The world’s biggest maker of spectacles wants to be a tech firm

Over the course of six decades Leonardo Del Vecchio, an Italian entrepreneur who died in 2022, built Luxottica into the world’s largest maker of spectacles and sunglasses. In 2018 he merged his firm with Essilor, a French lens manufacturer, to create a Franco-Italian corporate giant that is today worth over $90bn and employs some 200,000 people. The group owns iconic eyewear labels from Ray-Ban to Oliver Peoples, and also produces glasses using the brands of European luxury houses such as Armani and Chanel. On February 14th the company reported that its sales grew by 7% last year, at constant exchange rates, faster than at many other luxury businesses.