Xiaomi makes its debut, China AI glasses are breaking the situation

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

Following the Xiaomi SU7, Lei Jun’s next blockbuster of the era, Xiaomi AI glasses are about to debut.

In 2024, the AI glasses market was almost monopolized by Ray-Ban Meta, and with the collective efforts of Chinese manufacturers, in 2025, AI glasses will usher in a stage of concentrated product outbreak.

Among these Chinese manufacturers, Xiaomi is undoubtedly the most eye-catching. Whether it is from Xiaomi’s own brand positioning, huge user base, perfect market channels, or from Xiaomi’s experience in AI + hardware. Indeed, the release of Xiaomi AI glasses is expected to push the Chinese AI glasses market to the next level.

Xiaomi AI Glasses to be released soon, a market frenzy triggered by an “old account”

The release of Xiaomi AI Glasses is imminent, and market news is coming in constantly.

Despite the recent emergency denial by Wang Hua, the general manager of the public relations department of Xiaomi Group, stating that “Xiaomi Glasses Official Weibo account was registered many years ago and is not newly launched”, this response has instead left even greater room for imagination in the market. It is not difficult to see from his very official wording that Wang Hua did not directly deny the possibility of product launch, only emphasizing that the account is not newly launched, implying that relevant developments may still be ongoing.

In addition, during this period, the news that Xiaomi AI Glasses have obtained the network access license from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (model M2442G1) has also been widely spread. However, Wang Hua has not responded to this, seemingly quietly indicating everything.

In fact, as early as November 2024, it was rumored in the industry that Xiaomi and Goertek were cooperating to develop a new generation of AI glasses, planned to be released during the Mi Fan Festival in the second quarter of 2025. Lei Jun estimated that the annual sales volume of Xiaomi AI glasses would exceed 300,000 units.

The gyro gentleman learned from the supply chain last year that Xiaomi’s AI glasses may be divided into two versions: one is AI glasses with a camera module, and the other is a basic version (or an early test version) with pure audio interaction, targeting the mass market.

In addition, there will be some innovative designs for glasses, to enhance the battery life of AI glasses. This strategy basically continues Xiaomi’s original “ultimate cost-effectiveness” 3C product gene, and also directly benchmarks Ray-Ban Meta in terms of product strength.

AI glasses, how to become Xiaomi’s next incremental choice?

Xiaomi enters the AI glasses market, seeking to increase market share.

Xiaomi, which started with internet smartphones, has grown rapidly since its establishment in 2010. Its latest data shows that its market value has exceeded 1 trillion, officially entering the list of the world’s top 100 enterprises, surpassing giants such as Huawei, Panasonic, and LG.

Behind the continuous growth of Xiaomi Group, on the one hand, it is inseparable from the R&D investment in various technologies and ecosystems with mobile phones as the core, and on the other hand, it is inseparable from the “Xiaomi Grocery Store”. The “Xiaomi Grocery Store” covers a wide range of IoT and consumer products, which play an important role in the revenue of Xiaomi Group, as can be seen from the financial report data of Xiaomi Group in the third quarter of 2024.

The third quarter financial report of Xiaomi Group in 2024 shows that its IoT and consumer products revenue reached 26.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%, with a gross profit margin of 20.8%, up 3.5 percentage points year-on-year; In contrast, although the revenue of smartphones reached 47.5 billion yuan, the gross profit margin has fallen to 11.7%, a year-on-year decrease of 4.9 percentage points. In addition, the newly emerging smart electric vehicle business is also very prominent, with business revenue reaching 9.7 billion yuan, a 52.3% increase from the previous quarter.

Therefore, in today’s smartphone market where the profit margin continues to decline, expanding the “one-stop shop” centered around the Xiaomi ecosystem to increase revenue and profit has become a necessary choice for Xiaomi’s sustained growth.

In the lineup of ‘Xiaomi’s grocery store’, the logic of past consumer electronics products almost all revolved around smartphones and Xiao Ai speakers as the core for ecological divergence. Combining the growing demand of consumers for smart wearable devices, as well as the trend of deep AI technology application on portable devices, AI glasses are undoubtedly an excellent choice.

AI glasses meet Xiaomi’s strategic needs for business growth and the expansion of scenarios centered around smartphones. On the one hand, as wearable devices closest to human senses, glasses have a natural advantage in first-person perspective information collection and AI voice interaction. Based on mobile computing power and AI cloud interaction, various diversified AI scenarios such as real-time translation, image recognition, intelligent search, personal assistants, etc., can be expanded.

