MONTE CARLO—During the first quarter of this year, HAL Holding’s optical operations posted a 6.6 percent increase in revenues, to €557 million (excluding the effect of acquisitions and currency exchange fluctuations, that increase was 2.9 percent).

The company said its comparable-store sales in optical were down by 0.5 percent, which a HAL announcement attributed primarily to “an ineffective marketing campaign which was not addressed in a timely fashion.”

Operating income generated by the optical stores in 2011’s first quarter reached €51 million, down from €58 million in last year’s Q1. HAL attributed that decline to the ineffective marketing campaign and to lower sales results in Russia and Brazil.

HAL is the parent of Pearle Europe, GrandVision and a number of other international optical retail chains. The company announced last summer that its Pearle Europe and GrandVision operations are scheduled to be combined into a single entity by mid-2011.