Key Takeaways
- EssilorLuxottica is the largest eyewear manufacturer in the world.
- The company partnered with Meta to release Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Oakley Meta glasses.
- EssilorLuxottica says sales of the glasses had tripled by mid-year and further contributed to the company’s 11% revenue growth in the third-quarter.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks smart glasses could be the new smartphone, and Meta’s partnership with the world’s biggest eyewear maker, EssilorLuxottica, has the sales to prove it.
“Clearly, there is a lift coming from Ray-Ban Meta wearables as a product category,” said EssilorLuxottica CFO Stefano Grassi on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, per CNBC.
The European eyewear giant said that sales grew by 11.7% year-over-year — 4% of which came from wearables, notably its Ray-Ban Meta product.
Related: She Sent a Cold Email to Meta, Judging Its Ray-Bans. Now She Runs the Wearables Division.
“We believe that glasses will be the future,” Grassi said. “Glasses will materially replace most of the functionality that today we have embedded into our phones.”
Meanwhile, last month in the keynote address at Meta Connect, Zuckerberg told the crowd that he wasn’t surprised that “AI glasses are taking off.”
“The sales trajectory that we’ve seen is similar to some of the most popular consumer electronics of all time,” he said.
EssilorLuxottica and Meta have been partners since 2019. EssilorLuxottica controls almost 80% of the eyewear industry and owns retail chains, Sunglass Hut and LensCrafters.
When Meta released the $299 Ray-Ban Meta in October 2023, the glasses, which take photos and videos, make calls, send text messages through voice commands, interact with Meta AI, and play music, were an unexpected hit, selling more than one million pairs in less than two years and more than two million units overall so far.
Zuckerberg stated in July 2024 that “demand is outpacing our ability to build them.” A year later, Meta acquired a little under 3% of EssilorLuxottica, a minority stake worth around $3.5 billion.
Meta also released the $499 Oakley smartglasses in June, which are made for athletes and offer higher-resolution recording and a 40% longer battery life lasting up to eight hours.
Meanwhile, the success has led other tech giants to create their own. Apple, Google, and Amazon are reportedly working on their own smart glasses.
Related: Google Is Making AI ‘Intelligent Eyewear’ With Warby Parker After Eyeing Meta’s Ray-Ban Success
Key Takeaways
- EssilorLuxottica is the largest eyewear manufacturer in the world.
- The company partnered with Meta to release Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Oakley Meta glasses.
- EssilorLuxottica says sales of the glasses had tripled by mid-year and further contributed to the company’s 11% revenue growth in the third-quarter.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks smart glasses could be the new smartphone, and Meta’s partnership with the world’s biggest eyewear maker, EssilorLuxottica, has the sales to prove it.
“Clearly, there is a lift coming from Ray-Ban Meta wearables as a product category,” said EssilorLuxottica CFO Stefano Grassi on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, per CNBC.
The European eyewear giant said that sales grew by 11.7% year-over-year — 4% of which came from wearables, notably its Ray-Ban Meta product.
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