Mark Zuckerberg is investing another 25.2 billion yuan in AI glasses. What should Chinese players do?
As summer reaches its peak, the AI glasses industry is also heating up.
On June 26th, Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi Group, launched the Xiaomi YU7, with 240,000 orders locked in within 18 hours. Meanwhile, Xiaomi also introduced its AI glasses, which were sold out quickly at a starting price of 1,999 yuan.
Interestingly, two days earlier (on June 24th), Lens Technology, an enterprise in the "Apple supply chain" that was then striving for a listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (listed on July 9th), announced that the AI+AR glasses Rokid Glasses, jointly developed with Rokid, had rolled off the production line at its Xiangtan base to highlight its AI concept. At the beginning of July, the promotion of Rokid Glasses was fully launched.
On July 9th, according to Bloomberg, Meta invested $3.5 billion (approximately 25.2 billion yuan) in EssilorLuxottica, the parent company of Ray-Ban and the world's largest eyewear manufacturer. Through this investment, Meta acquired less than 3% of EssilorLuxottica's shares and may increase its stake to 5% in the future.
The AI glasses jointly launched by Meta and Ray-Ban had a shipment volume of over 1.5 million units in 2024 (far exceeding the 400,000 - 500,000 units of Apple Vision Pro). EssilorLuxottica is a globally recognized eyewear giant, owning well - known brands such as Ray-Ban, Oakley, Varilux, and Bolon, and also manufacturing eyewear for luxury brands like Chanel and Prada. It has 200,000 employees and 650 production bases worldwide, accounting for 30% of the market share.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Meta, is betting big on AI. He not only offers nine - figure salaries to poach AI researchers from OpenAI and Apple to strengthen Meta's large - model AI capabilities. Meta's investment in EssilorLuxottica indicates its further heavy bet on AI glasses (AI hardware), presumably because Zuckerberg sees the potential of AI glasses as an entry - level opportunity in the era of large - model AI. EssilorLuxottica is very strong in eyewear design and distribution (with 18,000 stores globally), which helps Meta's AI glasses capture the mass market.
Since Q2 this year, in addition to Xiaomi and Rokid, Meta announced in late June that it would launch the AI glasses Oakley Meta with the sports eyewear brand Oakley (pre - sale on July 11th). In May, it released the Project Aura AR glasses with Chinese company XREAL at the Google I/O Developers Conference. In May, Lenovo jointly released a new AI glasses product with Zhuhai Mojie...
Obviously, due to the sharp decline in the cost of using large models, AI has quickly entered all industries. AI glasses have become a product form where large models can be easily implemented (tasks such as translation, dialogue, and photography can be achieved through intelligent agents), entering the so - called "iPhone moment". The popularity of this track has reached an unprecedented level, and both new and old players are taking continuous actions.
01 New Life for an Old Tree
AI glasses (or smart glasses) are not a new concept.
As early as April 2012, Google, which then dominated more than half of the smartphone operating system market (Android), launched Google Project Glass. It could control functions such as taking photos, making video calls, and finding directions through voice commands, as well as surfing the Internet, processing text information, and sending emails.
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As shown in the above pictures, it was full of a sense of technology and even more stylish than today's AI glasses, with a pre - sale price of $1,500. Unfortunately, Google stopped this project in 2015. Sergey Brin, the co - founder of Google, reflected in 2025 that he made many mistakes with Google Glass. For example, he knew nothing about the supply chain of consumer electronics and didn't realize how difficult it was to manufacture smart glasses at a reasonable price.
After Meta (formerly Facebook) acquired Oculus for $3 billion in 2014, it triggered a global VR startup boom. Tech giants such as Apple (Apple Vision Pro, released on June 6, 2023) and ByteDance (acquired Pico for 9 billion yuan in 2021) entered the market. However, with the collapse of the metaverse concept in 2023 and the poor consumer experience of VR (lack of content, dizziness after long - term use, etc.), VR sales continued to decline. Apple also suspended the R & D of Vision Pro, and ByteDance's Pico laid off a large number of employees.
It was Meta that really brought AI glasses (smart glasses) back into the public eye. In September 2023, Meta and Ray-Ban jointly launched AI glasses, which were equipped with a 12 - megapixel camera, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip, and built - in with Meta AI. Users can wake up the assistant and use auxiliary functions by saying "Hey Meta". Once launched, Ray - Ban Meta quickly became a global hit in the smart glasses market, with sales exceeding 1.5 million units in 2024.
