Global smart glasses shipments jumped 110% year-on-year in H1 2025, according to Counterpoint’s global model tracker.

Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses led demand, with AI-powered models making up 78% of total shipments, up from 46% a year ago.

Shipments of AI smart glasses rose over 250% year-on-year, outpacing the rest of the market.

Meta expanded its market share to 73%, driven by strong sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses and increased production at Luxottica.

New entrants like Xiaomi, TCL-RayNeo, Thunderobot, and Kopin also launched AI smart glasses, with Xiaomi’s model ranking among the top sellers despite a limited sales window.

Meta, Alibaba, and potentially Apple are expected to launch new AI smart glasses later in 2025.

Analysts noted the smart glasses segment has stayed resilient despite global tariffs affecting other electronics categories.

Counterpoint forecasts the market will keep growing through 2029.

🔗 Source: The Economic Times

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ AI integration marks the breakthrough moment for smart glasses adoption

The current surge differs fundamentally from previous smart glasses attempts because AI functionality has become the primary driver of consumer interest.

AI-powered glasses now account for 78% of all smart glasses shipments in H1 2025, up dramatically from just 46% in the same period last year1. This segment alone grew over 250% year-over-year, significantly outpacing the overall market growth of 110%1.

This represents a stark contrast to earlier smart glasses efforts like Google Glass, which launched in 2012 but failed to gain consumer traction due to privacy concerns and unclear use cases, eventually pivoting to enterprise applications by 20172.

The AI integration appears to have solved the fundamental “why would I wear this?” question that plagued earlier generations of smart glasses by providing clear, voice-activated functionality that consumers find immediately useful.

2️⃣ Market dynamics show unprecedented speed of disruption

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