Huawei Technologies unveiled its first artificial intelligence (AI) glasses on Monday, entering a rapidly expanding market dominated by Meta and several Chinese competitors. The Shenzhen-based company introduced its new smart eyewear during a launch event, positioning itself amid intensifying competition in AI-powered wearable devices.

Priced starting at 2,499 yuan (approximately HK$2,875), Huawei’s AI glasses weigh 35.5 grams and incorporate multiple advanced features, including voice interaction, payment functionality, and first-person live streaming. Equipped with a proprietary chip developed specifically for eyewear, the glasses support video calls and offer multimodal AI capabilities such as food calorie estimation and QR code scanning for transactions. This launch marks an upgrade from Huawei’s earlier offerings in smart eyewear, which were primarily focused on simpler tasks like translation.

Huawei joins a field led by Meta, whose AI smart glasses achieve a dominant 85% share of the global market, having shipped 7.4 million units in 2025. Meta’s growth was driven by its collaboration with eyewear brands Ray-Ban and Oakley, which tripled shipments last year. Among Chinese manufacturers, Rokid and Xiaomi ranked next, with market shares of 3.9% and 3.5%, respectively.

In China, where Meta’s smart glasses are not available, the AI eyewear market experienced explosive growth in 2025, with shipments rising 35-fold to approximately 950,000 units. Xiaomi and Rokid led the domestic market with respective shares of 32% and 29%, followed by Alibaba with 16%. Industry analysts project global AI glasses shipments to exceed 15 million units in 2026.

Alibaba, another key player, recently released smart glasses powered by its own AI assistant, Qwen. The company’s S1 model went on sale last week starting at 4,299 yuan, adding to its previous Quark AI Glasses launched in late 2025 at a lower price point. Xiaomi and Baidu also introduced new AI eyewear models last year, with prices ranging from 1,899 to 2,299 yuan.

Alongside its AI glasses, Huawei revealed new handsets within its mid-range flagship Pura 90 series, priced at 4,699 yuan, consistent with the pricing of the previous generation released last June. Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, acknowledged rising memory shortages have increased production costs by up to 1,500 yuan. He cautioned that Huawei might consider raising handset prices in the future if costs continue to escalate, a move not yet taken by the company unlike some of its domestic rivals such as Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

Huawei’s entry into the AI smart glasses market highlights the growing significance of wearable technologies and the escalating race among global and Chinese technology firms to innovate in this space.