instruments, equipment, digital services that require very flexible approach because we need to provide in the right place with the right size, with the right level of complexity to cope with this, the market, the flexible market demand. We leverage the asset. We leverage the asset in Brazil in order to make an integrated campus that offering all the product and services for the Latin America. We leverage the asset in Mexico to provide nearshore approach for the U.S. market, so offering all the product, all the services with a great lead time and cost efficiency. We leverage the asset in Europe, in Italy and France, to provide very complex product with premium services 24-48 hours.
We leverage the asset in Poland to provide offshore, nearshore approach, so good service with the cost efficiency for the European market. We leverage the asset in India and Thailand, and we expanded those to support a very efficient services for the European market. Of course, we leverage the asset in Thailand and China to support the expansion for the market in APAC. We always have to balance. From one side, we have global integrated campus, able to cope with the large scale, large volume, large complexity, highly automated, and of course that are able to provide in the same shipment all different type of the product and even the latest customization of the product. On the other side, we have local proximity stock points that are capable to serve local customer with the premium service on a selected categories of product.
We have more than 500 of those stock points inside our network. Of course, the way to reach quality and service excellence, for us, there is only through innovation. Cutting-edge technology and continuous innovation is part of our DNA. If you visit our factory, you saw that they are highly automated. Automation is not enough to be reactive with the market. Automation today is also supported by data science or artificial intelligence to elaborate the process data and to find the best production configuration. We adopt real-time data manufacturing in order to take a fast decision and also to have large adoption of robot handling inside our manufacturing. The adoption of robot inside our manufacturing, it's equal to many countries in the world or even superior of the average automotive industry into our factories. Vertical integration.
If we need to be reactive with the market demand and to have always the right stock, we need to have the capability to change and to adapt. Together with the vertical integration, now there is the horizontal integration that is able to extend the product and the process innovation into the brick-and-mortar, facilitating faster replenishment, waste reduction, inventory accuracy. Finally, of course, we are not only improving each single areas, but we are creating synergies, lens design, frame design, eye measurement instruments, equipment for the manufacturing. We are putting all together. We are touching every single step of the customer journey so that we create a, an unbeatable experience for our consumer since the very starting touch point inside our perimeter. The way to do that also through sustainability, Eyes on Carbon.
The sustainability roadmap has a solid route since in many years already into our daily operation. We started our renewable project of producing energy through our photovoltaic panels since 11- 12 years ago, and we are continuing doing that with the new design of the building, not just through renewable energy, but also with the sustainable design. We have a process optimization, thanks to the automation and the innovation that I was mentioning before, in order to reduce energy, to reduce the water utilization, to reduce the emission in air. All the energy that we buy, we procure, it's 100% from renewable sources. We take care of the communities where we are, creating reforestation project in order to incentivize the well-being of the territories in which we are present.
We offer to our customer, e-commerce customer or brick-and-mortar customer, the possibility to select the green shipping option, the greener way to ship the product certified by third parties. Innovation and sustainability goes along together in our journey, in our daily activity. It's not just inside the process, but also is inside the product. Now I leave the word to Federico Buffa.
Thank you very much. We are always aligned, and not only in the dress code like this morning. Welcome to everybody. It's really a pleasure to have you here all together. When we are talking about innovation and product, I hope you enjoyed the visit this morning at our venue, because our booths representing all the brand is showcasing today all the product that in the next three-four weeks, they will reach the market, and they are already bringing visible level of innovation, as Giorgio was saying, fruit of the fact that we were really capable in the last three years to join also the forces in R&D.
From Shamir to Transitions, Barberini, Mazzucchelli, EssilorLuxottica, really we got a lot of contribution in the R&D skills that give us the opportunity to have in the market already this season a lot of integrated innovation. Talking about innovation in the next eight or 10 minutes, it depends how fast I will be, we will try to give you the opportunity to share with you the vision that EssilorLuxottica is having on two main branches of the R&D where we are really accelerating and shifting the gear. One is the smart glasses and the other in continuity with what Giorgio was saying on Eyes on Carbon, on Eyes on Circularity. Let's start from smart glasses.
What we want to stand for in the, in this world as EssilorLuxottica, our aim, our vision is really to be the right partner in building the journey to the metaverse, specifically, building the gateway that will allow all our consumer, all of us in the next future, to enjoy the possibility to physically and virtually join the information and those two worlds together. Mainly addressing our attention to the devices that in every daily usage will allow us to have access to the augmented reality. Naturally this journey we are doing not alone. You know very well that we are partnering with Meta, that is one of the biggest player that is designing the metaverse, still designing the metaverse.
The way on which we will do is following mainly a pace and a journey that has to be very, easy to use and very compliant with the excellence of the product that today we got in the analog world. In this case, Ray-Ban Stories was the first product launch with the aim not to disrupt any technology or any new use cases, but really to give the same iconic Wayfarer Ray-Ban confidence to our consumers simply adding some few superpowers. This kind of journey will be really in sequence, okay? What we can do to continue this journey, what we need to enable, okay? We call this human interface r-evolution.
Is really the right approach because on one side, we are really investing in terms of research center, M&A, R&D, in revolution three or four technological bricks that they are still missing to make this journey available, and in a few minutes we will go through. On the other, we really want to evolve, simply evolve and continue the journey that our brand, our consumer, our product has to do in continuity with the expectation of the right wearability, the right look and feel, the brand rightness, and the right use cases. An evolution in adoption and a revolution in the technology. Why a revolution? Because three of these blocks will be a revolution for enabling us to get the smart eyewear running perfectly in everyday usage for the augmented reality, but they are also revolutionizing other industry.
The first one is the eye tracking. We recently communicated that here in the Politecnico di Milano, we are investing more than EUR 50 million for opening three research lines regarding eye tracking camera and sensor. This kind of technology is what will enable our device to understand where we are pointing our attention in that moment. That means that our device has to know which is the environment around, but moreover, what we are looking in the physical world in that moment, pointing our attention. This is really a technology that is giving us the possibility then to combine the digital world on the physical world, but also to other industry.
You can imagine also automotive started with some early application of the eye tracking for accident prevention, but you can imagine other industry, the capability to understand exactly where we are looking in that moment is becoming very important. This kind of R&D is really one of the big techno brick that we want to work, and we are investing heavily as a group to make smooth the adoption of this technology inside the smart eyewear. The second one is the super audio. Ray-Ban Stories has already got inside the possibility to have a open ear experience, so while you are listening Giorgio's voice, you can also listen music or receive a phone call.
Combining two experiences, it's nothing revolutionary, but in reality, we are investing both in California and also in Israel to advance a couple of technologies that from a spatial point of view and from a multi-directional point of view will enable ourselves to have a kind of what we call superpower, so the super hearing. Not only addressing our visual attention on something, but increase our capability to listen exactly where we are looking. In this moment, again, is another combination of augmenting the reality in the same moment in which we are appreciating the physical world. This is another big chunk of investment that we are doing and also with some M&A coming up. The third one is probably the most complex but also the most revolutionary, is what we call the lens play. Lens display.
The way in which we will be capable on our lenses to display the digital information exactly overlapping the point of physical world where we are looking to, and adding the information that we are interested in. This means that, our lens has to be what we call laminated, so has to combine in a multiple stack in a fully transparent manner all the actual values. I don't know, filtering the light, polarizing the light or correcting my prescription, but moreover to combine waveguides, microLED projection, holographic mirrors or holographic treatment to visualize the image exactly in a seamless mode. This is not yet a mature technology.
We are all working together also with JV, with partnership, and we are investing especially in Europe in this moment, in between France and Italy, because we strongly believe that this revolution of managing exactly and precise overlapping on a transparent surface like lenses will enable also other segment. You can imagine construction. Here we've got probably the biggest windows in Milan. You can imagine how in the construction, in the transportation, in train, in aircraft, in the automotive, you can really include what today has been called head-up display inside any transparent surface. This is the reason why all those kind of investment we are not doing alone. We are joining the forces. We are collaborating with other partner. In the Politecnico di Milano, we will be in the same research center with STMicroelectronics.
In other locations, we will work also with big giants of software because we really need to have everybody on board to revolutionize this technology, and on the other side, make step-by-step the journey and continue the journey that we are doing in the smart eyewear. This is the first chapter. The second one is a little bit complementing what Paul before was referring on Eyes on the Planet and Giorgio was referring to Eyes on Carbon. When we are talking about product innovation, we need to talk about Eyes on Circularity. This slide is simply summarize why as EssilorLuxottica we can be really powerful on Eyes on Circularity. First of all, because the circularity is starting from the design.
We are really addressing training and addressing all our designer of all kind of product to, first of all, design something that is suitable for circularity, designed for, using the right, material since the beginning, if they are bio-based, bio-sourced, no fossil carbon, or by renewal sources, or recycling, so reinventing upcycling material that are already present inside in the company, or designing process that they are consuming less material. The last one is one of the most important program we internally call Slim Fit, that is a design of optical lenses that since the calculation system to correct my prescription, his prescription, is starting from a thinner stack of material, that means that we are grinding less material during the generation of the optical stack. The second one is not do it alone. What does it mean?
On one side, leveraging on external partner that can certify that what we are doing is really measured and proportionate. Here we just put an example related to the recycling of nylon, when in Italy every day, we are mechanically internally recycling more than 100 kg of nylon, and this is certified as ISCC PLUS. Moreover, the partnership can be inside the group and outside. What does it mean? Outside, we can really work with the other partner like Bureo that with Costa Smeralda and Untangled Collection, we are recollecting the fishing nets released in the ocean. By the way, those are polyamide. So polyamide like our raw material. But polyamide can also allow us to do circularity internally, because polyamide or polycarbonate, they are present in the lenses, in the frame, in the packaging.
Moreover, if we extend our ratio of upcycling, something that cannot be upcycled in the lenses can be upcycled in the frame. Something that cannot be upcycled in the frame can be upcycled in the hardcore of the packaging. Something that cannot be upcycled in the packaging can finish in the POPs or in the point of sales trade material that is communicating seasonal collection. Really, the vertical integration again is coming close behind us to support also on Eyes on Circularity. This is really complementary with what Giorgio was saying on Eyes on Carbon, and it's a little bit complementary on the innovation that we are investing as a company in the process, in the operation, and in the product. I'm assuming that now we are opening the first session. Oops. I need to come back. Hey, Alexa. Okay.
We will open the first session of Q&A related to our session.
Thank you. Hi, Susy Tibaldi from UBS. I have one question for each. On the supply chain, you explained, you showed what's done from 2018- 2022.
Yes.
Which was quite a lot. I wanted to understand, like, is that all the integration already took place, now you're operating fully as one company? Or how much more is there to do to fully optimize to reach really your optimal supply chain capabilities and integration? The question on smart glasses would be, if you can give us a bit of a flavor on how has been the success of these Ray-Ban Stories, how has been the adoption rate from consumers? What's the feedback? When you're thinking about all of these additional capabilities in the smart eyewear space, like, what kind of timeline are we talking about? I think everyone can have a different idea, but you probably are very close to the development.
How long before these, you know, screen-on lenses and becomes a reality and a product that actually we can wear on a day-to-day basis?
Okay, thank you for the question. For EssilorLuxottica, integration is over. We are already one company. We integrated and we simplified what was the network coming from the two companies. Now we are only one organization. Now is part of the integration, it's more related to GrandVision, how we can integrate the GrandVision asset into our footprint. We are expanding the network that we create after the integration in order to sustain the challenge of the whole group. The new investment that we're doing, and Stefano will talk about, you know, all the CapEx investment, are done, you know, as a result of the integration moving to the next challenges of the new unified companies. Integration is over, and it's more expanding from what we have already done. We are executing that.
We design, and now we are executing.
Okay, we'll go with the first part. Ray-Ban Stories, apart from the fact that the program is still open and up and running every day, so if you want to buy, it's also a good product. Now it's really for us is the first launch. It's first of all, it's a success because it's a lesson learned. We learn a lot of stuff in regulatory. There are already some few countries also in Europe that we don't have the authorization because the assistant has to be in the language of. We are really learning by doing, but the program till now is running in a smooth and continuous ramp-up. There are still some features that we need to implement. Recently, we launched also the connection with WhatsApp.
