Good Ray-Ban Glasses, on June 16, 2024, in Caen, Normandy, France.
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Shares of Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica rose over 5% on Wednesday on stories that Meta has taken a minority stake within the firm amid rising urge for food for AI-powered wearable units.
Meta reportedly purchased a stake value round 3 billion euros ($3.51 billion) in EssilorLuxottica on the present market worth and is contemplating additional investments that would develop its share to five%, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources conversant in the matter.
Meta declined to remark when contacted by CNBC whereas EssilorLuxottica didn’t instantly reply.
EssilorLuxottica shares have been up 5.3% by 9:10 a.m. London time.
The funding, if confirmed, signifies Meta’s rising inroads into wearable know-how — a key precedence for CEO Mark Zuckerberg — and a chance for the corporate to construct out its personal {hardware}.
Meta and EssilorLuxottica first struck up a partnership in 2019, producing two generations of Ray-Ban Meta good glasses. The preliminary model was debuted in 2021 but it surely was with the second era mannequin that the duo noticed higher success.
That model comes outfitted with the Meta AI voice assistant and contains options that, when tethered to a smartphone, lets customers establish metropolis landmarks, get recipes when substances and report and ship voice messages on WhatsApp and Messenger.
EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri stated in February the businesses have bought 2 million pairs of the Meta Ray-Ban glasses since late 2023, and that he aimed to extend annual manufacturing to 10 million items by the top of 2026.
The 2 firms stated last month that additionally they plan to launch variations of their AI-powered good glasses beneath the Oakley and Prada manufacturers.
— CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.