Zuckerberg has expressed more than once: "Glasses will be the best carrier for AI. Currently, there are one to two billion people wearing glasses in the world. In ten years, every existing pair of glasses will at least be AI glasses."
Obviously, with the success of Ray - Ban Meta glasses, Meta's leading role in the AI glasses field, and the fact that AI glasses are one of the best carriers for combining AI with hardware (other carriers include mobile phones, computers, and electric vehicles), AI glasses have become a hotly contested territory. Tech giants such as Google, Xiaomi, Lenovo, and Alibaba have entered the market. What should the AR/VR unicorns that have survived until the market explosion do?
02 Surviving by Clinging to Big Players?
Rokid and XREAL mentioned above are both leading domestic AR companies, each valued at over $1 billion.
Although the AI+AR glasses Rokid Glasses jointly launched by Rokid and Lens Technology are eye - catching, its founder, Zhu Mingming, said that they had received 200,000 orders with a payment amount of hundreds of millions of yuan. If we look back at Rokid's development history, we will find that Rokid was not initially focused on AI glasses.
In 2014, Hangzhou Lingban Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Lingban Technology, the parent company of Rokid) was founded. In the angel round, IDG, Linear Capital, and Yuanjing Capital (founded by Wu Yongming, the CEO of Alibaba Group) invested $8.3 million. In 2016, Lingban Technology launched its first product, a companion robot - a smart speaker. The name Rokid was used for the Home A.I. smart robot. Until June 2018, the smart speaker was still the product that Rokid strongly promoted. In 2019, the AR glasses Rokid Glass went into mass production, and Rokid also released the MR glasses Rokid Vision that year. During the COVID - 19 pandemic in 2020, Rokid Glass launched infrared temperature - measuring glasses to assist in the fight against the pandemic (a good move to catch the trend). Zhu Mingming thus opened up business opportunities for AR in government, enterprise, and industrial fields. Its all - in - one industrial AR headband Rokid X - Craft can provide customized solutions for explosion - proof, epidemic prevention, and other "three - proof" scenarios. According to Lansha Finance, most of Rokid's revenue still comes from providing solutions for 2B enterprises and institutions such as museums, scenic spots, and schools (this is the benefit of getting state - owned capital investment, getting orders). Another established AR company, Liangliang Vision, also mainly earns its core revenue (in the hundreds of millions) from industrial AR.
It has to be said that Rokid has excellent ability to catch hot concepts. In 2021, when the metaverse concept was booming, Rokid released a new metaverse species - Rokid Station in 2022 and received hundreds of millions of yuan in investment from state - owned capital in Hangzhou Yuhang. After the metaverse craze subsided in 2023, Lingban Technology still managed to get an investment of nearly 500 million yuan from the Hefei government on January 8, 2024, and announced that it would locate its industrial metaverse headquarters, ecological center, and R & D center in Hefei (the tech circle hardly discussed the metaverse in 2024 - 2025).
The popularity of the Meta - Ray - Ban AI glasses in 2024 accelerated Rokid's layout of AI glasses - also by clinging to a big player. In February 2025, it announced a cooperation with Lens Technology (with a market value of over 100 billion yuan in the A - share market), including complete machine assembly and full - industry chain integration, to provide core support for the explosive growth of the global AI glasses shipment volume in 2025 (4 - 12 million units) (helping Lens Technology secure these OEM and ODM opportunities).
Wu Yongming, the founder of Yuanjing Capital and a shareholder of Lingban Technology, returned to Alibaba Group as CEO in 2023, giving Zhu Mingming the opportunity to cling to Alibaba. In 2024, Rokid cooperated with Taobao to launch 3D shopping, and in 2025, it cooperated with Gaode for map navigation intelligent agents. There are reports that Alibaba will launch AI glasses this year, possibly with technical and product support from Rokid and Lens Technology.
This is in line with Alibaba's strategic layout of going all - in on AI - in addition to Alibaba Cloud, Quark, etc., Tongyi large model needs an AI glasses terminal as a carrier.
Another smart glasses provider, XREAL, was founded in 2017 by former employees from Magic Leap, Google, and AMD. It aimed to develop consumer - grade AR glasses from the start. After three years of self - research, it developed the XREAL X1 spatial computing chip specifically customized for AR glasses, becoming a pioneer in consumer - grade AR glasses.