We will every month or every two months release new features. The adoption rate till now is, let me say, probably the biggest in the wearable space, and so we cannot say if it's enough or not or if we are satisfied or not. We are running at the right pace and the right rhythm. The program will still be active a minimum for another year, enlarging the scope of utilization, powering the software, enlarging the scope of distribution, adding country and assistant. This is the status of Ray-Ban Stories. From a product perspective, we are super happy because it was also the first time that we internally produce an electronic device.
I can sincerely tell after one year that we really do not have any quality issue, neither in the launch nor during the market. The appreciation from an aesthetic and functionality point of view has been really well scored by all kinds of rankings, okay? Also the tech rank always underline that the product in term of shapes and functionalities is acting good. To the second question, there are still a lot of open points. Like any technical adoption, we are expecting, especially talking about the lens play, so the addition, that will be probably in a range of three-four years appearing some techy exercise, okay? Not a smooth, seamless usage of the technology, testing the maturity of different systems, waveguides, holographic and so forth.
If I have to project myself in a complete access to the metaverse, probably is more after five, around five-seven years. In the target that we are looking to, doesn't mean that we will experiment. As I told at the beginning, Ray-Ban Stories with the next program, with the phone, will be a continuous release of product, increasing the superpower and increasing the technology. The most complex one that will combine everything, super audio, eye tracking, lens play, lens display, probably will have the maturity in a range of five or six. It depends also how we will be as a system fast in develop.
Thank you. Cedric Lecasble from Stifel. Excuse me to come back on the past also on the 2018-2022 period. For the integration of supply chain, there are different levels. You have the software of two companies becoming one.
Mm-hmm.
You have the flows of products with the hubs which weren't the same, in the same locations, not too far, but not too close.
Mm.
Maybe you can explain us what, how you have come to a single company in terms of maybe software integration, probably it's done. But in terms of flows of products, how do the frames and lenses come together, whereas you had different locations for your hubs in the US, in Europe, and in China? Thank you very much.
Thank you. As you said, the software integration, the system integration was really the backbone. From one side we look at the network, on the other side we needed to have a big enabler. That was that was software. Okay. Integrating the soft theware, of course, we had the possibility to have access by system to all the product, all the categories, all the master data and anagraphics for all the product, the customer and so on. Then we start understanding, you know, which product has to be in which place. There was a detailed team of supply chain that was working in a very analytical way. Country by country, region by region, we design, you know, what has to be and where, and with also which level of size, okay? This is what we did.
It was again a four years work with the daily activity, with a very disciplined governance, project, work streams, monitoring, checking the KPIs. Something that we look at for four years every weeks, and now that we are benefit from the activity we have started and executing the new design, the next step. Again, it was a teamwork, larger team, okay? Coming from the two companies, bringing the respective expertise in their field and putting together under a clear leadership. The key point was to assign the clear leaders for each function that was capable to put the two experience all together. There are hub-
No, just to understand.
Sure. [crosstalk]
What has changed in the organization, how it was before we had two companies.
Yes.
that we were working on with different organizations, with different hubs. In pushing the frames and the lenses to the same places to have a unified product to offer to the optician, from the outside, it's not easy to understand what has been done precisely.
Okay. For instance, I can mention a few example. For instance, inside the distribution center in Italy, we had also the Rx prescription capabilities, and we moved the customer, let's say previous Essilor customer, to be served by that hub, and we closed the other location that were serving this hub. In Poland, we moved some part of the frames in Poland to provide the complete pair for the customer of that area from that Polish hub. Okay? We did a similar approach in Brazil. In Brazil, before we had a plant for frames, a distribution center, and another hub for lenses. Okay. We consolidate, we put into one, we create a new location, an integrated hub, and we consolidate, reducing other warehouses that were just dedicated to a specific category and concentrating into one integrated warehouse.
We are doing the same in Peru. We are doing the same in other labs in North America. We closed some labs where there was a duplication because of the proximity, and we streamline into lower number of location in order to provide the same services. Everything was possible thanks to the system integration.
Thank you very much. Luca Solca from Bernstein. A question for Federico on Ray-Ban Stories. How much of a limitation do you think is the fact that you have an exclusive partnership with Meta, while the operating systems on which apps are developed are controlled by Apple and Google to a large extent? When you think about the medium term development of apps for smart glasses, how can they integrate functions such as geolocation, for example, or augmented reality, and is that within the planning horizon? A question for Giorgio. On the back of the redundancies that you have built in the EssilorLuxottica operations globally, are we right to assume that the current COVID-19 related disruption in China is not an issue for you?
While I'm at it, how are you coping with the factor cost inflation that seems to be rampant? Thank you very much.
I will take the first one. Naturally, the history of the partnership with Meta is quite clear. The two entrepreneur met themselves, got to share a vision of the Metaverse two years ago, and we decide to run the first step together, okay? The role play inside this kind of partnership, there is also friendship, but it is quite clear we take care about the device. Okay? We will concentrate all our effort in make the perfect device to gateway and make this vision possible, okay? We will place our... If we layer the journey between the consumer and the Metaverse, we will sit in between the infrastructure, 5G, 6G, and the space computing of the creator.
This is the reason why we are limiting our attention to that, and this is the reason why we need a partner that anyhow give us a vision. Doesn't mean that all the technology that we are investing in make these devices can then not function with other application, with other system and so forth. For the moment, we do not foreseen a limitation, but we foreseen a robust friend that give us the North Pole.
Limited to the devices. Thank you, Luca.
The two questions. China. We were not impacted so much by the first wave, let's say in the beginning of 2020. That was a big learning phase for us in order to create a protocol and procedure to mitigate the potential impact of arriving the COVID within our premises. We had a small impact in Shanghai when it happened before the summer. There was the Shanghai lockdown, and we have facilities for lab and lens mass production within the Shanghai area. Thanks to the organization, to redundancy and the protocol that we created, we were able to cope with that.
We immediately leveraged the flexibility around the network, first using the other asset that we have in China for mass production for lenses, and also leveraging the asset that we had in Thailand in order to support. During that period, we had a good business in China itself because Shanghai was under lockdown, but the other cities were not. We were able to provide the services even during that difficult time. Maybe it's never enough the experience, but we got a good experience, a good protocol in place and good flexibility of the network to cope with the COVID or any disruption. Related to the other question, that was what? Cost inflation.
The cost inflation, this is very nice question, because there are cost inflation, energy cost very high, logistic cost very high, and labor inflation very high. Energy inflation is very high, especially for European countries. We see increase everywhere, but the big disruption in energy is coming from European countries. In terms of global exposure, Europe is not the major contributor in terms of manufacturing. In terms of made-in-Italy frame production, yes. But if we look at the overall, more than 60% of frames are coming not from Europe, and the majority of the lenses are not coming from Europe, and therefore it's a headache, but it's not a terrible headache. The energy inflation.
The bigger headache is labor inflation, to be honest, because we see labor increase across all the geographies, not just in mature market like Europe or U.S., but we see also inflation in the emerging market. We see in Mexico, we see in Poland and Thailand. Of course, how to cope with that? We are pushing strongly in terms of productivity increase and automation. I was mentioning before robo handling. We have a large number of indirect people that we are reducing because we are implementing such kind of automation in order to reduce the number of people that do this no value-added task.
The key point is to reduce the number of no value-added task and to be executed by robo machine and to have adjusted the workforce for the key value-added activities that cannot be replicated by only by machine, but can be done in collaboration with the machine. Labor inflation is the bigger headache on which we are focusing, and of course, we are supporting, you know, through the flexibility of the network, the mitigation of the labor inflation playing between the different geographies.
We have to leave the chair to our friends, Norbert and Arnaud, that we will drive you through the next chapter of innovation and myopia. Thank you for your attention, and see you soon.
Thank you.
Now it's on. Hello. Luca, actually, it's not my style to answer questions of other people, but, given the fact that, Giorgio and myself are partners in crime, let me just give you one more explanation why we managed the Shanghai lockdown that well. Our Shanghai employees, a couple of dozens of them, volunteered to get locked into the factory for almost a month to keep service and production up. That is the style how to work in our company. Now onward with innovation. In EssilorLuxottica, we consider innovation as one of the most important cornerstones of our strategy. We believe that innovation is a source of differentiation, and we know that differentiation is what we need to grow the market and the business that we own in that market.
That is the reason why year after year, we keep investing more than EUR 230 million in developing new products, new technologies, establishing entirely new categories and instruments. Predicated on our deep know-how of vision science and guided by our digital and sustainability strategy, we focus our attention more and more on four areas of activities. First to be mentioned, E-lens, or let's say the complementary components from the optical technology that feed into the roadmap that was presented to you by Federico, near vision management, myopia, and light management. The output of those four focal areas of attention and resource allocation feed into the branded offers of our company as they are Ray-Ban, Transitions, Varilux, Crizal, and nowadays also Stellest. Because our brands carry these technologies, and they make them accessible and recognizable for customers and consumers. Let's focus for a few minutes on e-lens.
As said, E-lens is the optical component that complements the design and the total system of a piece of smart eyewear. You know that we're working for, since quite some time on e-chromic technology. We have extended now into e-focals and in e-filter technology. As was mentioned before, we are also developing technology that gives us free-form opportunities in displaying information in AR. First to be mentioned, the development of holographic mirrors, where we already have a proprietary technology in the mono mirror design. Let's move on with near vision and have a quick focus on what that means. Near vision is managed by the usage of progressive lenses.
You may say, "What's new about that?" That's not new, but what's new about that category and the wearers and the people in use is people in the last 20 years have dramatically changed their visual behavior, like you do while you operate your computer or iPad in front of me. This has led to a requirement that designs for progressive lenses need to be adapted to this type of behavior. We have started in this context three initiatives of which we believe they will bring a lot of value to the industry in the foreseeable future. Because the penetration of the consumer group that is actually supposed to use progressive lenses is still less than 20% worldwide, so there's enormous potential to grow. Design superiority is what we will achieve by the usage of our proprietary Avatar technology.
We have developed a design and testing tool that is founded on millions of consumer data that will help us to accelerate design options, but also rapid testing in order to deliver solutions to the market more quickly. The best design doesn't do the job if it's not adapted to the wearer or to the individual vision strategy of a wearer. Fitting a design to a consumer, which is covered by the advanced personalization technology, is a must in order to move the penetration further ahead. In that context, we have developed digital metrology and scanning technology to really get every movement, every pose, and every, you know, aspect of an individual into the fitting of the design. Finally, we aim at a simplification.
We want to simplify the consumer journey from the refraction room all the way through dispensing, starting with our superior refraction technology that you can see here in this demo center. Also moving into dispensing tools that can be mobile, that can be digitally, you know, supported as scanning devices in order to grab the fitting and parameterization data. Moving on to light management. Light management is a summary term for all of the features that we put on a design, because a design by itself is not a product. Light management is for transmission management, clarity, robustness, well-being, and many other features. We distinguish two major fields of application. On the one hand, all the visual functions of the eye, which is actually everything you need as a technology to make you see images in the most natural way.
We have just introduced, a few months ago, a new family of Crizal, which excels as we speak through the rollout in clarity, in robustness, and in antireflective features. As a second element, the non-visual functions of the eye. This is an area of application that, you know, demands more and more of our attention and of course also resource allocation because the non-visual functions of the eye, they cover elements like photophobia management, migraine management, or for example, also eye fatigue management. Expect us to deliver more light management features through coatings, through laminates, but also through wafer technologies in the years to come, focusing on, I would say, a more medical application. One of the most prominently discussed non-visual function of the eye is the mechanism that onsets myopia and makes it progress.
I remember well three years ago when we met last in London, Federico and myself gave a joint presentation on a technology that in those days was still in clinical testing. This technology has become a product in the meantime, and some of you who may have paid attention to what happened in Rotterdam a few days ago, where there was the biggest international myopia conference ever, will maybe join me in the analysis that there's no one out there that neglects that myopia is becoming one of the most exciting new categories in our industry. There's three technologies currently in discussion which are considered being mature enough for a real treatment plan. The first technology is a lens that creates an optical signal in front of the retina. The second technology is a technology that does something else.
