PLEASANTON, Calif.--Third-quarter revenues of CooperVision increased by 15 percent (up 8 percent at constant currency rates) to $243.2 million in parent The Cooper Companies’ (NYSE: COO) third quarter ended July 31, a Cooper Companies announcement said.

The parent company’s total revenues reached $285.9 million in Q3, a 14 percent increase (up 8 percent at constant currency rates). Its net income for the period was $17.9 million, vs. $13.1 million in the third quarter of the previous fiscal year.

By product category, CooperVision’s sales of specialty contact lenses--toric, multifocal and cosmetic lenses, which represent 42 percent of the company’s total CL volume--rose 13 percent in Q3 (up 7 percent at constant currency rates). Sales of single-use spherical CLs, representing 19 percent of total volume, were up 47 percent (up 32 percent at constant currency rates). Non-single-use lenses and other CLs--39 percent of total contact lens volume)--were up 5 percent in sales during the quarter.

In the first nine months of FY 2008, The Cooper Companies’ total revenues reached $794.4 million, compared to $696.8 million in the prior year’s first three quarters. Net income in the nine-month period was just under $36 million, vs. net income of $13 million the previous year.

The Cooper Companies’ president, Robert Weiss, described the contact lens business as “recession-resistant,” adding, “That’s indicated by the fact that in our most recent quarter, worldwide the market grew 6.5 percent. The market growth in ’08 looks like it will come in just shy of the 6.8 percent that it grew in 2007.”

The Cooper Companies is now predicting CooperVision’s full-year sales at from $915 million to $925 million, up from earlier projections of sales of $895 million to $930 million for FY 2008.