One European company owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, the shops that sell them and the insurer that pays for them, and the reason glasses are so expensive is not the secret 80 percent monopoly of internet legend but something quieter and much harder to break
Around 26.5 billion euros in revenue in 2024, about 200,000 employees, and a description, from its own lenders, as the most integrated group in the optical market. That is EssilorLuxottica, a French-Italian conglomerate that most shoppers have never heard of and yet encounter con…