It softens the image on the retina, taking hard contrast out. The third technology, a most recent discovery, and scientifically speaking, still in its infancy, is a light therapy from the spectrum of the longer wavelengths lights or something out of the red spectrum. We as a group, already three years ago, decided to provide to the market the most comprehensive basket of clinically proven solutions. That's why our group is exactly active in these three technologies. The first one to be covered by our product, Stellest, which is, I think, a big success and maybe having the potential as well to become a gold standard one fine day. We are engaged with CooperVision in a joint venture to develop the second technology, which is the DOT, Diffusion Optics Technology, contrast management on the retina.
Our EssilorLuxottica research teams with academic partners are exploring at this moment in time what type of light therapy, you know, could play in this field as well. To be frank, the most perfect and the best clinically tested product will never be sufficient to create a new category in our industry. It takes awareness, key opinion leaders, parents, whatever. It takes new technologies to detect myopia, to monitor myopia, to predict the progression of myopia. We are working on all of those technologies as we speak, and that portfolio of ingredients finally gives us the foundation to establish myopia control products as a new category. The person who knows best how to do this is Arnaud, who sits next to me.
Thank you, Norbert, and good afternoon, everybody. I'm Arnaud Ribadeau-Dumas. I've been in the head of myopia actually now for a couple of months, and before that I was the head of EssilorLuxottica in Greater China. I was lucky not to be there during the lockdown the past few months. I gotta share with you now how we bring the technology that Norbert explained very well into the reality of the market, giving you a little bit of recipes of how we shape the next category, which is myopia. Right? Bear with me because I'm the last one between now and your break. A wide portfolio of solutions is the first key pillar to build up this category.
What we have is the products that have been explained by Norbert already, but what we are distributing as well is more than just one product. It's also contact lenses, soft contact lenses, and hard contact lenses, thanks to a partnership we have with CooperVision, which is absolutely key because the products are complementary one to each other. Not every kids is reacting the same way to all the solutions, so it's good to have different solutions. Not all the parents are at ease with contact lenses, so sometimes they prefer lenses. Not all the kids have the same age and the same lifestyle, so if you want to go sporting, it's better you have contact lenses. If you want to go at school, it's good you have your lenses. The complementarity of the portfolio, we believe, is absolutely key.
We have it at play in China, and we are rolling it out in our retail in the rest of the world and of course in the rest of the professional solutions worldwide. We have another component which is extremely important. This is another partnership of the business with the innovation, which is the frames. When you have a lens which is myopia control, you need to wear it 12 hours a day to be very efficient. It's a question of compliance, right? The more you treat, the better you feel. To be able to wear it 12 hours a day when you are a kid, you need something more than just a treatment. It's important to have nice frames, light frames, comfortable frames, beautiful frames that you like, so that you really have the willingness to keep it on your nose.
Federico and his team, they have developed wonderful frames, and they are the Ray-Ban, the Vogue, the Polo, the Versace, and even the Oakley. You have kind of frames for every kind of kids and children. The full portfolio is absolutely necessary. We have it in play, and we are rolling it out everywhere. The second key pillar is to have a very strong medical base. Myopia management is a treatment, so it has to be prescribed by a doctor. It's not about a single vision that you can get in an optician. It's really about having a doctor prescribing. In that field, there is a lot of work being done, clinical trials, as it has been explained.
With the clinical trials that prove the efficacy, you need to engage the doctors, and we have now a lot of advisory boards at play in many places of the world for the different technologies we have, right? Advisory board is crucial for the development and the adoption of the technology. There is a second thing that we are doing with all the key opinion leaders, the ophthalmologist and optometrist, is to make sure that there is an industry and expert consensus. We are pushing for the experts to create a white paper to set up what are the protocols and the conditions, as Amir Khoshnevis was explaining, the conditions to well dispense a myopia control product. Those protocols are being adopted as the reference for the industry and for the other doctors. I give you one example.
The white paper that was built up in China has been adopted by the Chinese Medical Association, which is a government body, to become the reference for treating myopia management. This is what we are also working with our partners, CooperVision and other players of industry, to roll it out in other countries. You understand that we build it up not alone. We build it up with all the industry stakeholders, because we are an open company, and we build it up to develop the value of the market, because the more we develop the market, the best we will be able to create value for you shareholders as well. The third element which is key is to engage the public and the government.
Now I get to the few numbers you want to know, we have 3 billion myopic people in the world today. There will be 5 billion by 2050. There are 350 million kids who are myopes today, and there will be more than 500 by 2050. It means there are 65-70 million new kids myopes every year. This is the size of the opportunity which is kicking in. We have to make sure that the parents understand this need, but more importantly, that the government understand that if the kids are not screened at school, they will fail at school if they are myope. If the kids are not treated for their myopia, then they will develop long-term pathologies that will affect their eyes and can even cause blindness.
The cost for the society can be extremely high. We are engaging the government. We did a very simple study in China with a university to prove the cost of the myopia on the society. It was hundreds of billions EUR, so it was points of GDP, and at the end of the day, the government, after this study, the Ministry of Health and Education decided that it was a priority to screen these kids at school twice a year. Right? Doctors, of course, followed up, and the parents as well. It's important to involve the government. It's important to involve the parents, so that they can get their questions cleared on social platform and social media to get access to information. We are also investing when we are launching a product a lot on media and communication.
If you are in France, in Italy, if you are in China, you will see a lot of communication and advertising around Stellest, for example. We have to wake up the consumer and the patient as well. The last pillar, which is also very important because we are prescribing a new category, is to have the opticians ready to talk about the product. They are used to be able to talk about correction, but not about the treatment. We are investing also big time in the treatment protocols and in the training. Leonardo already makes available a strong platform built up by ophthalmologists on what are the treatment protocols that an ECP needs to have in his hands to be able to dispense and sell the products. Quite interestingly also, we are changing the ECPs.
We have made a test in China with the LensCrafters stores, where we have set up a specific optometry room for kids because they are smaller, and they have to have a different chair. Same way, we have also reduced the size and the height of the dispensing table so they can see the product, and they feel in a less medical environment, in a place which is more comfortable for them to understand what is happening with their myopia. There in these stores, we've seen, of course, a huge increase of a comp store. It has been a great success. Now in most of the stores in China, more than 5% of the sales are about myopia management products. When you activate properly the retail, it's working pretty well.
As you understood then, we are moving part of the company from a more correction to a medical field, meaning that we have to invest in an organization, in new talents, in new people that are really ready and happy to join the company because we are leading into that field, and somehow this is going to benefit the other categories. You know, presbyopia, light management will benefit from the medical orientation of the company, and EssilorLuxottica is really entering a medical field, being a kind of a med tech sort of a company by developing the myopia management technologies. That's it for myopia management. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but due to time, we will take two questions now, and you have a break after, and we will be available, Norbert and I, to answer to all the other questions.
Hello. It's Graham Renwick from Berenberg. Can you talk a little bit about competition in myopia management? It's a very attractive category, but it sort of feels with Stellest and your partnership with Cooper that you almost have all the solutions in the market at the moment. Earlier on, it said that it was said in a presentation that it took 30 years of research to develop Stellest. I just wondered how far behind are competitors in terms of launching credible rival solutions in that category?
S- s- Maybe I-
You start that?
Maybe I start, Nic. Of course, we welcome competition because competition is needed to get the best out of your own organization. I mean, that's a rule that is, I think applicable for almost any type of industry. We see one Japanese competitor .having a solution that uses a different optical pathway. For the definition of a solution, let's say a solution is a clinically tested and proven product. Beyond that, you have atropine, which is a therapy that in the U.S., in Europe is currently, you know, coming to the end of a testing phase. It can potentially be expected to be, you know, approved by the FDA, but we will maybe know next year. Beyond that, there is many clinical trials, but proven efficacy means 50% or more effect.
That limits the competition to the mentioned technologies. What we see is, on the other hand, if you have a proven technology, you have freeloaders in some parts of the world, you know, lining up very, very fast trying to copy your concept. That is why it's extremely important to protect your technology with IP, not to allow other companies with not clinically proven but similarly looking, you know, technology to follow your heels.
To add to that, I think competition is good because it creates the market and the demand and the awareness. On the other hand, the regulators are going to look at it because you cannot put a product on the market which is not clinically proven and say that it's making an effective treatment. There will be a balance between high competition and regulation.
Thank you very much, and great to see you guys. One question with two parts from me. One, if you can maybe give us a sense for the size of revenues for Stellest today, and if you fast-forward five years from today, what do you think the market opportunity looks like? Then as a sort of follow-on to that, what is the shape of the curve till you get there? Is it back-end loaded, front-end loaded? I know this is market creation activity in many markets. It's a brand-new market. I'm just thinking U.S. in particular, if you do launch next year, how quickly would you think that launch progresses? Thank you.
Okay. We don't disclose the sale of Stellest. We also don't disclose an ambition because as you very well said, it's a category we are building up, so it's difficult to really say. Now, of course, it's a huge potential, no doubt, and it's a very significant revenue in China also, no doubt. It's rolling out in the rest of the world at a speed which will depend on the four pillars I just explained you. If government kicks in, if awareness is increasing, we're gonna get there more rapidly than we think.
What I think Arnaud, one could say, once the preparation of the arrival of the product is implemented exactly in the following Arnaud's talk, the growth that can be expected is beyond linear. I leave that to your fantasy.
Sorry. We sold in H1 what we sold the full year last year, and we sold in Q3 what we sold in H1. It's a bit exponential.
We are- [crosstalk]
It's finished. [crosstalk]
We would be pleased to answer all your questions during the break.
We take it at the break. [crosstalk]
If you let us.
All right. I'm sorry.
Thank you for your attention.
Good break now.
Okay, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed the break and, you're having a good time so far, starting this morning, with the tour of, the venue. Chrystel and I are really happy you had the possibility to see our new venue because it's really our house when we engage with our customers, and I believe today is really the best you can find in the way of explaining and engaging with our customer. My name is Fabrizio Uguzzoni. I have the pleasure to lead the North American market, and today, together with Chrystel, we will give you some, flavor about the professional solution, what are the strategy and some of the highlights.
Thank you, Fabrizio. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Chrystel Barranger, and actually I'm leading EssilorLuxottica EMEA Professional Solution. You've already heard a lot about the group ambition and the power of its assets. Now together with Fabrizio, we'll showcase how our leadership in North America and EMEA can help us to unlock the growth of the industry together with the optical professional. Historically, the development of the optical industry has been the result of our strong bond, our close relationship, and our close collaboration with the industry expert, and we have grown together. Today, EssilorLuxottica is stronger and has a wider ability to impact, to give more. Our skill bring both stability and new possibility, and our value add is 360. An eye care professional cherish their independence as healthcare provider and as entrepreneur, but it never meant they want to be isolated, all alone.
Especially today in a fast-moving world and in a volatile and challenging context, they value that we can really make a difference and help them to perform even better. Our intention is to further grow with them, powering them to be independent, but not alone. Why is it so key to nurture our collaboration with eye care professional? It's not a romantic vision of business. The answer sits actually in the market key figures, and it's anchored in the business fundamental. It's primarily a vision care market, and more than 80% of the global market value is driven by prescription offer and primarily by prescription glasses. Before anything, the value is built on answering an essential need for good vision.
It's not also by chance that this industry is an experts industry, because as a matter of fact, more than half of the market value is collected by independent ECPs. They are the backbone of our industry. Patients, and especially those who have real vision challenges and who are wearing their glasses on their face all day long, rely on their expertise and they trust their advice. When you buy prescription glasses, you buy a fully customized health and style product, and it's a complicated purchase with very high impact on your daily life, so you want to get it right. Last thing about the market: it's a very local business with very different maturity and reality across the globe. People serve people in hundreds of thousand doors, and to perform even segmenting the doors, both a robust supply network and a strong local commercial anchor are needed.
