Cooper Companies (Cooper) is an S&P 500 US-based business. It is made up of two divisions; CooperVision (c.75% of revenue) and CooperSurgical (c.25%). CooperVision is higher margin and therefore represents an even higher portion of overall profits.
CooperVision specialises in selling contact lenses. These come in three main modalities; single-use, two-weekly, and monthly lenses. Cooper prides itself on its wide range of speciality lenses; from so-called toric lenses (for those with a stigmatism), to multifocal ones (to correct long-sightedness).
By far the fastest growing area in the contact lens market is single-use lenses. These have been taking market share over the last number of years and roughly represent half of the market
today. This has been a significant tailwind for Cooper as dailies are between 400% and 800% more profitable than longer-duration lenses.
Four further market tailwinds include population growth, a higher proportion of the population becoming myopic (shortsighted), those with long-sightedness living longer, and children entering contact lenses earlier.
CooperSurgical concentrates on women’s fertility, particularly IVF. They sell products and services to experts in the field who then in turn treat patients. A significant market driver for this division is that women are tending to delay having children until later on in life, which increases demand for fertility treatment.
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