Global extended reality (XR) device shipments grew 44.4% year-over-year in 2025, thanks to the uptake of smart glasses, which have rapidly become a favorite of people over older, clunkier virtual reality and mixed reality headsets, like Oculus. The latter devices saw shipments decline sharply, and it isn’t surprising given how heavy they are compared to smart glasses like Ray-Bans from Meta.
Since the latter half of the 2010s, there has been a feeling among people that smartphones are mature now and there are fewer and fewer compelling reasons to upgrade. This explains why people have now started looking into smart glasses as these offer new functionality that they don’t get with a smartphone.
Extended reality refers to technologies that blend or extend physical and digital environments and can include virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. Think devices like Google Glass or Oculus. The smart glasses, which have been taking off, resemble traditional glasses but include features such as audio, cameras, and AI assistants. Sometimes they feature a visual display, but not always.
Meta maintained a dominant position in the sector with a large 72.2% of the market share. It achieved this thanks to its partnership with EssilorLuxottica, a larger smart glasses portfolio, and product launches such as the Oakley-branded performance eyewear line.
While Meta was successful with glasses, its Quest headset got hit, seeing a shipment decline of 42.3% year-over-year. The company was affected by supply chain challenges and lower demand for the gear outside of its core gaming audience.
While Xiaomi, XREAL, RayNeo, ByteDance, and Viture are competing with Meta, they are all really far behind Meta in terms of marketshare. Xiaomi was in second place with a measly 4.2%.
In 2026, growth is expected to slow to 33.5% with display-less smart glasses driving near-term growth. Glasses with displays are expected to start gaining momentum in 2027 and competition is expected to increase across both hardware manufacturers and AI platform providers.