# VR headsets fell 79 percent while AI glasses rose 776

Source: https://idevice.com/vr-headsets-fell-79-percent-while-ai-glasses-rose-776
Published: 2026-08-20

> Smart eyewear shipped 4 million units in the quarter and Meta took more than three quarters of the AI glasses inside that. Google, Samsung and Apple have not launched anything into this market yet.

Smart Analytics Global puts VR headset shipments down 79 percent year over year in the second quarter of 2026. AI glasses in the same quarter rose 776 percent. AR glasses, the ones with something drawn on the lens, rose 62 percent. Android Headlines reported the figures on 19 August.

Smart eyewear as a whole grew 89 percent to 4 million units in the quarter. That is a real number and a small one, which is the useful thing about it: the category everybody is now building for is still shipping at a scale a single mid-range phone would beat in a week. It is the direction that has moved, not the volume.

Meta holds more than 76 percent of the AI glasses market. Xiaomi is second at 5 percent and Qwen third at 4 percent. Meta also leads VR at 58 percent, ahead of Sony at 20 and Pico at 12, which means one company owns most of the category that is collapsing and almost all of the one that is growing.

AR glasses are the exception, and the names are not the ones you would guess. TCL's RayNeo is first at 28 percent, Viture second at 22, XREAL third at 20. Nobody in that list is a household name and none of them is Meta.

The part these numbers do not cover is the part everyone is waiting for. Google and Samsung launch their intelligent eyewear this fall, with a display version next year, and Apple is expected within a couple of years. Every share above was measured before any of that shipped, so it describes a market with one serious entrant in it.

Two caveats worth keeping. Percentage swings on a base this small move easily, and a 776 percent rise measures the year Meta's glasses went mainstream rather than a steady trend. And these are shipments, which is what a manufacturer sends to a shelf, not what somebody bought and kept wearing.

Apple laid off people from its VR team the day after these figures ran. Meta sold three quarters of the glasses.