EssilorLuxottica reported third-quarter revenue of €7,486 million on October 20, with wearables — AI glasses and Nuance Audio — at €486 million and growing 20%. Three months earlier the same line was near 100%. What a growth rate does and does not tell someone deciding whether to wear a pair to work.
EssilorLuxottica, which makes Ray-Ban Meta with Meta, reported its third quarter on October 20: €7,486 million of revenue, up 7.2% at constant exchange rates and 9.0% at current rates, ahead of a €7.36 billion consensus. Asia-Pacific grew in double digits and direct-to-consumer grew 10.6% at constant rates.
The line everyone went to is new. Wearables — AI glasses and the Nuance Audio hearing glasses — came in at €486 million, up 20%. It is the first time the company has broken the category out with a number attached.
The number that matters is the second one
Twenty per cent is a strong growth rate for most businesses. It is a sharp deceleration for this one. In the April–June quarter the same line was growing at close to 100%. One quarter later it is at a fifth of that.
Two readings, and the results do not choose between them:
- The comparison got harder. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 shipped into the year-ago quarter. Growing 100% against a small base is arithmetic; growing 20% against a larger one is a different sum.
- The first wave of buyers has bought. Meta holds over 90% of the smart glasses market and more than nine million lifetime units. The people who wanted camera glasses because camera glasses were new already own a pair.
Alongside it, European regulators and privacy advocates have been paying closer attention to glasses that look like glasses, which is the second thing investors asked about on results day.
What a growth rate tells a buyer
Very little, and it is worth being plain about that rather than dressing a finance story as buying advice.
A slowdown is not a product fault. The Ray-Ban Meta Gen 2 Wayfarer reviewed here does what it does regardless of what the category grew last quarter, and the guide to wearing them for work is about whether the thing earns its place on your face in meetings, not about whether the market is expanding.
What a slowdown does change is the pace of the thing underneath the product. A category growing at 100% gets a new generation every year and firmware worth waiting for. A category growing at 20% gets a slower cadence, and that makes buying the current generation a safer decision than it was six months ago, not a riskier one. If you have been holding off because a better pair was always three months away, that argument just got weaker.
The regulatory side is the part to actually watch. Nothing has been decided, and a rule about recording in public — if one arrives — would change where a pair is usable, which is a real constraint on a device whose whole case is that you can wear it anywhere. That is on the recheck list above rather than guessed at here.