Now let's have a perspective on our EssilorLuxottica professional solution and on the market trend.
Looking at EssilorLuxottica, we highlighted here something which is extremely important for us when we play in the market. The first one is understanding we provide solutions to our customer. It's not anymore about the single transaction of selling one frame, one lens, one product. It's to be consultative with our customers in all the range of product categories and solution we can offer to them. How we can partner with them to make them more successful in what they do. Understanding our customer base is very diversified. As Christelle said, 50% is still represented by independent eye care professional, but almost all of them are doctors, are practicing in the medical space, and it is important we enhance their medical capability, and we help them to be successful, as you heard before from Dr. Amir Khoshnevis.
They want to be medical, but they want to be successful in their practice. There are four different trends we highlighted here which are important for us to consider in looking at the market, in looking at the way we're approaching the market as EssilorLuxottica, one unified company. Consolidatio, I've received so many questions about what is happening in the market with the consolidation. Despite the pace of consolidation in the last few years, the market is still very much fragmented, as you have seen in the chart at the beginning. The consolidation can be an opportunity because there are consolidation, of course, of people acquiring practices, but there are also consolidation like the network of Vision Source you have seen before.
A network of 4,500 doctors that came together to be stronger and is a great platform for us to partner with and to be more effective in the way we go to the market. The second is digital and teleoptometry, a trend that was already there before 2020, but definitely 2020 accelerated the trends were already there. To be capable to provide those needs to the market with the digital and teleoptometry to better leverage the resources they have, it's fundamental. As a company, we cannot ignore that. We need to be ready. The second, the last, sorry, before the last, is a need for vision.
You have heard about myopia before and the different needs that are evolving because of aging, of course, has been always there, but also because the different behavior of consumer and patient with the screen time increasing exponentially in the last year. The need for vision correction and protection is increasing exponentially. Last but not least is the patient journey. How we can help our doctors to manage the patient in all the cycle before, during, and after. How to engage and how to go where the patient is, and not anymore waiting for the patient to walk in our practices for an eye exam. Having said that, back to Chrystel for having our lights on Europe, and then we will see North America as well.
Thank you. Back to how we lead in EMEA. EMEA is a very large region and the first optical market. For EssilorLuxottica, it's a second region in our review, and it's the historical anchor, especially in France and Italy. Professional solution in EMEA has a massive coverage as we're addressing 50 out of the 75 doors in the region. A lot has changed over the last three years. We became one integrated company, including GrandVision, and this has been a bold move in this region. One thing did not change, though, and is even more reinforced, is our professional solution team's commitment to grow with the optical professional and to drive the industry ecosystem towards the future. We passed the COVID acid test, I would say, and we're back to growth, and we're leveraging four strategic pillar.
The first one is that we now act as one company. We operate in 52 countries, and we are advantaged as we have the group scale. We're also strongly locally implanted. Actually, we are local at scale. Our lab footprint, with more than 50 commercial labs, as explained by Giorgio, in the region ensures the product quality, the customer proximity, the supply and the service reliability, very key in this moment. Our commercial networks and teams on the field bring us a very deep commercial intimacy in the market. Over the last year, we really became one in action. We have now one integrated leadership team across the geographies. We are one-stop shop across the category, offering end-to-end solution for our customers. It's now, by the way, very tangible for our customers.
In this location, for example, we have recently presented our new collection, showcasing our complete portfolio and our innovation. Our digital windows, our Smart Shopper, our teleoptometry solution, our Leonardo education platform, and being clear that all this innovation, we would be delighted to let our customer benefit from them in their practice. Overall, the new EssilorLuxottica is energizing, and it's a common culture has really emerged with a more extensive understanding of our customer reality and needs in the field, and it stimulates to find new solution. The second lever that we're leveraging is actually our geographical footprint. We operate in the wide region with a mix of mature and emerging market. In the emerging market, the level of vision need corrected, treated is usually lower than in mature market, and our position is less developed.
One very straightforward lever to grow is actually to fast-track our business in this emerging market, and it's delivering. In EMEA, for example, we are growing in East 9x faster than in average of EMEA and 6x faster in MEA. We also rediscover new growth opportunity in our strongholds becoming EssilorLuxottica. For example, in France, 75% of business is driven by lenses, while in Italy it's 65% of our business which is driven by frames. So clearly, developing the category, the complementary category with key customers is a new white space. The third one, actually, is to accelerate category and innovation. It's a main expectation from our customer to actually have the ability to support the market value creation, to develop categories, and to boost their valorization with advanced innovation and brands. It has always been our signature.
We will keep on building on our playbook, but also open new frontier. Today, some growth lever are very straightforward as the expansion of our portfolio distribution. For example, seizing the sunglass cross-channel opportunity, in particular in e-commerce and in sport channels. Our brand mix management can be boosted by our accretive lenses blockbusters. But we also have new levers capitalizing across the category. For example, across instruments and lenses with the introduction of our new eye care consumer journey in store to best serve patient need and also to support ECP upselling. Across channels, I mean, having a multichannel investment in a geography, and we already have the great result of Transitions acceleration, investing in Italy across professional solution in our banner of Sunglass Hut and VistaSì. [audio distortion]
Finally, being future-ready, driving the optical stores attractiveness and traffic with digitalization solution across the consumer journey, and you can probably still discover just behind you the Smart Shopper and the digital window which we are widely implementing in EMEA. Of course, we're bringing also now new generation to store, being the sponsor of Myopia Control Management, offering therapeutic lens, but also not forgetting to match them with cool frames. Of course, we're now also introducing the first and very soon the new generation of smart eyewear. As you can see, we have a large levers of growth activating our category and innovation, both playing on our historical playbook, but also pushing it further. Last but not least, our last lever of growth in EMEA is really to level up our customer partnership.
As I said before, we have a massive coverage, and we work across all channels, eye care professional, key account, buying group, e-com, department store, world trade retail, sport channel, and we offer to all of them differentiated value proposition. We have a long-lasting partnership and a deep connection with many customer thanks to our 4,500 commercial people serving them daily. Across the region, just to give you some numbers, 12,000 of the doors are part of our Essilor Experts programs, and they differentiate themselves with an Essilor ambassador stamp on their front of their window. We also have 6,000 doors which we are leveraging our Stars program, our integrated supply replenishment model for frames. The benefit, for example, to have in one week all the collection newness in their store. With our partner, actually we're far beyond transactional business.
Nevertheless, we want to bring them even more. To our ECP partners, we want to offer turnkey solutions and services, driving in-store traffic, elevating the in-store experience, simplifying their store operation, and also sustaining the expertise and differentiation. These services are embedded in our new EssilorLuxottica 360 program, and Fabrizio will detail later. We just introduced it this year in EMEA, and I have to say the first results are really promising as the partners are outperforming. To our chain partners, actually store efficiency is even more central. Eye exam solution, but also complete pair supplies are attractive for them. Finally, for all partners and customers, we know from experience that staff training and education is key to sell added value categories and products.
The challenge with training in general is to be able to perform it at scale, at reasonable cost, in an easy and simple way for a large number of staff in store. Leonardo, our innovative educational platform, will uniquely simplifies this challenge, and is already plebiscited by our customer. I gave you a few, a very fast overview of our key growth lever. To conclude on EMEA, to leave you with one idea, actually a major part of the market value is built on the essential need for good vision. Addressing this need is also the core business of the industry expert. As a leader, we don't take it lightly to stimulate the value creation for all the stakeholders, even in mature geography.
Let me pause here for a second because I just want to say what a fabulous object that this prescription glasses is. Actually, they're critical to help me see you, but also to influence the way you see me and tell you about my style. It adapts to light changes around me and protect my vision capital. Tomorrow it will probably also be the vehicle for me to see more than the simple reality. Actually, maybe I just will see your LinkedIn profile when looking at you. In our new company configuration, we have no limitation for invention and reinvention. We have endless possibilities to best address the vision need with added value and many avenue to give better access, to offer differentiation, to bring people in store.
We have the chance to be this disruptive, inclusive, and fully reborn vision care champion that together with the industry expert, our historical partners, we can unlock the real category potential and co-shape the future. This is definitely our aspiration, and we'll keep on working on it in EMEA.
Thank you, Christelle. Amazing journey we are in Europe. Similar to Europe, I want to give you a flavor about North America, and I hope I'm gonna be capable to translating what we're doing in North America what you have seen before by the previous speakers, because everything is here is translating in commercial solution for our customers. The first you see is a partner programs. Christelle mentioned about Essilor Experts. We have more than 8,000 Essilor Experts in the U.S. EssilorLuxottica 360 is the program we have launched in the U.S. a little bit less than two years ago. In less than two years, we have arrived already to 5,000 members. What is even more important is those program have been built to improve the performance of our customers.
When we measure performance is, the traffic, the number of eye exam, the capture rate, and the profitability, we see the Essilor Experts and the EssilorLuxottica 360 outperform by far the market. In terms of number of eye exam, we see them growing twice what the market is doing. In terms of capture rate, being 50% higher than the rest of the customers. That is giving us the confidence that what we're doing is right for our customers. There is much more in terms of program. You have heard before from Dr.
Amir Khoshnevis on Vision Source, and Frame Dream is one of the program we developed with those network of doctors for the complete pair solution with a showrooming model, where in your practice you don't get any more the frame out of your board, and you receive the complete pair one way faster. Quality and also in terms of reliability. That is extremely important to leverage on what Giorgio said on the supply chain. Second is a product and brand. This is our core. I have two example on the number one brands we bring to the table on frame, the number one on lenses, that creates so much demand and desirability for our consumer, but so much trust from our doctors. I put the picture of the NFL of Oakley.
The partnership we started with Oakley a few years ago makes millions of consumers every Sunday when the NFL plays, seeing the logo of Oakley on the face of their idols, of their favorite players. This is an incredible drive of our business that we have seen. If I take the lens, I believe the example we can take is Transitions and how much we made a brand a category name, how much we match the education we do with our doctors on a photochromic category, and we match with the demand of the consumer pulling and convincing them about the needs to protect their eyes in a photochromic type of lenses. The third is the customer-centric approach.
In the U.S., we started an approach where we wanted to make sure with our customer, as anticipated at the beginning, we want to be consultative to them, not anymore transactional. We want to make sure that when we sit with our customer, we understand what are their needs, what they need to better practice from the moment a patient is entering in the practice to the moment he is going to the exam room and then is dispensing. Helping them in understanding our product, but also our service and our solution that can help them to be more successful. We created an organization which is embedded frame, lenses, and all the solutions depending on the type of customer that you serve. If you serve an EssilorLuxottica 360 customer, it's different if you're onboarding a new customer.
You need to be capable to talk about the business at 360 degrees and not just on the single category that we represented in the past. Last but not least, something I'm extremely passionate about: education and awareness. I'm glad that you came here before, and you had the possibility to see Leonardo, which is the first open digital learning and education platform available to all our customers. The content you have there with thousands of thousands of hours of education, hundreds of teachers, it's incredible, and goes from product, brand, medical. For everyone, not just for our doctor customers, but for everyone that touch a patient, it's important to understand. We know how it's difficult to skill up the people we have in our practices, in our location, in our retail stores. Leonardo gives that opportunity.
To make sure it's relevant, we're partnering with the top universities and colleges in the United States to make sure the content is certified. The partnership with them is a two-way partnership. They benefit from our platform, and we benefit from the knowledge of all the academic world in the United States. Finally, awareness. We're partnering with institutions in the United States to increase the awareness about the need of high-quality eye care is extremely important. Associations of doctors, press, everyone will help us to increase the frequency of the patients seeing a doctor and making sure there is awareness about the importance of protecting your most important sense, which is your sight and your eyes. The message for the U.S. that I want to leave you with is we're building a partnership for life with our customers.
We're partnering with them 360 degrees. Not, I mean, by chance, the program is the 360. We're partnering with them since the beginning of their journey in all their professional lifetime. Since even when they are in the college, as I said, partnering with colleges means we start to interact with the doctor students even before they started to practice, and they start to become familiar, and we help them to be ready for the world that is waiting for them. All the way to the transition, as Dr. Amir Khoshnevis said, on the Vision Source, Vision Source Next, or understanding of what might be an exit strategy for a doctor. That is for us important. We're a partner for the lifetime of our customers. Thank you very much.
