Dek: Omdia says global AI-glasses shipments hit 8.7 million units in 2025, with Mainland China becoming the fastest-growing market and Chinese brands Rokid and Xiaomi climbing to the global No. 2 and No. 3 spots behind Meta.
The AI-glasses market is no longer just a Meta story.
According to a March 5 release from research firm Omdia, global AI-glasses shipments reached 8.7 million units in 2025, up 322% year over year. Meta still dominated the category with 85.2% of global shipments and 7.4 million units, but the more revealing signal may be where the next phase of momentum is taking shape: Mainland China.
Omdia says Mainland China became the fastest-growing AI-glasses market in the world in 2025, accounting for 10.9% of global shipments with volumes approaching 1 million units. That made China the second-largest market by volume after the United States, not the global leader, but still one of the clearest signs that the category is spreading beyond Meta’s home-market orbit.
That distinction matters. The biggest mistake in reading this data would be to confuse fastest-growing with largest. China is not yet the center of gravity for AI glasses by total units. But it is increasingly where the competitive field is getting more crowded, more price-sensitive, and more strategically important.
China’s role is growing even without dethroning Meta
Meta remains far ahead of everyone else in absolute scale. Omdia credits the company’s 2025 growth to strong demand for Oakley and second-generation Ray-Ban-branded AI glasses, plus expansion into markets including India, Mexico, and Brazil.
But Omdia also makes a second point that is easier to miss: Meta does not have a direct presence in Mainland China, and that has created room for local vendors to reshape the market in their own way.
In Omdia’s telling, China’s rapid growth has been driven by a combination of frequent product launches, new entrants, and aggressive pricing strategies. That is a very different market texture from the one usually associated with premium Western AI hardware. It suggests that China may become less important as a mirror of Meta’s strategy and more important as a parallel track for how AI glasses get commercialized.
This is where Rokid and Xiaomi become especially relevant. Omdia says the two Chinese vendors rose to the second and third positions globally, respectively. That does not mean they are close to Meta in scale. They are not. It does mean that when the market broadens beyond a single dominant brand, Chinese vendors are among the first to capture that next layer of demand.
Why the display segment may be the real China angle
The most useful part of the Omdia release may not be the overall shipment number at all. It may be the split inside the category.
Omdia says the share of AI glasses with displays rose from 3.3% in 2024 to 8.4% in 2025, reaching 730,000 units. Chinese companies including Rokid, Alibaba, and Even Realities accounted for 71% of this display-equipped segment.
That is a more revealing signal than a generic growth headline. It suggests China is not only participating in the AI-glasses boom through lower-cost hardware or faster product turnover. Chinese companies are also shaping the part of the category that could matter most if AI glasses evolve from camera-and-voice accessories into richer ambient-computing devices.
Display-equipped glasses matter because they change the interaction model. Instead of relying only on audio prompts, voice commands, and smartphone handoff, they can surface contextual information directly in the user’s field of view. That creates more room for navigation overlays, translation prompts, notification layers, and task guidance that feel closer to a true wearable interface.
That broader hardware direction connects with Alibaba Debuts Qwen Glasses at MWC 2026 With China Sales Starting March 8, where the story was not just a product launch but the idea that Chinese AI platforms increasingly want a place on the user’s face, not only on the phone screen.
This is becoming an ecosystem race, not just a gadget race
Omdia’s larger argument is that the competitive battleground is shifting toward ecosystem integration. In other words, the winners may not be the companies that merely ship a decent pair of smart glasses. They may be the ones that can connect those glasses to phones, assistants, services, cloud systems, and other devices in ways that create repeat use.
That framing helps explain why Xiaomi’s rise matters beyond a single vendor ranking. Xiaomi is already trying to extend AI across device categories, as seen in Xiaomi Opens Invite-Only Beta for MiMo-Powered Mobile Agent miclaw. And it fits a wider national pattern captured in China Maps 2026 AI Push for Phones, PCs, Robots, where AI is increasingly being pushed across multiple hardware layers rather than treated as a standalone app feature.
That is why this shipment update matters. It is not just a scoreboard item for Meta, Rokid, or Xiaomi. It is a sign that AI glasses are starting to be evaluated as part of a broader device-and-service stack.
What not to overstate
There are still important limits to the story.
First, Omdia’s numbers do not show China overtaking the United States or threatening Meta’s overall dominance in 2025. Meta still holds the overwhelming share of the global market.
Second, rising shipments do not automatically prove that AI glasses have already become a mass-market, must-have device. The category is growing fast, but it is still early, and many consumer use cases remain experimental or uneven in real-world value.
Third, the strongest China signal today may be about speed, vendor diversity, and segment leadership in display-equipped products, not a final victory in the global market. That is still a more nuanced and more interesting story than a simple “China wins” headline.
Bottom line
Omdia’s latest data suggests the AI-glasses market is entering a new phase. Meta still dominates globally, but Mainland China has become the fastest-growing market, while Rokid and Xiaomi have moved into the No. 2 and No. 3 global positions.
The more important takeaway is structural. China’s role in AI glasses is no longer just about being a large electronics market. It is becoming a key proving ground for new vendors, more aggressive pricing, and especially for display-equipped wearables that could define the next stage of ambient AI.
If 2025 was the year AI glasses proved they could scale beyond a novelty, then China looks increasingly like one of the places where the category’s next competitive logic will be written.
