New Delhi, March 29 Global optics and optoelectronics major ZEISS is betting big on India, one of its top three fastest-growing markets for vision products, with the country's expanding youth population driving demand not just for basic but also for higher-quality options, according to senior company officials.
India, China, and Southeast Asia are the fastest-growing markets globally for ZEISS. In terms of consumer trends, India is a very early adopter, Carl Zeiss Vision Vice President - Head of Global Brand Management, Charlotte Hamel, and its Head of Global Sales Operations & Emerging Markets, Boris Dejonckheere, told
While India is currently "the highest ranked in terms of sales per month", Dejonckheere said the ranking changes rapidly as China is also growing fast.
"Sometimes China is a bit faster, and sometimes India is a bit faster," he added.
While Southeast Asia cannot be forgotten as it is also "booming there", Dejonckheere said, "...but what we see here (in India) is different".
On the reasons for the rapid growth in India, Hamel said, "In terms of consumer trends, it is an early adopter in technology, early adopters in vision and visual health".
Unlike in the past when people cared "only about looking good with beautiful frames" and less for the lenses, she said today, Indian consumers, like many of their global counterparts, are "actively looking for information and monitoring their vision and their visual health".
"They are most probably going to invest more in coatings, on the second pair (of spectacles), on different options, on more personalised lenses to their very specific needs, and this is where quality and personalisation (come in)...," Hamel noted, adding that ZEISS offers products that cater to the emerging requirements.
Adding another perspective, Dejonckheere said, "In India, there is a volume increase as well. More people want to wear more qualitative lenses".
Betting on India, Dejonckheere said the company is here "for the long run".
"So many more people here (in India) are going to grow themselves up into the social ladder that there is a good bandwidth of more growth happening here, when you compare it to China," he said.
While there is still growth in China, it is "not this exponential growth (seen in India)", he said, adding that China's population growth rate slows down, whereas in India it is going higher.
More than a decade back, he said India was "a basic market with the lowest level of lenses...(where) bifocal lenses were offered".
However, he said, it has changed rapidly with the rise in consumer demand for a mix of products, multifocal lenses and coatings have become standard.
The group's arm, Carl Zeiss India (Bangalore) Pvt Ltd, has recorded a revenue of Rs 2,410 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2025, rising at a compounded annual growth rate of 17 per cent.
The company sees high potential growth beyond metros, with tier 2 cities complementing its business. Currently, it has over 8,500 outlets across the country.
Zeiss Group, which in 2023 announced an investment of about Rs 2,500 crore in a new plant in Karnataka to increase its spectacle glass manufacturing capacity, expects to open the facility this year.
For the group, the facility will be "the largest lens manufacturing across the world, for its size", Dejonckheere said.
"That is a huge investment we are making. Yet it is not only for the Indian market. There will be areas like the Middle East, Africa and even some Western European markets, which will get lenses out of India," he added.