Oakley and Ray-Ban Lead EssilorLuxottica's Strong First Half as AI Eyewear Sales Nearly Double

Oakley and Ray-Ban emerged as the standout performers across EssilorLuxottica's global business in the first half of 2026, with the eyewear giant crediting the two brands directly for accelerating growth in its AI-powered wearables category during its latest earnings report.

Strong Top- and Bottom-Line Growth

EssilorLuxottica reported first-half revenue of €14.818 billion, up 9.7% at constant exchange rates and 5.7% at current exchange rates, according to the company's earnings release, distributed via GlobeNewswire and reported by outlets including SGB Media Online, Yahoo Finance, and the Manila Times. Second-quarter revenue growth came in at 8.7% at constant exchange rates — a slight moderation from the first quarter's pace, which SGB Media noted marked the company's third consecutive quarter of double-digit constant-currency growth.

Chairman and CEO Francesco Milleri and Deputy CEO Paul du Saillant framed the results as reflecting the company's strategic execution, pointing to progress across the business's key growth drivers — from an accelerating myopia management portfolio to what they called the sustained success of AI-powered wearables, driven by their iconic Ray-Ban and Oakley brands.

By segment, direct-to-consumer revenue reached €8.001 billion, up 11.4% at constant exchange rates, while wholesale revenue came in at €6.817 billion, up 7.8%. Comparable-store sales rose 8% in the second quarter, building on 7% growth in the first quarter, with contributions from both optical and sun store banners across regions. The company's myopia management portfolio grew 24% in the quarter.

Profitability improved alongside the top line: adjusted gross profit reached €9.411 billion, or 63.5% of revenue, which the company attributed partly to improving profitability within its wearables business. Adjusted operating profit rose 15% at constant exchange rates to €2.751 billion, representing 18.6% of revenue. Tech Times, citing the same results, separately reported that first-half free cash flow set a five-year record for the company, underscoring the cash-generation benefit of the wearables push.

EssilorLuxottica closed the period with 19,686 total stores, up from 17,750 at the end of December 2025, including 15,670 corporate-owned locations. The company said the consolidation of recent acquisitions — including Optegra, Signifeye, and Thailand's Top Charoen — also contributed to results during the half.

Oakley and Ray-Ban Power the AI Eyewear Surge

Across the company's brand portfolio, EssilorLuxottica named Ray-Ban, Oakley, and Miu Miu as its top performers in wholesale for the half, according to the company's Q1 2026 release, with the AI glasses category providing a particular boost to Ray-Ban and Oakley specifically. That momentum accelerated further in the second quarter: AI eyewear sales nearly doubled year-over-year, a pace Tech Times described as the category crossing from early-adopter interest into mass-market demand.

Tech Times reported that EssilorLuxottica sold more than 7 million pairs of Ray-Ban and Oakley Meta glasses across all of 2025 — more than triple the roughly 2 million units the company sold combined across 2023 and 2024 — and that growth has continued accelerating into 2026.

Regional performance varied but consistently favored the AI-enabled lines. According to Shop Eat Surf Outdoor's reporting on the results, Oakley and Ray-Ban delivered positive contributions in EMEA even as the broader luxury eyewear category showed mixed trends there. In Latin America, Ray-Ban and Oakley AI eyewear helped support stable results in Brazil, with AI eyewear demand also lifting performance in Mexico. In North America, Ray-Ban stood out in particular, supported by strength in both its traditional and AI-enabled product lines.

Expanding the AI Glasses Lineup

Much of the AI eyewear momentum traces back to EssilorLuxottica's ongoing partnership with Meta Platforms. During the first half, the companies expanded the Ray-Ban Meta lineup with new optical-first styles for prescription wearers — the Blayzer Optics and Scriber Optics collections — while also adding new colorways to the Oakley Meta line, including the athlete-focused Oakley Meta Vanguard, now available with Transitions lenses paired with Oakley's Prizm lens technology.

On June 23, EssilorLuxottica and Meta expanded the category further with the launch of Meta Glasses, a new jointly branded AI eyewear collection starting at $299, positioned to broaden the lineup beyond existing products that span from the top-selling Ray-Ban Meta glasses to Oakley Meta's athletic-focused models to the higher-end, $799 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses.

The company also announced a long-term joint development agreement with Applied Materials in June aimed at advancing waveguide and adaptive lens technology for future augmented reality eyewear — a step EssilorLuxottica said would help accelerate the path from research to manufacturable optical products, and one Tech Times noted directly targets a waveguide manufacturing bottleneck that has constrained the broader AI glasses category.