Thank you. [crosstalk]
For listening to Christelle and I. We're very happy to take any question.
I think two questions from Giorgio.
Okay.
Yeah, thank you. Julien Dormois from BNP Paribas. Two questions, one on Europe and the other one on the U.S.. In Europe, it's now been a year that you acquired GrandVision, and we can remember that by the time Essilor and Luxottica merged, there was quite a bit of customer pushback. Interestingly, it seems that this time around there's been very little customer pushback following the acquisition of GrandVision. So can you just confirm this impression and maybe tell us how you've managed to do things differently this time? On the U.S., a very basic question about short-term trends from the customers. What do you see on a weekly basis? Are we seeing what most industries are seeing and maybe also some competitors in your space are seeing, which is a slowdown?
You first.
Okay. I will start on your first question. You're actually right. It was a big move, the acquisition of GrandVision, and it was new in this region to be for our customer to see us becoming really a retailer of this size. But I think you're also right, we're not experiencing big retaliation. I think it's clear that our customers ask themselves question: What's in it for me in this combination? Should I fear it? What they have seen is us engaging even more with them and trying even more to develop their business and, as we said, really offering them the opportunity to grow and to be better. They are smart, our customer. They see the value we bring, the, what we can co-build with them.
I think the responsibility is on us to continue to be very good at leveraging our footprint of distribution to grow the industry so that they see the benefit for them, and then we're gonna continue to develop together. By the way, and that's also another thing I want to add, is that on the contrary, we have also reconquered some of key customers that has not been working for us for some time, and that are now seeing, I mean, that not working with a leader could be also a difficulty in the future.
On the US business trend, the business is going well in the U.S., and of course it's very different depending on the product and the customer segment you look at. Luxury is doing amazing. It's growing very much on top of our year last year, which we were growing very much. We have seen some KPIs are getting even better than last year. In some areas and in some customers, even the traffic and the number of eye exam is doing well, and also the capture rate. Definitely U.S. in 2021 was an incredible year. All the value we created in 2021, we see we're retaining in 2022. We're not going back to the value we created. We're still growing. Slower than the growth we have seen last year? Definitely yes.
We still see the growth, and in the very different segment, we still see extremely positive feedback from the customers. It started very good. It's a little bit down, and now we're back on track with a positive trend that we see. Of course, U.S. is not immune to what you see in the rest of the world, and between the consumer confidence and all the rest of the customers, they are very much out there looking what is happening. I would not say today the market is not doing well. Okay. It was two question on one person or two question? I'm kidding. Is there any other question?
Giangio.
Okay, Alberto Chiandetti, Fidelity. Two questions. The first one is on the European side, but can be answered by both. The company has shown how organization-wise, supply chain-wise, IT-wise, integration with EssilorLuxottica has happened. But on the front-end side, selling a frame and selling a lens is different. Where would you say you are in the path toward reaching the sort of cross-selling synergies of putting together the two companies that were one of the reasons why this company has been created? Do you think we are still, let's say we still have a lot of room to gain from this, or have we already reached, let's say the maximum capacity? And the second one is on the teleoptometry side, which today for me at least was one of the most important things to see.
I believe it's early in early phase, also for your retail. It start one year ago. Where are we in the U.S. market that I think is going to be developed first on the wholesale side? If you could share some KPI of that business model? Will it be just a way to provide an additional service to your wholesale clients, or will it be an additional business with fees paid to access these sort of things? Thank you.
Okay. Well, I start with the U.S. since there's a lot on the U.S.. First of all, on the front end, the customer sales organization and the way we got organized. We created the one organization for all the optical customers in the United States. When I say optical, it can be an independent eye care professional at a private practice optometry, so it can be a big box optical retailer. One commercial organization that for the key account is one account per customers that is serving and providing all of the solution and the commercial offer 360 degrees. We have category manager. Of course, as you said, the technicalities or the skills you needed to have to explain a lens versus a frame are different, but the account manager taking care of the customer is one.
When you go to the independent instead, which is much more fragmented, and we have a sales force field-based as well, we created a sales force that is made by three different pillars. Depending if you look at the pyramid of our customer, if you're at top of our pyramid and you are a 360-degree customer of EssilorLuxottica, there is an account manager taking care of you, having a monthly business review, seeing where you're going, and then consulting on what you needed to do to perform better, to increase the mix, to improve the performance, the penetration of the brands, I mean, consulting and making you better.
We have still the category out there consulting on the frame and on the lenses when we have a new collection, when we have a new launch, we're preparing for myopia, as you have seen before, which is extremely important to have a subject matter expert. There is an account management structure taking care of the customer 360 degrees, but still injecting with subject matter expert when it goes and you needed to explain a new product and a new solution visiting the customers. On the teleoptometry, it's definitely too early to give you some KPIs. The way we see teleoptometry, and we have the solution available, and as we speak, we're preparing the presentation and the pilot to our customers. Before Vision Source mentioned, we already identified customers with which to pilot the solution we have.
The idea for teleoptometry for our customer is a complementarity on the way they can serve and perform an eye exam, creating a network of doctors they can have access to, and they can perform with a very trained technician in practice, because that is definitely an important element, remotely with the patient still going to the practice, but having the doctor remotely. That is gonna help our customer to increase the number of eye exam and patient they can see. Definitely, yes, can drive much more business than what they do today. It's helping them from a resources point of view because there is a scarcity of resources today, as you know very well, and definitely in the U.S., a scarcity of availability of doctors and of optometrists.
It's helping them to add an online eye exam room without having to recruit doctors even more when it comes to rural area. Not only, even in areas where the doctors want to go and to live, definitely it's helping to have a much more coverage during the week and during the hours.
Back to Europe and EMEA. I will start with the question on teleoptometry. For the moment, yes, we are at the beginning, and it's really promising because it's a bit like telemedicine. We know this is the direction. I think if I look at the region, there are the mature geographies, and in the mature geographies, one of our key challenges is to accelerate the renewal of eyeglasses to be sure that people still have the right correction. Sometimes there is a bottleneck on getting a prescription. When you think about the pandemic which is coming on myopia, it's gonna probably be even more difficult to get an appointment. I think teleoptometry will really help to get an accelerated access to prescription and therefore to serve the people need.
On emerging market it's different. I think sometime in this geography you have everywhere a very severe even more scarcity of doctors that can perform at long distance. Teleoptometry will be a way probably to help really to accelerate the correction, to have more people who need a correction to be treated. I think here we see the destination, and we're very keen to start the first test with our customers also in EMEA. If I go now to your question of cross-selling, I will.
In terms of organization, I will differentiate organization and way of operating because, yes, in terms of organization, we have moved in supply chain, we have moved all our back office and all our key functions into one organization, and we did not dramatically change on the front line. Doesn't mean we did not change the way to operate. Today, there is not one roadshow or one meeting with a key account which is just a lens or a frame. Each time, we have people, sometimes the same people are responsible, but even though they are not exactly the same people, they go and have the same meeting to understand how to best help the customer to benefit from the full offer.
In terms of cross-selling, I would say we have scratched the surface, and that was the first things that we have done working on our commercial synergy across the geography. But I would say we would be done with cross-selling when we will have totally integrated the eye exam with the, I mean, the fitting of the lens with the choice of the lens, with the choice of the glasses. So that's from end to end, actually we have solution in the mass part of our customers who are really complete. So I think we're scratching the surface here, and as you have heard, we also start to think on our differentiated complete glasses. We speak about kids, but that's also an avenue.
I think cross-selling is really the surface of what we can get in terms of the synergies of all this company.
Thank you very much for your time.
Thank you. Thank you.
It's a pleasure. Enjoy the rest of the day, and we will be happy to answer any other question after.
Hello to everybody. I'm pleased to be here today to introduce you GrandVision, which has been consolidated into EssilorLuxottica since July 1, 2021, bringing more than 8,000 locations and 38 banners globally. For many years, I've been in charge of the commercial relationship with GrandVision as head of the wholesale business for EssilorLuxottica in Europe. Today, I run the optical retail business in EMEA. With nearly 6,000 shops, 30 local leading banners, mentioning some of them, Vision Express in U.K., Synoptik in Scandinavia, Générale d'Optique and GrandOptical in France, Apollo-Optik in Germany, Atasun in Turkey, and many others. The combination of GrandVision into EssilorLuxottica will contribute to our strategy to elevate and grow the optical market in Europe. It will also support our strategy to educate final consumer about the importance of comprehensive eye test and up-to-date prescription.
Now, let's talk about growth opportunity. As you may know, the European market is expected to grow in the coming five years, and the combination of GrandVision into EssilorLuxottica will contribute to fuel this growth and to elevate the market. We see four pillars of growth, at the same time four opportunities for synergy. Let's start with the team. In GrandVision we have a talented team of 30,000 people. Together with our Leonardo platform, we will further enhance their skills and capability to prepare them for the next journey. Stores, this is an unmatched store portfolio, as I said, of 6,000 stores in Europe. If we combine this network with our technology, with our savoir-faire in store design, we are ready to design a new customer journey. Product assortment is an incredible opportunity. Let's start with lenses.
We have in GrandVision many under-penetrated category, progressive lenses, blue cut, transition, myopia control. Together with EssilorLuxottica brands, product and technology, we can really boost and elevate the market and our business. Let's talk about frames. Now we can combine GrandVision private label with EssilorLuxottica brand, which are covering all price segment. Sunglasses, another untapped opportunity in GrandVision, and there also, again, with EssilorLuxottica brand portfolio, our Smart Shopper technology that you have seen today, our savoir-faire in the sun business, we can really boost and develop the market and our business. Customer journey. Normally it starts online with an appointment booking. It continue in the shops with an eye check and a purchase of frame. Now we can combine EssilorLuxottica and GrandVision omni-channel capabilities to further develop the market. Last but not least, external growth.
It's clear that we are continuously monitoring opportunities to bolt on acquisition in existing market and in new markets. I have an example for you. We have just completed the acquisition of 70 stores in Scandinavia of Smarteyes. Now let's talk about synergy, integration synergy. As I said, in Europe, GrandVision is 30 local banners. 20 of them are mid-low, 10 are mid-high. We want to build one integrated platform of 30 strong local brands. We have identified five key initiatives. The first one is to accelerate the deployment of EssilorLuxottica brands, products and technology. The second one is to roll out a common IT and digital platform. The third one is integrating GrandVision supply chain into EssilorLuxottica one to further improve the level of service to our final consumer and to boost sales. Consolidation and renegotiation of contracts with existing vendors.
Last but not least, we want to leverage EssilorLuxottica center of excellence and shared service in marketing, CRM, omni-channel and finance. With this strategy, we are pursuing two targets. The first one is to have a leaner and more efficient organization to deliver best service to our customers and to fuel growth. The second one is to deliver substantial synergy. To sum up this presentation, I want to stress that GrandVision is almost a perfect fit into EssilorLuxottica, and for three main reason: is market leader in optical retail in Europe with 6,000 shops, is the perfect platform for EssilorLuxottica brand, products and technology, both in lenses and in frames. Third point, the combination, as I said, is contributing to an elevation and to the growth of the market. Thank you, and I hand over to Alessandro.
Thank you very much, Max, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm Alessandro Cobelli, I'm head of global eCommerce. I would like to reassure you I will be very fast, not because eCommerce is smaller or less important, not at all, but because I want to focus on few important messages. The first one is here in front of you, and it's not me. It's one global team. I guess that you heard a lot of times today one, and believe me, it's true, we are one. We have gone through an integration process, we reduced complexity, we built capabilities and skills, and we built the COEs that are serving digitally in any specialized digital process our group. Not just eCommerce, and I would like to underline it, not just eCommerce.
