Meta said daily usage of its smart glasses tripled year-over-year, and that they remain “one of the fastest growing categories of consumer electronics ever”.
The claims were made by Mark Zuckerberg speaking to investors during the company’s Q1 2026 earnings call.
In February, Meta’s fashion, branding, and hardware partner EssilorLuxottica (which Meta owns a stake in) revealed that 7 million units of Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses were sold in 2025 alone, and that the devices had become the “dominant driver” of its wholesale growth.
For comparison, Quest 2 sold an estimated 20 million units in two and a half years, while Steam Deck sold around 4 million units over the same timespan.
Near the start of this year, Bloomberg reported that Meta and EssilorLuxottica were discussing doubling or even tripling smart glasses production capacity. It’s unclear whether this has yet happened.
It’s undeniable at this point that smart glasses are a successful consumer product category, both in terms of sales and retention. The question now is whether Meta will maintain its lead once serious competition from Apple and Google arrives.
David Heaney
At I/O 2026 Google confirmed that smart glasses with Gemini, from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, are launching this fall.
Apple is also widely rumored to be launching its own smart glasses in 2027, and this could further squeeze Meta’s market share – though the company may be hoping that the total future market for smart glasses is large enough to have space for all three companies in the long term.
I’m actively writing on UploadVR again, and this article is one in a series of “catch-up” pieces where I report on some of the interesting things that have been happening in the industry in recent months. And yes, VR Download is coming back soon!