On the other hand, Ray-Ban Meta broke the one million mark in sales in 2024, validating the market’s potential demand for ‘lightweight AI glasses’. Currently, the AI glasses market in China is still in its early stages, with significant room for growth. Research firm IDC predicts that the global AI glasses market will reach 12.8 million units in shipments by 2025, a 26% year-on-year increase. In China, the estimated shipments of AI glasses in 2025 are expected to reach 2.8 million pairs, representing a staggering 107% year-on-year growth.

From ‘AR Exploration Edition’ to ‘AI Glasses’ landing, Xiaomi has been preparing for a long time.

In fact, Xiaomi, like Meta, has long been layout in the next generation of computing platform AR technology (excluding the Mi family ecological chain products). As early as 2021, Xiaomi released a concept product of Micro-LED + diffractive waveguide AR glasses; in 2023, Xiaomi also officially announced the Xiaomi wireless AR glasses explorer edition, based on Micro-OLED + free-form optics.

In terms of technological maturity, the AR glasses products released by Xiaomi in the past few years have already had a high degree of landing, and similar products from many startups can also be found on the market. However, Xiaomi is not in a hurry to commercialize. For a large company, the opportunity cost of entering an industry before a blockbuster product emerges may be too high.

It wasn’t until the AIGC craze, and the outbreak of Ray-Ban Meta, that Xiaomi became more convinced of this track. Although the AI glasses to be released in 2025 are a ‘simplified version’ of the AR glasses, with the blessing of generative AI, they can already bring many practical scenarios through voice and camera sensors. More importantly, AI glasses are a C-end product that Xiaomi believes can be fully commercialized.

For Xiaomi, AI glasses, like Meta’s layout strategy for smart glasses, can also be seen as a transitional product for future AR glasses. From the market trend perspective, the demand for AI lightweight, portable, and efficient devices in the consumer electronics field is increasing rapidly. AI glasses, with their initial exploration in voice interaction, first-person vision, etc., happen to align with this development direction, laying the foundation for user awareness and technological application as we move towards a more advanced AR glasses market.

Xiaomi Monocular AR Glasses

In addition, it is worth noting that compared to ordinary startups, mobile phone manufacturers do have certain technological advantages in making AI glasses. As early as last year’s article “AI Glasses | Easy to Enter the Supply Chain, Difficult to Find High-Scoring Products”, Gyro King has emphasized that for Ray-Ban Meta-like AI glasses, “audio” and “video” are the most core sections, and also the two most difficult sections to make for glasses.

A simple ‘voice interaction’ involves a combination of multiple Mic external collection, noise reduction recording, and a series of audio algorithms and hardware. ‘Image shooting’ is directly related to the reputation and market sales of a pair of glasses, which must be taken seriously. As there is no manual focus like a mobile phone, AI glasses need to achieve full automatic focusing, automatic color, and light sensitivity optimization adjustments, which can be quite challenging for startups. In this process, the choice of chips and the balance of costs are also very important.

And such noise reduction algorithms, pickup algorithms, image algorithms, AI voice interaction, and other technologies have already been implemented by major mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi in TWS earphones, smart speakers, and smartphones. Compared to start-ups, there is much less need to complete the debugging section, and at the software ecosystem level, it is possible to achieve system-level permissions, fully call the mobile phone ecosystem, and have a strong technological advantage. In this way, we are also looking forward to Xiaomi’s AI glasses, and what kind of technological differentiation will be made.

Xiaomi AI glasses, the catalyst for breaking the Chinese AI glasses market?

By 2025, the AI glasses track is already crowded with giants: Meta plans to launch 6 AI wearable devices within the year, while Samsung, Huawei, OPPO, Realme, Meizu, Baidu, Rokid, and other manufacturers are also eyeing it. Faced with the “Battle of a Hundred Glasses” in the global market, the release of Xiaomi AI Glasses may trigger the ‘catfish effect’ in the Chinese market.

From the perspective of the market structure, the current sales volume of AI glasses in China is far lower than that overseas, but the industry is highly heated. From a marketing perspective, the domestic market has always lacked a phenomenon-level explosive product like Ray-Ban Meta to enhance consumer awareness and increase the desire for purchasing AI glasses.

And Xiaomi’s own brand advantage is not to be underestimated. Over the years, Xiaomi has created legends in the minds of consumers with high cost-effective products and a rich ecosystem, providing a natural soil for the promotion of Xiaomi AI glasses with a huge user base.

Against this market background, the entry of Xiaomi AI glasses will undoubtedly further expand the domestic AI glasses industry market capacity, bringing a larger incremental market.