Meta in talks to buy 5% stake in Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica: Report | Company News
The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, first launched in 2021, have been an important part of Meta’s consumer products portfolio. | (Photo: Reuters)
Meta Platforms is in talks to acquire a stake of about 5 per cent in EssilorLuxottica, its production partner for the Ray-Ban smart glasses, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.
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The stake in the world’s largest eyewear company could be worth 4.33 billion euros ($4.73 billion) based on its latest market value of 86.50 billion euros, according to Reuters calculations based on LSEG data.
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The potential deal could give Meta further control over the roadmap for the smart glasses at a time when tech giants including Apple are investing millions to create cutting-edge gadgets based on augmented- and mixed-reality technologies.
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EssilorLuxottica’s Paris-listed shares jumped 6 per cent after the report, while Meta stock was up 2.3 per cent just after the opening bell.
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The eyewear company was formed in 2018 through a merger of France’s Essilor and Italy’s Luxottica. Delfin, the holding company owned by the family of Luxottica’s late founder Leonardo Del Vecchio, is its largest investor, with a stake of nearly 33per cent.
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The Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, first launched in 2021, have been an important part of Meta’s consumer products portfolio.
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EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri said earlier this week that the new generation of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, launched last October, have sold more in a few months than the old ones did in two years.
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Analysts have been positive about the latest generation of the glasses, which include a Meta AI assistant and are capable of livestreaming broadcasts of what a user is seeing directly to Facebook and Instagram.
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“We believe Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses may only be a generation or two away from finding product market fit,” Bernstein analysts said earlier this month.
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A third-generation of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses is expected to be ready by the 2025 holiday-shopping season, according to the WSJ report.
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EssilorLuxottica and Meta did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Jul 19 2024 | 12:34 AM IST
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