Innovative Eyewear Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results

Quarterly Revenue Increased 82% vs Q2 2023; Gross Margin Increases Substantially

MIAMI, Aug. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovative Eyewear Inc., (NASDAQ: LUCY, LUCYW), the developer of ChatGPT-enabled smart eyewear under the Lucyd^®, Nautica^®, Eddie Bauer^® and Reebok^® brands, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2024.

Net revenue for the quarter ended June 30, 2024 was $308,682, an increase of 82% from the quarter ended June 30, 2023. Net revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2024 was $692,153, an increase of 120% vs. the comparable period in 2023. These year-over-year increases were primarily attributable to significant volume growth in the ecommerce channel, driven by the Company's strategic advertising and marketing initiatives implemented during the latter portion of 2023 and through the current period, combined with recent new product launches including the Lucyd Lyte XL, Nautica^® Powered by Lucyd and Eddie Bauer® Powered by Lucyd collections.

Additionally, the Company's gross profit margins significantly improved from the prior year, from a deficit of negative 18% in the second quarter of 2023 to positive 18% in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting greater economies of scale coupled with achieving management's stated goal to reduce lens fulfillment costs.

During the quarter Innovative Eyewear announced several important milestones:

• Expanding the Company's first-to-market voice interface for ChatGPT, the Company launched a Bixby app called LUCY to enable handsfree ChatGPT access on its glasses for Samsung users. This brings a powerful new feature to Samsung phone users - the ability to access ChatGPT via the device's native voice assistant from LUCY eyewear.
  
  
• Filed two new United States patent applications, a utility application, No. 18/605,092, entitled, "SMART EYEWEAR HAVING ACCESSIBLE TACTILE CONTROLS" and a design application, No. 29/930,655, entitled "SAFETY EYEWEAR." These two new patent applications are directed towards Innovative Eyewear's new Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses product, planned for introduction later this year. The Company developed Lucyd Armor to meet the needs of industrial and medical safety glass users in response to multiple customer requests. The Company also received notices of allowance on three smart eyewear design patent applications (patent application Nos. 29/806,204, 29/806,207, 29/806,209).
  
  
• Launch of Lucyd smart eyewear in ten select New Look stores in Quebec and on NewLook.ca. New Look is a leading eyewear retailer with over 450 stores in the US and Canada.
  
  
• Signed a new distribution agreement with Windsor Eyes, a leading eyewear manufacturing and distribution firm. This agreement aims to forge a robust collaboration between Innovative Eyewear's unique, cutting-edge smart eyewear products and Windsor Eyes' well-established distribution network within the optical retail sector. Together, Innovative and Windsor intend to work closely to ensure extensive distribution of smart eyewear across the United States, targeting key large optical retail outlets.
  
  
• Signed Micah Richards, former Olympic athlete, pro UK footballer and Sky News announcer, as a leading brand ambassador. The Company believes Mr. Richards will be a well-aligned headliner to promote the upcoming Reebok Powered by Lucyd collection, and spearhead efforts to expand into UK optical stores.
  
  
• PCMag rated LUCY's Nautica frames the "Best Smart Eyewear for ChatGPT Super Fans," indicating a positive reception from a trusted tech news source for the Company's GenAI featured eyewear.
  
  
• The Company engaged a new audio engineering team to further enhance the music and call quality of several of its forthcoming products.

Future Outlook

After the recent successful launch of the Eddie Bauer^® Powered by Lucyd line in the second quarter of 2024, the Company anticipates launching the Reebok^® Powered by Lucyd line and the Lucyd Armor smart safety glasses in the second half of 2024, to be followed by a Reebok^® Optical Smart Eyewear collection in the first half of 2025.

Meanwhile, the Company is focused on introducing Lucyd products in major national retailers, which management believes may have a significant positive impact on revenues in subsequent periods. To help achieve this, the Company has recently partnered with Windsor Eyes as a premier distributor in the optical market, and as of July 2024, that company has already helped introduce Lucyd frames into three new eyewear retailers.

In its continuing efforts to reduce costs and improve margins, the Company has utilized sales data to refine its product mix, and anticipates reducing unit costs in the future by focusing on high volume, market-tested styles. The Company has also recently contracted with a new lower-cost lens supplier, which is expected to further reduce lens costs beginning in the third quarter of 2024. The Company anticipates that gross profit margins may further improve in the fourth quarter of 2024 as the new Lucyd Armor and Reebok^® Powered by Lucyd lines are launched, as the unit cost of these new products is estimated to be significantly lower than current Lucyd Lyte models.

The Company has nearly completed development of several new product lines and retail solutions to be launched in the fourth quarter of 2024 and during 2025, and anticipates an end-to-end overhaul of its product offering to consumers and retailers by the first quarter of 2025. We believe this will bring additional improvements to product build quality and adjustability, sound quality, size and style variety, custom lens quality, companion app functionality, and sell-through rates of retail displays.

Harrison Gross, CEO of Innovative Eyewear Inc., commented,

"We have continued the trend of outperforming each quarter on a year-over-year basis, which we have done every quarter for the last 12 months. I am pleased by our continued growth and excited by the potential of further expansion later this year with the upcoming launches of new product lines and upgraded app releases.

"While our ecommerce direct-to-consumer sales remain the most material portion of our sales to date, we believe that the wholesale optical channel represents our largest growth opportunity. We anticipate that as smart eyewear becomes more normalized for prescription wear, national eye care providers will begin to onboard more smart eyewear. As an innovator and value and variety leader in the category, we believe we are well positioned to earn a steadily increasing portion of this rapidly growing market."

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including those relating to the Company's business operations, projections, market position, future product line introductions and developments. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations and assumptions. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe-harbor for forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking expressions, including, but not limited to, "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "estimate," "expect," "future," "intend," "may," "outlook," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would" and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 10-K under the caption "Risk Factors."

Investor Relations Contact:
Scott Powell
Skyline Corporate Communications Group, LLC
Telephone: +1 (646) 893-5835
Email: [email protected] 

SOURCE Innovative Eyewear, Inc.