Asia Pacific leads the world in value sales of daily disposable lenses, according to a new report on the global eyewear industry by market research company Euromonitor International.

While North America still leads in terms of eyewear sales, Asia Pacific’s lens sales top Western Europe and North America by almost 1.6 and 1.9 times respectively, according to the eyewear research.

With growing disposable incomes in Asia Pacific, consumers increasingly prefer daily disposable lenses for hygiene and convenience reasons. While eyewear sales are “gloomy” so far this year, they are expected to continue growing to reach nearly $11.6 billion, 1.5 times larger than Western Europe in terms of retail value sales of spectacle frames by 2021.

Global sales of eyewear are forecast to reach $136 billion by 2021, up from this year’s projected $121 billion, says the report.

“The increasing prevalence of myopia globally and the increasingly ageing population are major contributors to the continuous growth in demand for eyewear,” says eyewear industry analyst Anna Cheng.

“With higher demands for functional eyewear, such as office lenses, progressive lenses and digital device lenses, competition is toughening for the leading players as more low-cost providers are introducing lower-quality products at a much lower price,” says Cheng.

Asia Pacific, meanwhile, dominates the top-10 list of fastest-growing eyewear markets until 2021…

1 India
2 United Arab Emirates
3 Thailand
4 Malaysia
5 Romania
6 China
7 Mexico
8 Indonesia
9 Singapore
10 Canada