"What Are Those Glasses?" Already Selling Like Crazy... "10 Million Units to Ship This Year"

Smart glasses shipments to surge 97% year-on-year
"We will regain the presence lost to smartphones"

There are growing predictions that smart glasses will emerge as the next core consumer electronics device. In particular, as competition among big tech companies heats up, expectations are rising that commercialization could be brought forward.

Google smart glasses Yonhap News

On the 14th (local time), U.S. financial media outlet The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing analyses from market research firms Omdia and Canalys, reported that shipments of smart glasses this year could surpass 10 million units, a 97% surge compared with the previous year. It also projected that the market will grow at an average annual rate of 47% through 2030, with annual shipments reaching 35 million units in 2030.

Smart glasses look just like ordinary eyeglasses, but their lenses are overlaid with displays that enable functions such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Thanks to technological advances, chip sizes and power consumption have decreased significantly, and the growth of multimodal artificial intelligence (AI) has made smart glasses practical devices.

The current front-runner in the market is Meta. In September last year, Meta unveiled its "Meta Ray-Ban Display" smart glasses with built-in displays. These smart glasses are equipped with camera and speaker functions and also support an AI assistant. Users can view text messages and AI responses overlaid on the lenses.

Zuckerberg Mark, Meta chief executive officer (CEO), is giving a speech introducing a new line of smart glasses while wearing Meta Ray-Ban display glasses at the "Meta Connect" event held at the company's headquarters on September 17 last year (local time). Reuters-Yonhap

Meta has long worked in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the French-Italian joint venture that is the world’s largest eyewear company. EssilorLuxottica announced in February last year that sales of Ray-Ban glasses had surpassed 2 million units. Regarding this, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed, "It is no surprise that AI glasses are gaining popularity. We lost a bit of our presence because of smartphones, and we are going to get it back."

According to WSJ, Google is developing its first smart glasses product equipped with AI with the goal of releasing it this year. Apple is reported to be planning to unveil its own smart glasses this year and to launch them next year. Amazon and Snap are also developing smart glasses with a focus on AR capabilities.

However, some analysts say that the success or failure of smart glasses will depend on strategic partnerships and design. Bank of America (BoA) noted in a report, "A survey found that about one-third of smart glasses buyers place a high value on style," adding, "Style, that is, the actual design of the glasses, is a key factor in purchase decisions."