By
Bloomberg
Published
October 9, 2025
The world’s biggest eyewear maker is positioning itself as a leader in the growing smart-glasses category — a device that could one day be as common as a smartphone.
EssilorLuxottica SA, owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley and Persol, has partnered with Meta Platforms Inc. to manufacture and sell AI-equipped eyewear. Silicon Valley giants are promoting this wearable technology as the next major consumer-tech breakthrough.
“Glasses, which have long been seen as prosthetics and later as fashion accessories, are poised to become the central device in people’s lives, possibly replacing smartphones,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Francesco Milleri said on Bloomberg’s Italian-language podcast “Quello Che i Soldi Non Dicono.” “We could foresee in the near future hundreds of millions of smart glasses interconnected with each other, and with the people who wear them creating huge communities.”
Milleri said the company is expanding production capacity for Ray-Ban Meta, expected to reach 10 million units annually by the end of next year. This capacity could also be used for other smart glasses, as well as EssilorLuxottica’s Nuance Audio line, which integrates hearing assistance.
The move into smart glasses by Meta, Apple Inc. and others aligns with Milleri’s long-term strategy to expand the French-Italian group into wearables and medical technology while maintaining its dominance in traditional eyewear, he said in a rare interview.
The 65-year-old executive was the closest aide to Luxottica founder Leonardo Del Vecchio and took over as chairman in 2022 after Del Vecchio’s death. Since then, the company’s market value has more than doubled to over €125 billion ($146 billion).
Although Milleri tends to avoid the limelight, he has built on Del Vecchio’s vertically integrated business model by expanding Italy’s Luxottica through acquisitions and merging it with French lens maker Essilor in 2018. Retail outlets such as Sunglass Hut in the United States provide EssilorLuxottica with exceptional distribution power and direct access to consumers, while licensing deals bring in luxury brands such as Prada and Armani.
Vertical integration
The next phase of Milleri’s plan is to use EssilorLuxottica’s extensive network of laboratories, factories and stores to develop and market innovative, higher-value products. These include myopia-correcting lenses, medical technology for clinical settings, and wearable devices, such as its collaboration with Meta.
The partnership with Meta generated an estimated €365 million in revenue for EssilorLuxottica in 2024, with projections suggesting it could reach €800 million in 2025 and more than €6 billion by 2030, according to Barclays’ most optimistic forecasts. Analysts expect global smart-glasses sales to grow from about 3 million units annually to 60 million by 2035.
Smart glasses provide users with augmented reality features, such as messages or directions projected on the lens, or voice-activated AI assistance. Meta is investing heavily to make smart glasses a primary interface for its AI services. The company has reportedly invested $3.5 billion in EssilorLuxottica, acquiring about a 3% equity stake, according to people familiar with the matter.
As the market expands, EssilorLuxottica and Meta face rising competition from both Chinese and U.S. rivals. Success is not guaranteed — Meta’s virtual reality headsets, for instance, are still a work in progress.
Apple Inc. recently shifted resources from its Vision Pro headset to develop its own smart glasses, Bloomberg reported in September 2025.
Last month, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display, featuring a screen in the right lens that can show text messages, video calls, turn-by-turn directions and visual results from Meta’s AI. The display can also act as a phone camera viewfinder and control music playback.
Zuckerberg envisions a future where users rely more on smart glasses for everyday tasks. “We’re going to get to this point, probably sometime in the 2030s, where you have your phone with you, but it’s going to stay in your pocket more,” he said in March.
Milleri, who works directly with Zuckerberg on the smart-glasses project, emphasized that collaboration is key to innovation. “Only a collaborative model — a networked company — can maintain leadership in innovation and technology,” he said.
Medical tech and business ventures
Beyond smart glasses, EssilorLuxottica is investing in medical technology, including AI applications in healthcare — even extending beyond ophthalmology, Milleri said.
In 2024, the company acquired the streetwear brand Supreme to strengthen its connection with younger consumers. EssilorLuxottica has also been mentioned as a potential investor in Giorgio Armani SpA, following references to the company in the late designer’s will. Milleri described Armani as an “evolutionary prospect.”
The EssilorLuxottica CEO has also played a significant role in Italy’s recent banking consolidation as head of Delfin Sarl, the Del Vecchio family’s holding company. Delfin has supported Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA’s acquisition of Mediobanca, becoming the buyer’s largest investor with a 17.5% stake.
Still, eyewear remains central to EssilorLuxottica’s identity.
“Technology, digital, and superintelligence will open up interactions with worlds that are now completely remote,” Milleri said. “Not just social and medical, but we’ll see our wearable computing applied in home automation, entertainment, autonomous driving, and even air, light and sound quality control.”