Our COEs that are really proficient in the digital skills are also available, coming back to what Francesco was saying this morning. Also available externally to our licensees, to our wholesalers. It's an open model, and we are a network company. This is the first message. But how big is this business? Here we are. This is the ID card of global e-commerce. It's a business worth EUR 1.5 billion with 75 banners, which is huge, in 44 countries, and touching every year 500 million visitors. Massive. Our CEO of the digital team is made up by 800 people. Again, this is a business that is not just profitable, it is also creative, as Stefano will say in a while.
Our portfolio is made up by sites selling prescription online, sunglasses, which is our bread and butter, and contact lenses, the high frequency, high volume generator. This team is sharing tech stack, processes, practices, and data. A lot of data. Remember, 500 million visitors a year. If you put together a lot of data, plus analytics, and plus a global platform, what you achieve is a fully personalized experience online. For example, in EyeBuyDirect.com, we are able to put together offline, online data and to provide the best personalized experience for any visitors, proposing any personalized content and products. This is the second message, okay? First one, global team. Second, fully personalized experience. Now we arrive to the third one, a fully integrated customer journey. Max was just mentioning how strong and important is customer journey and omnichannel.
It was actually true some years ago, and what happened in the last two years made it simply even more important. We know the story. Online had boosted, then we had a continuous shift between online, offline, and go back. What we can say after these two years, we have been ready. We have been ready when lockdown appeared and we boosting online. We were ready to enhance our appointment booking tool when restriction was announced. We were ready to go back offline when it was the moment of removal of restrictions. For us, it's very important.
I can provide you with a lot of examples, and I'm available later to provide you all the omnichannel scenarios, but I would like to mention one important program which I would like to share with you. We have a customer curation program cross-banner. That means that we put our 15,000 stores available for enabling omnichannel scenarios to all the banners. It's a cross-banner, let's say, approach, which is unique, and it is requiring a cultural shift, and it is a huge opportunity. This program is also available for our pure online player. Here you will see also what we are investing on. Artificial intelligence driving the best frame advisor online. We are investing in virtual reality, augmented reality to provide the virtual try-on with the highest quality.
We are continuously investing in developing a lens configurator that's providing education towards the end consumer, but also providing a clarity on how the lens is configured online. Rx for us is a key pillar. Social commerce, of course, we have a strong partnership with Meta, and we want to boost also social commerce. I am almost done. You are willing to hear from Stefano Grassi, so I'm finishing, and I would like to underline the three messages that I want to leave you and bring it home. One global team building one global platform, working, focusing on prescription Rx and investing in innovation in order to provide a fully personalized experience and integrated customer journey. Thank you very much. Me and Max are now available for how many?
Two.
Two questions.
Thank you. Susy Tibaldi from UBS. I have a question for Massimiliano, please, on GrandVision, on the integration. It's been one year, a bit more than one year. Can you, I think it would be very helpful if you can help us understand what is the penetration of the EssilorLuxottica product in the GrandVision network? Maybe explaining, I don't know if you can give precise numbers, it would be amazing. Explaining, you know, what was the starting point, how much has been achieved after one year, and what is the full potential? I guess also same question, but more on the integration, on the cost simplification side, how much was done in this first year, and how much more do you think there is to do?
Let's say there is a lot, this is a journey. It's a journey, as I said, started in July 2021 and accelerated in April 2022. I'm in this position since April 2022. I would not disclose numbers, but I'm telling you that there are massive opportunities, both in terms of EssilorLuxottica brands, products and technology, and in synergies. We are at the beginning of this journey, and I'm making two examples.
The first one, we are now, we started a pilot with a new assortment, both in lenses and frames, in July 2022, and the first results are really encouraging. The second one, talking about cost and creating one platform, we have done the first pilot in IT and digital integration in Portugal, and this pilot has been successful. Now we are ready to roll out the new IT and digital platform in Italy, North America, and Latin America. We are starting now a journey, and I'm saying that I'm really confident after four months what I've seen, the opportunities are huge.
Yeah, let me add that everything that Max said is also true for e-commerce, GV e-commerce. It's, you know, the banners are on omnichannel in most of the cases, but it's also including some pure players in GV scope.
Thank you. I'll keep it to one so we can move on to Stefano. Maybe just if you fast-forward on the integration process, I'm curious, the three priorities, Massimo, that you've outlined, how long until all three are completed? What's the timeframe? And then which ones can move faster versus which ones you think will take more time?
You know, as I said, this is a journey, and I think we will complete this journey within the end of 2024. For certain initiative like product assortment, so frames, sunglasses, and lenses, I think we can go faster. Great. Stop. They told me. Okay. It's Stefano Grassi time.
Thank you very much. [crosstalk]
Thank you very much. [crosstalk]
Glad to have the Stefano Grassi time right at the end of this journey today. My time will be very much dedicated to our financial roadmap. Before starting looking at our bright future, I think it's important to take a look at our recent past. What you see on this slide represents very much the journey of EssilorLuxottica from the period 2018 up to 2021, from a top-line perspective as well as from a profitability standpoint. What you see in the slide, you have a top line that grew 3.5% during the course of the last four years. Those numbers do not include GrandVision.
From a profitability standpoint, as you can see, we had a marginal appreciation of our adjusted operating profit from 16.2% that we had on a pro forma basis in 2018 to the 17% that we posted for the full year 2021. Now, as you all know, in 2021, we closed the GrandVision transaction, and we published our pro forma results, which include EssilorLuxottica plus GrandVision. As a result of that, our top line increased on a pro forma basis from south of EUR 18 billion- EUR 21.5 billion, and our profitability was actually diluted by including GrandVision into EssilorLuxottica, and therefore, our adjusted operating profit moved from 17% on a standalone basis to 16.1%, including GrandVision in our results.
Now, you all remember that at the beginning of 2022, we share a revised outlook for the group, a five-year outlook, which encompass top-line expectation as well as profitability expectation. In particular, we said, right, we have an expectation to grow the EssilorLuxottica top line by 2026 at EUR 27-28 billion, which implies a mid-single-digit growth rate for our top line. From a profitability standpoint, we had an indication to hit the 19-20% adjusted operating profit by 2026. This is an acceleration compared to the previous trend. From a top-line perspective, we were growing 3.5%, and now we guided for the mid-single-digit growth. It's also an improvement from a profitability standpoint.
As a matter of fact, 80 basis points appreciation in the last four years, and now, as one EssilorLuxottica, we do have an expectation to roughly improve our adjusted operating profit 300-400 basis points over the next five years. How do we get there? What are the key drivers of our top line? What are the fundamental pillar that will drive our improvement in the profitability? This is what you're gonna see in the next few slides. From a sales key driver standpoint, it's really a mix. It's really a combination between regions, business unit, and volume.
If I look at this chart from left to right, what you see in here from a geographical standpoint, that the most mature region, namely North America and Europe, the one that represent more than 80% of our revenue base, as Paul was showing before, will grow on average on the low- to mid-single-digit territory. If we look at our Latin America region, our Asia Pacific region, the region where we have the vast majority of our fast-growing market, well, for those region, our expectation is to grow in the mid- to high single-digit. I can tell you that within those country, within those region, we have countries that are gonna grow on a double-digit pace during the next five years. Bolt-on M&A will continue to be part of our growth trajectory.
We expect up to 1 percentage point of contribution from M&A to our mid-single digit guidance. Another important asset that we'll see growing at a pretty high pace is what Alessandro well described before, our e-commerce business. We expect our e-commerce to be at a double-digit pace, and importantly, to become approximately 10% of our revenue base by 2026. I know many of you will ask me, "Okay, but what is your mix in order to get there? What is your trajectory between volume and price mix?" Well, if you look at our last 12, 18 months, you all know that our primary driver of growth has been price mix.
Our expectation for the future is to invert that relationship, to have volume that will drive the top-line growth, and to have price mix through innovation, through the launch of new products in new market to be a couple, an add-on to our growth rate. Now, the top line that you see in here represents what I would say is the base case. In all transparency, we're putting together on a table here additional opportunity for growth that we haven't reflected in our top-line expectation of what I would call base case. Opportunity that we see there, opportunity that I hope you also heard, understood, and in a certain way touched today, that are not reflected in our mid-single digit growth. One example are myopia solutions outside China. Arno well described the opportunity that we have there.
We have quantified what we can see in China, and obviously, we haven't reflected the part that is outside the Chinese border. Another important asset, a new category for the industry, is represented by wearable device. That smart glasses will be an important pillar of growth, but we just haven't quantified and reflected into our base case. The third important aspect here is the optical e-commerce, the end-to-end optical online fully translated into an omni-channel proposition with our stores. It's not reflected there at its full potential. This is what pertains our top line, but how about our profitability? What are the key building blocks that drive this company from a 16% margin rate to a 19%-20% operating profit adjusted by 2026?
When I think about that, there are really, in my mind, two profitability building blocks, and you see them in this page. On the left-hand side, what I call the revenue-related building blocks, and on the right-hand side, the cost-related building blocks. If you spend a few seconds on the left-hand side, the revenue-related building blocks, what you have in here, it's very much all the initiatives that we've been talking before. The potential to grow at fast pace, a faster pace in some of the fast-growing market, Brazil, India, China, markets that today represent approximately 7% of our revenue base. The opportunity to tighten even more our partnership, whether it's EL 360, to take the lesson learned that we have in United States and leverage it outside the U.S..
The continuous development of such a critical asset for the industry like Vision Source that was well explained by the experience of Amir before. Last but not least, the opportunity to expand our managed Managed Vision Care assets outside the U.S. border. Clearly, there is also what I call the steady state, the operating leverage that we set at 3% as a growth beyond which we have a natural margin expansion. We have, on the right-hand side of the page, the cost building blocks. In particular, we're talking about investments and efficiencies. Some of them are pretty obvious. The investment on our retail network. We own and run over 13,000 stores.
We're gonna take those stores progressively up to the latest and greatest technology. We're gonna have those store dialoguing with our online platform, really creating that omni-channel proposition that was well described before by Alessandro. We're also gonna continue in the evolution of our supply chain and operation infrastructure, and obviously, no need to say, the innovation pipeline of product will continue to be fueled. Another important chapter of cost-related building blocks for our profitability journey, it's related to the efficiencies. We know how to do that work. We know how to build that from scratch, shared service center that progressively will centralize the entire legal entity that we run under EssilorLuxottica. We're doing it. Every year, we are centralizing in shared service center in North America, in South America, in Europe, in Asia, 50 -1 00 legal entities.
By the way, at the same time, we are simplifying our machine. Every year in EssilorLuxottica, we are closing 50- 100 legal entity to very much creating a much more simple operating machine. Now, we all know that the guidance and the outlook is provided at constant currency, but we also know that being an international and global company with a global footprint, currency do play a role in our results, sometimes creating some headwinds, some other, like in 2022, creating some light tailwinds in our, in our results. What I thought I would put in here, it's a slide that you already seen in London, so it's just a refresh of that slide that very much shows you the main currency that have an impact on EssilorLuxottica. In those currency, you can clearly see three buckets.
On one side, currency that have a net positive exposure. That is the U.S. dollar, that is the Australian dollar. You have a set of currency that shows you a net negative exposure, the euro, the CNY, and that is very much in light of our manufacturing footprint. You have currencies like Brazilian reais that is on a natural hedged position. Another important building block for our financial roadmap is represented by the use of cash. I tell you upfront, this is a pretty academic chart, but I think it's important that you see that we show what are our priority in terms of use of cash. This is a company that has changed in recent times our leverage due to the acquisition of GrandVision. This is a company that do not have a dividend policy.
This is a company that in recent time has undertaken quite a few share buybacks to serve mainly the employee shareholding plan. I thought it was important that all of you see what are our priorities from a use of cash standpoint. The last chapter of our financial roadmap is represented by an important pillar, the investment. There are two questions that I wanna answer with this slide. The first one is, where do you put your money? Where are your investment? The second one, how much you're gonna invest? On the left-hand side of the page, you see our CapEx mix for the 2021 pro forma of EssilorLuxottica. You can clearly see with three buckets, we have over 80% of our overall capital investment.
