AI Glasses Shipments 2026: Market Report for Importers and Distributors
2026-10-12
According to the latest figures from Omdia, worldwide AI glasses shipments hit 4.2 million units in the first half of 2026, a 127% jump year over year. AI glasses are still an emerging product category. The market started from a very low base, and its growth is now stabilizing as adoption expands. At the same time, the industry faces a more challenging landscape: competition is heating up across many different frame styles, while public scrutiny over user privacy continues to grow.
“AI glasses market growth in H1 2026 came from Meta’s ongoing strong performance, plus a wave of new Chinese suppliers entering the space,” said Qiran Ju, Senior Analyst at Omdia. “Just as importantly, brands have made their core selling points easy for buyers to grasp. They focus on hands-free photo and video capture, open-ear audio and built-in AI assistance, all packed into regular everyday eyewear frames.”
Meta maintained its leading position through the first half of 2026, shipping 3.4 million AI glasses and holding 81.3% of the global market share. Even so, smaller players are also driving overall market growth by testing alternative frame designs and targeting specific use cases. Even Realities is a good example of this shift. Driven by demand for its G2 series in North America and Western Europe, the brand moved from 5th place in H2 2025 to 2nd in H1 2026, with shipments of 102,000 units and a 2.4% market share.
Ju added: “Even Realities takes a very different frame approach compared with most AI glasses. It removes both cameras and speakers, and instead focuses on a slimmer profile, a compact monochrome display and productivity tools like real-time transcription. It shows how manufacturers are testing different ways to make AI glasses practical for daily use.”
The US remains the world’s largest AI glasses market by far. Mainland China acts as both a key supply chain hub and a test bed for new hardware designs. China’s shipments surged 306% year over year in H1 2026, as local brands experimented with various display, camera and audio configurations. That said, the domestic market remains highly fragmented. Top vendors Alibaba, INMO and Xiaomi together account for only 46.1% of total shipments.
“What we are seeing in China gives clear early signals: there is no universal one-size-fits-all design for AI glasses,” commented Jason Low, Research Director at Omdia. “As this product category keeps diversifying in form factors and feature sets, this trend will shape the global market moving forward.”
Low also noted: “Privacy concerns, alongside diverse user preferences, are major reasons behind this fragmented market. As camera-equipped AI glasses face tighter scrutiny, better privacy controls and clearer public messaging alone will not suffice. Companies need to clearly define what always-on cameras record, explain how this data is used to users, and guarantee that such data will never be shared with third parties.”