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Leaked all-hands: Mark Zuckerberg said Meta sold more than 1M Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2024, revealing sales figures for the first time

targets 5M this year Hamish Hector / TechRadar : Mark Zuckerberg just teased next-gen Ray-Ban smart glasses - here are 4 things I want to see Threads: Tarun / @noise.in.vacuum : 1 million is a lot of smart glasses to sell in a year considering people don't buy sunglasses every year. X: Matthew Ball / @ballmatthew : Interesting heat check on Silicon Valley/X perception and active consumer choices The Meta Quest line has probably outsold the Meta Ray-Bans by 5x (or a good bit more) since the latter debuted in late 2023 (I wear my RBMs 10-20x a week, fwiw, I also main the Quest Pro for MR!) Alex Heath / @alexeheath : I listened to Mark Zuckerberg's all-hands meeting with Meta employees earlier today. He agonized about leaks, defended working with the Trump admin, revealed Meta sold over 1 million smart glasses with RayBan last year, and laid out his plan to beat OpenAI Highlights from the

The Verge

Context & Ripple Effects

The disclosed 2024 sales figure turns earlier retailer enthusiasm into a measurable consumer-hardware signal: EssilorLuxottica had described the product as a US success and a bestseller across many Ray-Ban stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Subsequent coverage of more than tripled first-half 2025 sales suggests that the base was still expanding rather than merely clearing an initial launch wave.

The result also gives context to Meta’s later minority investment in EssilorLuxottica: distribution, brand fit and product iteration are increasingly intertwined in the smart-glasses partnership.

First-order effects

  • Meta can point to more than 1 million 2024 Ray-Ban smart-glasses sales as a concrete adoption milestone and set a much higher 2025 volume target.
  • EssilorLuxottica gains evidence that a connected-glasses product can move through its existing Ray-Ban retail network, strengthening the commercial importance of the partnership.

Second-order effects

  • A larger installed base gives Meta and EssilorLuxottica more reason to prioritize follow-on models, retail availability and support; competitors must contend with a consumer product that has moved beyond a niche demonstration.
  • The disclosed volume raises the value of the Ray-Ban channel to Meta’s hardware strategy, reinforcing incentives for closer coordination with its eyewear partner.

Third-order effects

  • If sales continue to scale, AI-enabled glasses could develop as a consumer device category built around established eyewear brands and retail distribution rather than standalone VR-style hardware.
  • The category’s durability will depend on whether expanding distribution is matched by dependable product experience; later reporting on spotty Ray-Ban Display testing shows that technical reliability remains a constraint.

The trend: Smart glasses are becoming a more credible route for AI companies to reach consumers through familiar fashion brands, retail channels and iterative hardware releases.

Discussion

  • @noise.in.vacuum Tarun on threads
    1 million is a lot of smart glasses to sell in a year considering people don't buy sunglasses every year.
  • @ballmatthew Matthew Ball on x
    Interesting heat check on Silicon Valley/X perception and active consumer choices The Meta Quest line has probably outsold the Meta Ray-Bans by 5x (or a good bit more) since the latter debuted in late 2023 (I wear my RBMs 10-20x a week, fwiw, I also main the Quest Pro for MR!)
  • @alexeheath Alex Heath on x
    I listened to Mark Zuckerberg's all-hands meeting with Meta employees earlier today. He agonized about leaks, defended working with the Trump admin, revealed Meta sold over 1 million smart glasses with RayBan last year, and laid out his plan to beat OpenAI Highlights from the