Specsavers a new range from Kylie Minogue launched in 2017. The co-founder of Specsavers, Mary Perkins, was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2007, in recognition of her services to business and the community in Guernsey. In April 2004, Specsavers acquired Swedish Blic Optik franchise from its owner Optimum Optik AB. In 2007, finance director John Perkins became joint managing director, with his father Doug Perkins. In The Sunday Times Rich List 2011, published in the United Kingdom on 8 May 2011, Douglas and Dame Mary Perkins and family
Specsavers family control of the firm, which currently employs all three of their children in senior roles. Continued expansion into Europe is planned. It is also intended that the company will continue to supply hearing aids. The Perkinses attribute their success to their franchise model, and to the deregulation of the UK Opticians market by the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, allowing opticians to use previously forbidden advertising and marketing techniques to rapidly take over a market that had belonged to independent local opticians. The Perkins have said of the remaining local opticians that "their days are numbered",