The INSIDER Summary:
- Many sunglasses brands are owned by the same company: Luxottica.
- It owns Sunglasses Hut and Ray-Ban, for example.
- Luxottica sells 60% of sunglasses in the United States.
- Safilo is also an enormous sunglasses company, with a 6% share of the market.
As you walk into a sunglass store, you may be overwhelmed by the wide variety of brands you have to choose from.
But many of those brands are actually owned by the same company, the Italian eyeglass conglomerate Luxottica. Luxottica owns nearly every popular brand of sunglasses sold worldwide as well as Sunglass Hut, where much of that eyewear is for sale. Luxottica's brands include icons like Ray-Ban and Persol in addition to a large portion of fashion brands that have licensing deals with the company.
Luxottica actually accounts for 60% of all sunglass sales in the US, according to IBISWorld. The next largest is Safilo, which holds a comparatively small share of 6%.
Hayley Peterson contributed reporting to this article.
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