What it is
Lenskart sells prescription glasses, sunglasses and contact lenses through its own stores and its app and site. It was founded in 2010 (Peyush Bansal, Amit Chaudhary and Sumeet Kapahi) and listed on the NSE and BSE on 10 November 2025. By the end of FY26 it had about 3,327 stores, of which 718 were international, and it also owns brands abroad (it acquired Meller, a sunglasses brand, as part of building global eyewear brands). In FY26 it ran about 23.8 million eye tests and sold about 35.3 million units of eyewear.
Business model
Lenskart controls the chain end to end. It designs its own brands, manufactures in-house (FY26 volumes: 17.5 million prescription eyeglasses, 7.8 million frames and 5.6 million lenses), and sells through stores and online. Owning manufacturing is what lets it price below branded retail and still earn a high product margin (India product margin of about 64% in Q4 FY26). The eye test is the funnel: a free test in a store or at home gets a customer in, and the sale follows. The company is putting FY27 money into the same loop: automating eye testing, a new Hyderabad manufacturing facility and a Thailand JV to reduce import dependence.
Core user flow
Book or walk in for a free eye test → get a prescription → choose frames in store or on the app, often with a try-on → lenses are made in a Lenskart factory → delivered or collected in store → return for a repeat purchase, a second pair, sunglasses or contacts.
What’s working
- Growth is coming from existing stores as well as new ones: India same-store sales grew 24.2% in Q4 FY26, and same-pincode sales grew faster, at 31.1%. Same-pincode growth beating same-store growth is what you’d expect if new stores are adding demand in an area instead of just taking it from the neighbours.
- Margins are moving the right way: consolidated EBITDA margin was about 21% in Q4 and roughly 20% for FY26, up around 3 points. International EBITDA margin (before the Ind AS 116 lease adjustment) went from roughly 1.4% in FY24 to about 7% in FY26, so the overseas stores are no longer a drag. Management’s long-term target is about 25% on that pre-Ind AS 116 basis.
- It is funding growth from the business: FY26 store capex was funded from operating cash flow (₹887 Cr), and net cash was ₹3,881 Cr excluding IPO-related payables, with borrowings down from ₹346 Cr to ₹220 Cr.
What I’d change
Bet: the number to watch is conversion, not footfall. One summary of the Q4 call puts eye tests up about 50% year on year but eyewear units up about 25%, which means a falling share of tests turns into a sale. That is what you’d expect when stores multiply (about 600 new net stores a year, with FY27 guided to roughly the same) and each new store mostly brings test traffic before it matures. Employee costs also grew about 48% in FY26, faster than revenue, and the cash tax rate rose to about 39% from about 27%. I’d report conversion by store cohort every quarter and slow openings in any cohort where units per test is falling, so the 25% margin target isn’t pushed out by stores that test a lot and sell little.
Metric to track: eyewear units per eye test, split by store age. Full-year FY26 gives a rough baseline of about 1.5 units per test (35.3 million units on 23.8 million tests), so a decline from there shows up quickly.
One number
Lenskart’s Q4 FY26 profit after tax of about ₹204 Cr was down roughly 7% from Q4 FY25, even though revenue grew 45.6%, because Q4 FY25 included a one-off gain of about ₹167 Cr. FY26 profit of about ₹501 Cr is the cleaner view.
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