Apple Sets Sights on Billion-Dollar Eyewear Market

Apple is preparing to enter the global eyewear market—a sector nearly as massive as smartphones—deploying a strategy similar to the one it used to disrupt traditional giants Swatch and Fossil.

Apple targets the smart glasses market

When the iPhone manufacturer rolled out the Apple Watch in 2015, the smartwatch segment was still nascent and highly fragmented. Within just a few years, the tech titan transformed into the world's largest watchmaker by volume. The impact on traditional competitors was severe: Swatch saw its revenue plummet 28% compared to 2014, while Fossil lost roughly 70% of its sales over the same period.

Now, Apple is gearing up to replicate that exact script with eyewear.

According to sources close to the matter, Apple aims to launch its smart glasses by late 2027, a shift from its original target of late 2026. Internally codenamed "N50," the wearable will integrate cameras, artificial intelligence, and a direct connection to the iPhone, specifically targeting the $200–$500 price bracket.

The target market for the tech giant is staggering. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 2.2 billion people globally suffer from some form of vision impairment, anchoring a global eyewear industry valued at approximately $200 billion annually. This represents a commercial opportunity far exceeding that of the Apple Watch, which currently generates about $17 billion in annual revenue.

Outgoing CEO Tim Cook has emerged as one of the project's most ardent proponents, while incoming Apple CEO John Ternus has also been a driving force behind the initiative. Notably, the company's Vision Products development team has operated under Ternus's leadership for the past two years.

The initial wearable devices will reportedly feature a prominent design language highlighted by an oval-shaped camera, unique colorways, and a diverse selection of frame styles. In the long run, Apple envisions the product evolving into a dedicated health-monitoring device that integrates advanced augmented reality (AR) capabilities, even though true AR glasses remain a distant technical prospect.

However, the tech giant is poised to face fierce competition. Meta has already pioneered the smart eyewear space with its Ray-Ban collaboration and is aggressively updating its product ecosystem, with new models slated for a June release. The social media behemoth also leverages strategic retail partnerships with LensCrafters and EssilorLuxottica, giving it a significant head start over Apple in deploying essential visual AI features.

Perhaps the biggest factor working in Meta’s favor is Apple's historical reluctance to extend its product ecosystem to Android users. This strategic exclusion grants Meta a clear runway to capture the lion's share of the global market. Paradoxically, analysts suggest that Apple’s high-profile entry could ultimately wind up benefiting Meta by validating the category and dramatically amplifying broader consumer interest in smart glasses as a whole.

Furthermore, Apple's brand identity does not yet carry the same traditional weight in this specific sector. Meta currently markets its hardware under legacy banners like Ray-Ban and Oakley—household names that possess deeply entrenched prestige and decades of authority within the eyewear and fashion industries.

For Apple, the overarching objective extends far beyond simply launching a niche hardware category. This initiative represents a massive offensive into one of the largest consumer markets on Earth, targeting a pool of potential customers that nearly rivals the scale of the global smartphone user base.