According to IDC data, XREAL has ranked first in the global AR market share for three consecutive years (2022 - 2024) (a total of 500,000 units were sold as of December 2024).
Even so, XREAL still needs to cling to Google's thigh - it is building flagship - level AR glasses based on the Google Android XR platform. We all know that Google Android pioneered a new era of smartphones, and Android - based companies such as Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi surrounded the Apple camp. After the failure of Google Glass, Sergey Brin still is optimistic about the direction of smart glasses. The success of Meta - Ray - Ban glasses has made Google re - enter the market in an open - system way - Google provides the XR platform ecosystem instead of making hardware itself, while XREAL develops hardware and products based on this ecosystem.
Another AI glasses innovation company worth noting is Honeycomb Technology. It was founded in 2020 by Xia Yongfeng, the former vice - president of Xiaomi's ecological chain and the former general manager of Xiaomi's mobile phone department. Xia has been involved in the development of many popular products such as the Xiaomi Mi Band and the Mi Home sweeping robot. Since the company's establishment, he has clung to a big player - in May 2021, Honeycomb Technology received angel - round financing from Xiaomi Group and Shunwei Capital, becoming a company in the Xiaomi ecological chain; in March 2022, it received 300 million yuan in Series A financing led by Tencent and Zhongyuan Capital. This was Tencent's first investment in a smart glasses company.
When it comes to user - centered product development, Xiaomi and its ecological chain companies are outstanding. Science and technology companies listed on the STAR Market such as Roborock (sweeping robots) and Ninebot (self - balancing scooters) all started from OEM for Xiaomi and grew into large enterprises. Honeycomb Technology also started from developing Xiaomi ecological chain products for Xiaomi - on August 3, 2022, Xiaomi released its first smart glasses - like product, the "Mi Home Glasses Camera", which was developed and manufactured by Honeycomb Technology, focusing on photography and sharing functions. Later, Honeycomb also provided Mi Home smart audio glasses. In August 2024, Honeycomb Technology launched its own brand "Jiehuan" and its first self - branded product - Jiehuan AI audio glasses. Xia Yongfeng believes that the company should first make the AI audio glasses look good and comfortable, and aim to occupy 1% of the Chinese traditional glasses market (worth 90 billion yuan) within three years, and then consider introducing AR technology.
03 Who Will Be the Winner?
After the release of Xiaomi's AI glasses, Lansha Finance visited a Xiaomi Home store to see the real product. Although the frame looked similar in size to traditional glasses, due to the need to install sensors, chips, and other components inside the temples, it had a more angular appearance. Xiaomi's AI glasses only have three color options, and electro - chromic lenses are not available for prescription. This reduces their attractiveness.
Ray - Ban Meta can achieve sales in the millions because it offers more than 20 styles. Eyewear companies like EssilorLuxottica are good at aesthetic decoration and realizing optometric professional functions, which is why Meta, despite its own strength, chose to cooperate with EssilorLuxottica. Meta's cooperation with the sports eyewear brand Oakley also aims to replicate a similar success path.
Of course, considering the success of Xiaomi's two car models, which sold well due to their good looks, we are willing to believe that Xiaomi's AI glasses will become both good - looking, comfortable, and full of AI features (Xiaomi's AI capabilities are not weak, as can be seen from Lansha Finance's articles). Xiaomi has strong sales capabilities. Whether it is Xiaomi Group's 700 million monthly active users, hundreds of thousands of sales points across the country, or over ten thousand Xiaomi Home stores, they cannot be underestimated. With the expectation of large - scale sales, the supply chain (Goertek is the OEM) will also offer the lowest cost for Xiaomi's AI glasses, making them more cost - effective and forming a growth flywheel.
As for the smart glasses products of Rokid and XREAL, in addition to their own sales channels, they rely on the endorsement and promotion of Alibaba and Google platforms. Whether they can achieve sales in the millions is still in question. Honeycomb Technology, imitating Meta's approach, cooperated with the Beijing time - honored brand Daming Optical (with 34 stores) on May 28, 2025, to design AI glasses together. In fact, in China, there are also chain eyewear brands such as Baodao Optical and LOHO, as well as domestic lens brands like Mingyue Lenses. They are all good partners for AI glasses companies. According to Lansha Finance, Honeycomb Technology has already cooperated with large - regional agents of well - known eyewear brands such as Baodao and Boshi to sell its AI glasses on a cons