MILAN—Citing the “return” of sales in the premium segment over the past few months, much improved comp increases in its LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut retail stores in the U.S. and Europe, large gains in both retail and wholesale in emerging markets in China, Southeast Asia and Latin America, along with double-digit sales gains in its Oakley and Ray-Ban brands, Luxottica Group (NYSE: LUX) reported sharp increases in overall profitability and sales for the third fiscal quarter.

The company’s overall net income soared 34.5 percent for the period to €101.9 million, while within its retail segments, operating income grew by 13.5 percent to €129.3 million for the quarter and its wholesale operating income jumped by nearly 54 percent to €94.9 million for the period.

Overall, Luxottica’s consolidated sales rose 19.7 percent, or 8.6 percent in constant exchange rates. Retail sales grew by 19.2 percent while wholesale sales hit a record, rising 20.7 percent for the period.

In statements to analysts today, Luxottica CEO Andrea Guerra, also pointed to the company’s price/value “mix” as a strength in the current market and also said that the company’s polarized lens and Rx sunwear sales in North America also contributed to the performance for the period. He stated, “We are back with high, double-digit, high teen growth in our premium area. In developed markets, we were able to grow in Europe, by 12 percent, and 8 percent in the U.S. In emerging markets, our profitability, 30-plus percent, has grown even faster than our sales growth of 20 percent.”

Luxottica also said today that its board plans to sell its first public Eurobond issue, in a deal to be done before the end of January 2011, "in order to exploit favorable market conditions and extend the average maturity of the debt," the company said. BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA and Mediobanca SpA will be joint lead managers on the issue. Luxottica’s CFO Enrico Cavatorta said today on the call with analysts that the bond is anticipated to be between €300 million and €500 million, consisting of mid-term notes and that the bond will not be disseminated, solicited or sold in the U.S. market.

Noting the stronger U.S. retail and wholesale performance for the 2010 third quarter, compared to the tougher performance period a year ago, Luxottica said its total U.S. retail sales grew 8.5 percent year-on-year to reach $1.26 billion for the third quarter, with LensCrafters seeing an 8.4 percent comp store increase for the period and Sunglass Hut experiencing a 12.5 percent comp sales gain. Q3 wholesale sales for the company for the period were up 20.7 percent to €518.3 million. While the company did not break out Pearle Vision sales, in response to a question from an analyst, Guerra said “profitability” at Pearle was “up.”

For the nine months of the year, Luxottica’s net sales overall rose 13.1 percent, 7.3 percent at constant exchange rates, to reach €4.451.5 million. The group’s retail sales for nine months reached €2.728.6 a gain of 12.3 percent, or 5.9 percent at constant exchange rates and its whoesale sales grew 14.4 percent to €1.723 million. The group’s overall net income for the nine months was up 28.6 percent to €347.1 million, compared to €269.9 million in the year ago period.