Are Meta Ray-Bans the next iPhone — or the next Google Glass? Meta Platforms has sold more than 2 million of their smart glasses — a collaboration with Franco-Italian eye-wear company EssilorLuxottica — since hitting the market in late 2023. Sales of the product, which users can ask questions about the world in front of them, are accelerating, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors during his post-earnings call on Jan. 29. “Our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses are a real hit,” he added. “We still don’t know what the long-term trajectory for this is going to be. And I think we’re going to learn a lot this year.” Meta is no stranger to wearables. It purchased virtual reality goggles company Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion and folded the renamed Quest headsets into its money-losing Reality Labs division. The collaboration with Ray-Ban, however, is Meta’s first stab at bringing a connected experience to regular glasses that people might actually wear in their everyday lives. The glasses cost between $299 and $379 each depending on prescriptions or customizations. Meta is also working on Oakley-branded smart glasses, according to Bloomberg . Meta did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Of course, smart glasses have been tried before — without much success. Alphabet failed miserably shortly after Google Glass was launched in 2014. Snap , the parent company behind Snapchat, introduced the first iteration of its Spectacles in 2016. While in their fifth generation, the Spectacles haven’t caught on. To be sure, the Ray-Ban smart glasses are still far from mass adoption. Chris Cox, Meta’s chief product officer, said at a Morgan Stanley conference this week that Ray-Bans are “still in the zone of just getting to like, making sure this is available everywhere and everybody who wants it can get it … you’re starting to see a lot of love for the product.” The financial impact, at this point, is likely minimal, too. For Meta, even a hit hardware product is just a whimper compared to its massive social media ad business. Company revenue totaled $160.6 billion last year and is projected to grow to more than $183 billion in 2025, according to FactSet. It’s hard to say for sure how much Meta makes on each pair of the glasses and how much goes to partner EssilorLuxottica, but even some optimistic back-of-the-envelope math shows how minuscule the impact on its financials has been so far. For this exercise, let’s use the rough starting price of $300 a pair. If Meta collected all $300 of revenue on 2 million pairs, the result is $600 million since the fall of 2023. Last year alone, Meta’s ad business on average generated an incredible $439 million in revenue per day. Still, the demand for smart glasses is growing, and that counts for something. Market research firm Counterpoint reports that worldwide smart glasses shipments surged 210% year over year in 2024, up from 156% in 2023, driven largely by demand for the Meta Ray-Bans…Read More