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Total product sales for the third quarter were $13,629,000, an increase of2.4% compared with $13,313,000 reported for the same period of 2006. Theyear-over-year increase in sales during the third quarter of 2007 was theresult of increased international sales, which grew 17% compared with thethird quarter of 2006. Global cataract sales in the third quarter of 2007declined by 1.5% compared with the same quarter of 2006, while totalrefractive sales grew 17.1%. The favorable impact of changes in currency onthird quarter 2007 sales was approximately $471,000.
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For the first nine months of 2007, total product sales were $43,478,000,an increase of 4.7% compared with the same period of last year. The increasein sales during the first nine months of 2007 was also led by stronginternational product sales, which grew 16.6% during this period. Thefavorable impact of changes in currency on sales in the first nine months of2007 was approximately $1,462,000.
International sales for the third quarter of 2007 were $8,890,000, up16.9% compared with $7,608,000 reported in the same period of last year.Third quarter international refractive sales were $2,290,000, up 44.9%compared with the third quarter of 2006. Third quarter cataract sales were$6,532,000, up 9.6% compared with the third quarter of 2006. Internationalsales for the first nine months of 2007 were $28,487,000, up 16.6% comparedwith the same period of 2006.
"We have continued to achieve strong growth in both our cataract andrefractive product categories in the international markets," said DavidBailey, president and CEO of STAAR Surgical. "In cataract, we achieved 9.6%sales growth during the third quarter compared with last year, andsignificantly, this included 14.6% growth in Germany. In our internationalrefractive franchise, we achieved 45% sales growth compared with the thirdquarter of 2006, which more than offset the challenges we faced in our U.S.refractive business and led to 17.1% overall growth in this product category.We believe we can continue to achieve strong growth in the internationalmarkets and are pursuing a number of strategic initiatives to support futureopportunities including continued geographic expansion into high potentialmarkets such as China, India and Japan.
"Our agreement to buy out the interests of all other shareholders in CanonStaar Co., Inc., our joint venture in Japan, underscores the internationalnature of our business and our commitment to exploiting opportunities where wehave been most successful. The acquisition, announced last week, consolidatesour intellectual property portfolio, especially in preloaded injectors whereCanon Staar has demonstrated technological leadership.
"Declines in the U.S. market in the third quarter are partly acontinuation of a long-term trend, but also reflect short-term disruptionresulting from the radical steps we have taken in an effort to reverse thetrend," continued Mr. Bailey. "In this last quarter, we implemented ourstrategy of developing separate sales forces for the cataract and refractiveproduct lines. This change brings our U.S. marketing approach in line withour global approach, where separating the distribution of cataract andrefractive products has been a key to success. In cataract, we were pleasedto report that a majority of the long-term independent sales representativeswhom we targeted to include in our renewed cataract sales force will continueto work with STAAR. This newly aligned team's focus on driving cataract salesgrowth in the U.S. will be critical as we near the launches of several new IOLproduct and injection systems throughout the remainder of 2007 a