Some of the things that you see in here are the things that Giorgio, that Norbert, that Federico, the rest of the team has talked to you about it today. The operational infrastructure investments are on one side dedicated to enlarge our scale, enlarge our capability. Perfect example is the investment that we're making in Sedico, the investment that we're making in Barberini. On the other side is the evolution, the transformation of our manufacturing footprint. Thailand, Mexico, France, Brazil, those are excellent examples of what we're gonna do and what we're already doing in several parts of the world to evolve our manufacturing footprint. Another important chapter is represented by our retail network.
No need to say, with such a large store base, the investment are there and are needed, and we will do it, everything that we can to very much represent a benchmark with our retail network within each market. We continue to take a transformation journey and renovation journey for LensCrafters. We have in here the evolution and the elevation of the optical retail experience in Europe through GrandVision, and obviously we will continue to invest in all their banners that haven't gone through this transformation yet. The third important pillar is the digital technology. This is all about the evolution of our digital platform online, the capability to have that omni-channel proposition online, offline, the ability to run EssilorLuxottica in one single ERP instance. All of that, it's part of our digital technology.
The second question that I answer with this slide is very much how much we're spending. As you can see, in the recent past, we invest anywhere between 4%-5% of the revenue as capital expenditure. That number will go up. We have the ability and the balance sheet to sustain that. Our free cash flow generation continues to be sound. We'll see an acceleration of our capital spending because of all the project that you heard today. Then I would say in the latter part of our 5-year outlook, you will see a smooth out, a normalization of our investment curve into the 4%-5% investment profile. With that, I concluded with my financial roadmap, and now I call on the stage, Francesco and Paul for an exciting news regarding our mission. Please. We have something. We start. Yeah.
I expected to have his, at the end, but that's fine. Paul, go ahead.
Okay. Thank you, Francesco. Yes, we wanted to share with you just at the end of this presentation, one strong thing on the mission. We have asked a very famous artist, Steve McCurry, to give us his regard, his look at sight and eyes, and he came up with some really beautiful children picture that I will show you the two that stood out and that we are going to share on the World Sight Day on the 13th of October. If I am correct, it goes like that.
You have this very strong eyes looking at you, and the message that is behind is really that we are going to go with the OneSight EssilorLuxottica Foundation from the duty to correct and protect the eye, which was what we were doing for the last 10 years, to something way stronger, that there is a human right, which is the right to see, and to really go to a new area all around the mission that we serve and that motivates us. This is what we wanted to share as a preview because this is not yet going to be communicated. It was a nice way, this right to see, with those two beautiful pictures from Steve McCurry, a worldwide recognized artist. Before we go to the Q&A.
Yeah.
Why do I go here? We are supposed to have something else as a background.
Hi, it's Louise Singlehurst here from Goldman Sachs. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I think, and thank you very much for all the information we've had during the course of today. I wonder if you can help us think a little bit more about the U.S.. Very specifically, you called out a slowdown at the end of the last quarter. Obviously, we're a few weeks later on into the year now, and I wondered if you can talk about obviously the wholesale partners, the feedback, the retail environment, and your sense in terms of the growth outlook. Then very specifically for Stefano, if we can think about that 5% per annum to 2026.
Is that more backend loaded, do you think, under the current environment, or do you see a fairly consistent pathway where consensus probably sits today? Thank you.
With respect to the trajectory North America, it's still under positive territory. The numbers in North America are still positive. We are happy with that. I think some of the initiative are in the execution phase, some of the one that Fabrizio mentioned to you. No doubt that there is a tougher comparison base. I would say it's more that than anything else in that respect. While for the trajectory and the shape of the curve within the next five years, I think, let me say, there are opportunity to see some of the investment that will materialize from with respect to top line in the latter part of the plan.
With that said, the resiliency of this platform, the fact that we are more than 75% skewed toward vision care, the fact that we have been able to go through lockdown in China, headwinds of inflation, very much create a very strong platform that, I don't wanna say it's immune from any kind of headwinds, but it's definitely proven to be resilient of many of the adversity that I would say we faced in the market.
Hi. Thank you. My question is relating to optical. It feels like your communication to end customers could improve, given that if you look at the product portfolio that you've showed us today, it's absolutely fantastic. It feels like your marketing, your brand building, particularly in relation to optical, could improve. Do you agree with that assessment? If you do, what do you plan to do to change that? Thank you.
Answer is quite complex because optical is not just question of brand, is not just question of marketing. You have a patient in front of you, so communication has to be tuned carefully. I believe that is the best is not the one that can succeed most.
That is how we are approaching this communication mostly through a medical marketing. We are building a dedicated structure that will cover worldwide all our markets really to drive communication. Since we enter a new category like myopia management, that is a treatment more than just one-shot fix, we would like to see a medical world much more involved in our communication. We will act more like a pharmaceutical company also if we don't have all the constraints that pharmaceutical company has, but we want really to adapt this rigorous approach.
We have to really better understand how to communicate to someone has a need for correction, because it's not just awareness, it's not just catch the attention, but really to be exactly in a side of our customer in the moment the needs as perceived or detected. Really we are evolving a lot on that. We have capability, we have infrastructure. One is the digital infrastructure that is become every year more sophisticated, and now we have 40,000 screens that are talking to customer that are inside practice and stores, optical stores. That is really something that we have to leverage much better because it's not like advertise in a street or out of home or in a TV.
You really are taking the relationship with the customer inside an optical store, so in the moment in which the need is clearly detectable perceived. We have a lot to improve. We believe in the industry to be one of the best in class on that.
Yes. Hi, Anne-Laure Bismuth from HSBC. Actually, I have two questions related to the revenue building blocks. The first one is it possible to have a bit more color on what could be the potential in the fast-growing markets? It's 17% of the business right now. Is it possible to have a view of where it could go by the term of the plan? Finally, you also mentioned the insurance expansion outside the U.S., so you have EyeMed in the U.S. How do you plan to do that expansion outside the U.S.? Finally, outside of the 70% of the business that you are doing with prescription products, how much is covered by the insurance business? Thank you very much.
Okay. With respect to the fast-growing market, I think when you look at them, clearly, we mentioned three markets that have a size and materiality that it's not obvious. I mean, China, we are a EUR 1 billion company, so it's you don't see that many players anyway. Clearly, our ambition is to be bigger in such a key market. We're definitely proving that we are resilient despite all the headwinds that we faced. I think what Arnaud described it should give you a good flavor of how big, how important, how thorough is the opportunity of myopia management in China. Some of that opportunity could also help some of the other fast-growing market in an additional pocket of growth.
As I mentioned in the region building block, there are certain country within those two regions that will accelerate very likely with a double-digit pace over the next five years. There are some of them that are good candidates, more obvious candidates for that. The second question is with respect to EyeMed or actually Managed Vision Care outside the U.S., that expansion. We're really doing some partnership to very much work and make sure that we create a network, we create an infrastructure that allowed us to serve consumer, to partner with companies, to have a let's say, agreement that allow to be much more Managed Vision Care driven within our optical retail store outside the U.S.
Which answers the second part of your, the third, actually, question you had, and that is, how much of our revenue are related to Managed Vision Care. Well, the easiest way to measure it for us is representing what we see in our own retail network, in our own optical retail network in the U.S. 40%-50% of the volume is driven by Managed Vision Care.
Thank you. Luca Solca from Bernstein. Just a clarification question about your guidance for growth in Europe and North America being low- to mid-single-digit %. Do I understand correctly that that includes the potential revenue synergies that you get from GrandVision? If that is the case, isn't this guidance very prudent indeed? Because I would imagine that you have quite a significant opportunity to get EssilorLuxottica products within GrandVision, which at the moment is selling primarily third-party products.
Related to that, I'm wondering if you took a look at return on invested capital and if indeed this low- to mid-single digits growth was confirmed within GrandVision, if the core business in North America and Europe wouldn't be significantly dilutive from a return on invested capital, given that you just invested a very significant amount of money to secure GrandVision. Maybe a question on how you plan to evolve the ability for consumers to understand and choose lenses. My impression today as a consumer is that this purchasing process today is very transparent to consumers. There are many different choices, both in terms of correction and in terms of protection.
There is a risk, I think, that consumers would not appreciate the quality and the advantages that you provide, or that sales associates may not sell, especially if they are third-party sales associates, the potential upgrades that you can give in terms of wavelengths, cancellation technology, in terms of blue light protection, and everything else that we've learned and saw today. I wonder if within this ambition to work more as a pharma company and rely on doctors, you also have the space to teach consumers a bit more on the options available on the menu. Thank you.
I take just the last part of the last question, then I leave Stefano and Paul du Saillant maybe to complement. We took a commitment to grow a market. This is really complex things. It's not easy, we know. I believe it's not worth to try to explain all the actions because it's not the point. I believe that we have some good example. France, small one, but very good. If you analyze the France market for optical, quality of the lenses, information to customers, and volume and value of the market is really much higher than any other country around the world, including U.S. This is why, because really, Essilor created a culture of vision in the country, starting from government, stakeholder, legislation, information, protection, in some way of the high-end proposition.
This is having in mind really the health of the patient. Now we are really studying, we have a team dedicated to that that are studying the experience that we had in Italy. Italy opposite is one of the biggest frame country because Luxottica did a great job educating that is not all the frame are the same, investing in communication and brands. I believe that we have to take the best of the group practice, put together, understand how we can localize our action because China is not France, and U.S. is not Italy, and so on. This is the approach. We have an entire company, with close to 200,000 people that is starting to think in this new way.
I'm sure that in the years to come, we will see bright ideas that come from the field, new innovation that come from our R&D. Also, our R&D is changing pace with this new mission. I believe that the problem that we have to fix is the size of the market. I repeat to everybody that people spend more on sneakers than protecting their eyes. They spend more on sun cream than on sunglasses. Our fault, of course. We couldn't transmit how important is for kids and adults to protect, to correct. We are working with government. We are working with United Nations. Now we are planning to move our foundation to Geneva to be a partner of World Health Organization to start this process.
The key success factor is joint forces. This really is promising for our company, for an entire industry, and for all our partners. Paul, would you add something?
Maybe the only thing I would add is, Luca, is to say that because you talked about the practitioner, and they have a real mission themselves to provide the right solution. They are a key partner, and it was very well explained by Fabrizio and Chrystel, to propose to the consumer the right solution. It's the consumer, they don't know, and like it was said before, they are not very well informed, they don't understand. You wear glasses, you know the experience. The practitioner, they play an absolutely key role, and that is why we, on the lens side, have been developing a whole set of solution categories and many different options that the optician, the eye doctors, can work from to propose the right correction, the right protection, the right added function, and so forth.
They play an extremely important role, and they want to become more professional. This was really well explained by Amir, Fabrizio and Chrystel. They want to improve their exam room. They want to have better instrument to provide better eye exam. From that, they want to have a clear set of solutions. The beauty of EssilorLuxottica now, from what you have heard, is that we have those two way to be in the market. We have our own stores where we can experience, test all of our solution. Of course, we have the entire 300,000 practice that we serve through the professional solution that then we can deploy this. It's a fantastic opportunity for us looking forward with the set of capabilities that you saw today.
The earlier part of your question, Luca, top-line growth in Europe, low- to mid-single-digit. I mean, if I take the upper part of that guidance, I'm not sure we are on the conservative side. With that said, there's probably two velocity within that guidance, within that direction. Probably the professional solution side at a lower pace and the GrandVision also in light of some of the synergy work that we're doing, which by the way, a lot of them, you would agree, will flow through more to the P&L because we obviously take in higher penetration of our brands, in particular higher penetration of our lenses from EssilorLuxottica. That obviously will create not just a top-line growth, but also exactly a margin lift that we obviously backed into our guidance.
That is strictly linked to also the answer to your second question with respect to the return of the invested capital. There's no doubt that there has been an important investment that we made in GrandVision. You all know it. Let's look at the results that we've seen so far. GrandVision performance has been very much aligned with the EssilorLuxottica one. The work that we start doing, it start paying back. The training, the development of the people in store to educate them to our brands and to educate them to all the new solution that will come available, it started. I have the confidence that this is gonna be an exciting journey. In terms of return of that investment, again, we are on the right direction.
