Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica says Meta smart glasses boosting growth

EssilorLuxottica It said a healthy portion of its revenue growth in the third quarter was due to its partnership with . MetaIt works primarily to develop and sell smart glasses under the Ray-Ban brand.

“There is clearly an uptick in Ray-Ban Meta wearables as a product category,” CFO Stefano Grassi said in the company’s statement. third quarter earnings call.

The European eyewear company said sales in the quarter rose 11.7% from a year earlier, from 6.44 billion euros to 6.9 billion euros (about $8 billion). The company stated that more than 4 percent of this growth came from wearable products, including Meta products.

In 2019, Meta and Luxottica signed a deal for Ray-Ban Meta branded smart glasses. Most recently, Luxottica’s Oakley brand joined the partnership with the launch of Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses in June. The companies are also working on a version of the smart glasses that will be released under the Prada brand, CNBC reported in June.

Luxottica, which also oversees many popular brands such as Vogue Eyewear and Persol, heavily promotes internet-connected glasses powered by Meta’s AI-powered digital assistant. The technology allows users to play music, take photos, and perform other actions similar to using a smartphone.

“We believe that the future will be glasses,” said Grassi, adding that the wearable technology business is profitable. “Eyeglasses will replace many of the functions we put into our phones today.”

Grassi’s statement echoes sentiments expressed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. in question “Personal devices like glasses that understand our context because they can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our primary computing devices,” he said in July.

With the fourth quarter a few weeks away, Grassi said he was “fairly optimistic” for the period, in part due to the launch of “all the new products that have recently been introduced at Meta Connect,” which “will all play a role in our fourth quarter profile.”

At the Connect event in September, Zuckerberg introduced $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, which feature a small digital display that can be controlled from a wristband powered by neural technology.

The company also introduced new smart glasses, including the $499 Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses and the $379 Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) glasses.

Grassi said Luxottica’s sales growth in North America in the third quarter was related to Ray-Ban Meta glasses rather than the effects of tariffs, which led to higher prices for the products.

He said that the company could reach the capacity of 10 million units, which it planned to reach by the end of 2026, earlier than expected.

“The overall ecosystem of wearables will drive not only hardware-related revenue, but also lenses-related revenue,” and over time, it will also drive revenue from AI-related services.

EssilorLuxottica shares rose 2.4% on Thursday.

Meta isn’t the only tech giant entering the growing smart glasses market.

In May, Alphabet announced a $150 million partnership with Warby Parker to develop smart glasses powered by Google’s Gemini AI digital assistant. Chinese Alibaba introduced its smart glasses using the Quark AI assistant in July. Apple and OpenAI at the same time reportedly We are developing smart glasses.

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