Smart Ray-Ban Glasses, on June 16, 2024, in Caen, Normandy, France.
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Shares of Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica almost 6% on Wednesday on reports that Meta has taken a minority stake in the company amid growing appetite for AI-powered wearable devices.
Meta reportedly bought a stake in EssilorLuxottica worth around 3 billion euros ($3.51 billion) at the current market price and is considering further investments that could expand its share to 5%, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
Meta declined to comment when contacted by CNBC while EssilorLuxottica did not immediately respond.
EssilorLuxottica shares were up 5.8% by 10:25 a.m. London time.
The investment, if confirmed, indicates Meta’s growing inroads into wearable technology — a key priority for CEO Mark Zuckerberg — and an opportunity for the company to build out its own hardware product line.
Meta and EssilorLuxottica first struck up a partnership in 2019, producing two generations of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The initial version debuted in 2021 but it was with the second generation model, released in 2023, that the duo saw greater success.
The latter version comes equipped with the Meta AI voice assistant and includes features that, when tethered to a smartphone, lets users identify city landmarks, get recipes when looking at ingredients and record and send voice messages on WhatsApp and Messenger.
EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said in February the companies have sold 2 million pairs of the Meta Ray-Ban glasses since late 2023, and that he aimed to increase annual production to 10 million units by the end of 2026.
The two companies said last month that they also plan to release versions of their AI-powered smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands.
— CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.