I tell you that when we look at the return on invested capital, if you think about it, what you saw before, retail is an important critical asset for this company. But there's so much more on top of retail where we are investing, and we do expect a retail return. Vertical integrated business model, investment in supply chain, investment in our manufacturing footprint, laboratory, frame manufacturing. That is another important area where we will see return in this plan.
Thank you. Susy Tibaldi from UBS. Starting one for Stefano. In your bridge or in your guidance to the 19%-20% EBIT margin, you highlighted several areas. Can you maybe flag a couple that where you think we can see the most, the biggest delta, to let's say, to get to this guidance where there is the most to be done? Then a question for Francesco and Paul. Again, today was really, I think, amazing to see all of the various levers of growth and all of the various opportunities and, you know, you're involved in so many areas. I was just curious, when, you know, you meet and you talk about the business, what is like one or two things that you always talk about?
Something that is really on top of your mind, your priorities, and what's really you see as crucial for the long-term vision for this company. One last question. When it comes to emerging markets, again, you mentioned how it's very important in this industry to have a localized approach. These emerging markets, China, India, are seeing growth well above average of the industry. Do you think you can really be successful and penetrate in an organic way? Or do you think in these markets there is quite a important potential for M&A activity?
Okay. Susy, I will start with your first question. Probably I would mention two. Store renovation. Excellent example also back to the return on invested capital. In the vast majority of our store renovation investment, and we're doing quite a lot of them each year, we have a return in usually less than a year. So they are extremely productive investment. They create a lift and an acceleration in the top line, and they create also an improvement in our marginality. I don't know if you got a chance, and if you haven't, please do so before you take off, to visit some of our stores, some of our Salmoiraghi & Viganò stores in town. The one that we have in Cordusio is a perfect example.
Those represent what we can express with our stores, and those are perfect example of very much what we can do with our products and the return that we get from those stores. The other example that it's fairly close to me is the legal entity simplification. In last year, we closed out 100 legal entity, meaning that we eliminated infrastructure that was not needed. I don't wanna call it bureaucracy because it wouldn't be fair, but it's definitely. We have been capable and able to concentrate activity in the single legal entity, and the digital infrastructure was our partner in that, because we've been able to concentrate in the single legal entity, retail and professional solution operation all in the same entity, and that create obviously a lot of synergies that you also see reflected in our general and administrative cost.
Question is about priorities at the end because the meeting is the way you set an agenda and you take the decision that will impact the business. Is not easy to answer directly to your question, but I can tell you how I manage my time. 50% of my time is really taking care of action and ideas that will impact the group in five-10 years, and this is my priority. Define today what will be our group in five-10 years. That is, I believe, is in the nature of our group and our people. One company digital network that now we are executing, we started design eight years ago.
Eight years ago, it was quite a dream with chairman, with some executives of the company, and day by day, year by year, we really better define. We start to execute the base platform IT investment, infrastructure, teaching people. The 50% of my time is focused on what happened yesterday. This is the strength of the group. You know that we collect every day the exact result of the company of yesterday. At 5 o'clock, I have a result of all the store, all sale, retail, e-com, per SKU, per color. I don't analyze all the data, but I analyze the outcome of our expert system that really indicate trends, indicate how people behave in Tokyo or in New York.
This is not because you can take every day one decision, but all of this information start shaping your future decision. What I can add, our company organization is very simple. Many time from my position or Paul position and the person that will execute the action, we have no more than two layers. This is the way we act. This is the way we learn to manage the group from our chairman, and we still believe it's the best way. Paul?
There's always a tough question, this kind of question. I will take an angle which is, what is a good day and what is a good night? What is a good day is if I have this feeling that I've been working with the team on the offer, that we are really constructing the right offer, whether it's frame, lens, innovation, you name it. That is really a territory that I consider highly important and motivating in how we launch and execute all of that. The other aspect during a good day is that we take good people decision. It's when you bring such large organization together, you have many human resource-related decision to do right of any kind, and one of them being the choice. Keeping in mind a very meritocratic approach to it.
So that is-
Diversity as an horizon, so forth. That is a good day. A good night is a night where you are not prevented to sleep because of a feeling of poor execution. For me, a bad night is when I feel that we don't execute well. I think today you felt that. I will sleep well tonight and I've been sleeping quite well because I think the fact of bringing the organization into one young, new company, we did well. The teams have done an amazing job at execution, and it was complex. That would be my two cents on this tricky question, tough question.
Yeah, good evening. Edouard Aubin from Morgan Stanley. First question on M&A. Stefano, you mentioned that M&A should add about 100 basis points of growth over the next four, five years. Which areas, I know you're involved in many different areas, but which areas you find particularly attractive? And what's the probability that within the next four, five years you make a relatively significant acquisition, i.e. at least the size of GrandVision? That's question number one. Question number two is on luxury. We've seen obviously over the past few years a few luxury groups move their eyewear business in-house, so Kering, Richemont, LVMH, and so on. To what extent is that an issue for you guys?
I take the last and then for M&A. M&A no answer for luxury. We welcome really when Kering and Thélios decide to internalize this accessory. This is what is for these two company is not the core business. But not because we see better competition or higher competition. What we see in Thélios and Kering are two partners ready to invest and with the size, not as eyewear, but as a group, the size big enough to invest in the category. So I believe that this is a wonderful news when a big group take a commitment to invest in sunglasses. You know that we are suffering in sunglasses business. We are growing, but the category is not growing as sneaker or as other categories because we are the only one that can invest.
Opticians, independent opticians, optical stores are not selling sun. This is really a silence. Now, they do not want to spend because in the mind of the consumer, the communication is not strong enough to underline how sunglasses are important for life, for protection. When we see this kind of decision, it is welcome. You know, we are helping Thélios and Kering to grow. We are the biggest customer of Kering, the biggest customer of Thélios, Kering Eyewear, and we remain in our position to partner, to open all our stores or our e-com to promote their products. The same we are doing with the Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs or many other brands. This is really for us a good news.
So far, we didn't see really a change in the growth speed in the category because they just took out the business from Safilo, especially in the Kering, and move to Kering Eyewear. We expect in the year to come that they will invest much more in a larger category, and we will benefit. M&A, we have two visions. One is, what is near to us is no mystery that if you take where we are, what is left? Contact lenses, it could be an area. We are not sure that contact lenses is really a part of our industry. That's because, the company that are managing that category, they really commoditize a lot and now is something the positioning of contact lenses has to rebuild to be a part of our offering.
Of course, contact lenses is the one thing left. If you go just a little bit further, you have clinics, you have hospitals, you have anything connected with the decision to prescribe lenses. It is really not an easy business. Really, we would like to have a small test somewhere in the world. It is something that we are analyzing, but no decision taken. M&A as a tradition, M&A as we buy pieces of market, I believe that very little is left in the market, and we don't see any.
Players with the size that really matter for us or with the offering that really can add value to our portfolio. Paul and Stefano.
Graham Renwick from Berenberg. I'll keep it to one 'cause I think the bar has just opened. I think it's interesting that you said that the mid-single-digit revenue growth guidance is just volume driven and price mix is just upside to that, because you've obviously shown us a lot of great innovation today, which would suggest that price mix should be quite material for you. Can you give us a sense of going forward, you know, realistically what price mix could contribute? You know, what has it contributed in the past? I guess another way to put it is, you know, why shouldn't we go away from this presentation and think that in the future EssilorLuxottica can grow high single-digit on average in the future with the element of price mix? Thanks.
Well, for the past, as I mentioned before, price mix has been a primary driver of our growth. When you look at the future, you also have to remember, and we all have to remind ourselves that we are a network company. That we are a vertically integrated business model. Meaning this is a company that manufacture and distribute. This is a network company that distribute all over the world. So volume, it's by our DNA a constituent part of our growth. No surprise. You ask me how much of the price mix will contribute. I don't know. I can tell you a third to a fourth of our growth could be driven by price mix.
It's a price mix driven, as you rightly pointed out, by innovation, by new products that will be launched in existing market or in new market. It won't be through price lift of same products. That's not what we're doing. I think Francesco and Paul have said it many times, and this is the direction that we're taking.
Cedric Lecasble, Stifel. I had more or less the same question, so it's a follow-up really on this one, on the last one. Do you think in the future, the share of purse of the optical industry, you'll take more spending from the consumer? Or is your industry growing because it's really improving penetration and correcting people that are not corrected today, even in developed markets? Your answer just now seems to be we have to capture more consumers and explain better what the solutions are, and not necessarily leverage the cost for the consumers of optical solutions. Is it your idea?
No, I think you have to be careful, Cedric, to try to put in a model or in a box this question. You have a category that is personalized to the wearer. Tonight we will ship 1 million pair of eyeglasses in the world to optician, to our store to be delivered to consumer. Those 1 million pair of eyeglasses, we received the order from yesterday or maybe 10 days ago, and each of them are personalized. Different frame, different prescription, different added value, different price. Well, the beauty of it is that it is a custom, mass customized business.
What you have to do well is to have all those solution available, the whole ecosystem understanding it, the frame, the brand, all the different price point, assortment, the lens assortment, and then the optician plays a key role in that to adapt. The result is what you see, is a volume growth, is a penetration growth, is a trade-up, is a mix, is a change of categories, is new categories. If you try to modelize it, good luck. I have been in this industry 15 years, I didn't modelize it. But the what you have to put to work is what we've been trying to showcase to you in a very organized manner, because it is a mass customized with high volumetry, and you do it, you need to do it with super quality, efficiency, service, and so forth.
It works, and it's very powerful. It's you don't find it in a different industry. It's a very peculiar mix of vision and fashion, customized, high volumetry, direct, indirect go-to market. It's cool. It's really interesting. I didn't give you the model, sorry.
I believe we take the last.
Domenico Ghilotti from Equita. A few questions. The first on the cost, on the cost side. You are saying basically that you can keep the cost growing at around 3%. Because 3% top line is implying operating leverage, so flat-ish.
Can you really achieve, let's say, this limited cost inflation with all the investment and also the inflationary trend that we are seeing, in particular for 2023- 2024? The second question, we have been speaking about the concern on US consumers. I'm more concerned about European consumers squeezed by energy bills, so if you can give us a sense of what's going on in Europe. The third question is on the online prescription. Is it time to invest to accelerate on the online prescription business model? Would you be looking for M&A opportunities if needed, or is it a bit too early?
I go very short on the last. Online prescription is really a part of our future because we believe that doctor play a big role in the safety of our customers, so it can be a part of the execution online. Renewal, it will be online much more in the future. Acquisition, we don't see players that take seriously the prescription business. We see a big pressure on volume and discount. That is very far from our approach. We try to deliver quality and respect our customer. Yes, e-commerce for prescription, it will be a huge advantage in the future, but I don't see so far players that can be M&A target for us.
Second, first question actually, Domenico. With respect to your, our ability to hold that steady state at the 3%, implying our ability to manage a 3% growth of our cost base in the current environment. Well, first of all, let me say the outlook is a five-year outlook, is not the next 6, 12, 18 months. We need to look at the things over a perspective of five years, where clearly the ending goal, it's pretty clear. The second thing is, have a look at the first half results. I think if you look at our first half results, you see growth and you see margin expansion.
You see margin expansion not only through some of the exercise that we described before on the cost operating expenses, but you also see margin expansion at the gross profit level. I think that's probably the best answer.
We thank you for your participation. It really is amazing to see how many people are interested in our industry, in our company, and how much time you spend analyzing, helping us. This for us is really an important announcement. One, because it reinforces partnership with Giorgio Armani Group, but another one because we signed for 15 years. If we renew in 15 years, this is really a long-life partnership that we like. This is a signal how our group, our open network is working. Armani is not anymore a license partner, is really a part of our group, and he will benefit from all the capability that we have.
We really love his brand and all the luxury feeling that he can bring. We are starting a new era, also on the relationship with the outside company. We will announce in the future many others of this kind of partnership, not only with licensed brand, but also with other players of our market or outside our market. Give really the understanding that everybody is a part of our world. Now we have a cake, wonderful cake from Marchesi, someone knows, and some drink just to celebrate this announcement and close our meeting. Thank you very much.