AI眼镜大战 Rokid抢滩IPO

This article focuses on how leading brands in the AI-enabled smart glasses industry are competing to become the first publicly traded AI glasses company, with AR unicorn Rokid advancing its IPO plan on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Industry update: AI glasses are gradually entering the mass consumer market. Industry sales have grown more than 10-fold over the past three years. According to forecasts from Lotu Technology, China's smart glasses sales will reach 3.2 million units in 2026, representing a 120% year-over-year increase. Currently, 356 brands are selling their products online, with more than 38 new models launched this year alone.

2. Product selection guide: The industry has shifted away from the pursuit of "all-in-one" functionality, with most brands focusing on a single core selling point. Rokid targets outdoor display scenarios, XREAL focuses on immersive audio-visual experiences, INMO caters to high-frequency business use cases, and TCL Thunderbird prioritizes ultra-fast AI response. General consumers can choose products based on their specific needs.

3. Rokid's strengths and weaknesses: Rokid currently holds the largest market share in China, with a 43% repeat purchase rate and a 20% return rate far below the industry average. Its average daily wear time per unit reaches nearly 8 hours. However, it still faces notable drawbacks including light leakage, short battery life, discomfort during long wear, and insufficient privacy protection.

The AI glasses industry is on the cusp of explosive growth, with multiple brands rushing to launch IPOs. Below are key insights for brand owners:

1. Consumer and capital trends: AI glasses have completed initial market education and are widely recognized by capital markets as a "new entry point for the AI era". Industry sales have grown 10-fold in three years, and domestic sales are projected to reach 3.2 million units in 2026, a 120% year-over-year increase. Advances in large language model technology have made it possible for brands to pursue segmented differentiation.

2. Actionable product R&D approaches: Brands can abandon the "all-in-one fantasy" and crack the impossible trinity of performance, battery life and weight by actively streamlining product positioning to focus on one core selling point, avoiding homogenized competition. For example, Rokid has carved out its niche in outdoor display, while TCL Thunderbird has optimized AI response speed, both securing clear differentiated positioning.

3. Brand and ecosystem best practices: Rokid rapidly boosted its brand recognition through the founder's high-profile statements and cross-border marketing campaigns, including AR tourism collaborations, celebrity endorsements and World Cup partnerships. It has also tied up suppliers by bringing in strategic investments from industry chain players, and opened up its software ecosystem to support multiple large models and operating systems, attracting developers to build hard-to-replicate barriers. It is worth noting that current industry growth still relies heavily on word-of-mouth viral expansion, and core product pain points require continuous optimization.

AI-enabled smart glasses represent a high-growth track that brings new opportunities as well as clear risks for sellers. Key insights are summarized below:

1. Growth opportunities: The track is in a period of rapid expansion, with sales growing 10-fold over the past three years. Lotu Technology projects domestic sales will hit 3.2 million units in 2026, up 120% year-over-year. Capital broadly endorses the value of AI glasses as a new entry point for the AI era, with multiple leading brands rushing to IPO that will keep industry heat high and leave substantial room for incremental growth.

2. Product selection strategies: The industry has abandoned the all-in-one product approach and shifted to positioning for segmented scenarios. Outdoor display, immersive audio-visual, business office use and high-speed AI response are all directions validated by leading brands, and sellers can choose a matching category to enter based on their own resources.

3. Risks and lessons learned: Currently, most leading brands in the space remain unprofitable, and products still share common pain points around battery life and wearing comfort. Customer acquisition relies on word-of-mouth expansion, making it hard to break out into mainstream public domains. In addition, with big tech players looming, first-mover advantages can easily be displaced. New entrants should prepare for long-term investment; sellers can draw on leading brands' approach of tying up upstream and downstream resources and opening ecosystems to build barriers, to improve their own competitiveness.

The rapid growth of the AI smart glasses industry has created clear growth opportunities for relevant manufacturing facilities. Key takeaways are as follows:

1. Shifts in product design and production demand: The industry no longer pursues all-in-one functionality, and instead focuses on segmented selling points, which translates to specialized demand for components. Brands focused on display have high demand for diffractive waveguide modules and high-transmittance, lightweight lenses; brands prioritizing AI features need high-performance, low-power chips; and brands focusing on portability have strong demand for miniaturized magnetic batteries.

2. Business collaboration opportunities: Leading brands are currently rushing to IPO and scaling up sales volume. Rokid has already brought on multiple industry chain players including Huace Film & TV, Conant and Haopeng Technology as strategic investors, and is tying core suppliers to itself through equity stakes. As long as factories can deliver stable quality in their corresponding segmented component fields, they have the opportunity to build deep collaboration with leading brands and secure long-term, stable orders.

3. Insights for digital and e-commerce transformation: Online channels are currently the main sales channel for the industry, and leading brands attach great importance to aligning online brand buzz with sales conversion. While doing OEM work for brands, factories can accumulate production technology experience for smart hardware, and can later seize the industry dividend to expand their own brand's online sales route.

As a new growth point in the AI track, AI smart glasses are growing rapidly and have created many new opportunities for various service providers. Key insights are summarized below:

1. Industry development trends: Smart glasses have completed initial market education and are gradually moving from a concept product to mass consumption. Domestic sales are projected to reach 3.2 million units in 2026, a 120% year-over-year increase. Currently, 356 brands sell products online, with dozens of new models launched every year. A large number of cross-border players and new brands are continuously entering the market, and the industry as a whole is in a period of high-speed growth.

2. Core pain points for brands: First, on the product side, the impossible trinity of performance, battery life and lightweight design remains unsolved, and most existing products have common problems including light leakage, short battery life and discomfort during long wear. Second, on the customer acquisition side, most growth still relies on word-of-mouth viral expansion, and brands have not yet found a stable path for large-scale customer acquisition to break into mainstream public domains. Third, on the ecosystem side, brands need to adapt to multiple operating systems and mainstream large models, and also need to attract developers to build an AR content ecosystem.

3. Corresponding opportunities for service providers: Supply chain service providers can develop segmented component solutions targeting brands' specialized demand; marketing service providers can build word-of-mouth plus public domain breakout marketing campaigns tailored for early-adopter smart hardware; and technology service providers can support brands with large model integration adaptation and AR application development.

The explosive growth of the AI smart glasses industry has brought new incremental growth to e-commerce and other related platforms. Key insights are as follows:

1. Core demand from brands for platforms: Today's smart glasses brands target the C-end consumer market, and rely heavily on online channels for customer acquisition and sales. They also need supporting access to supply chain resources, developer resources and capital resources. As leading brands rush to IPO and scale up, they need traffic support from platforms to help them break out from word-of-mouth expansion to large-scale public domain customer acquisition.

2. Platform recruitment directions: Currently, there are more than 356 online brands in the industry, with dozens of new models launched every year, and a large number of cross-border players including iFlytek and Hisense are entering the space. Platforms can open a dedicated AI smart glasses recruitment channel to attract brands to settle, and get ahead of the curve to capture incremental growth from the track.

3. Operations management and risk mitigation: Since products in the industry are not yet fully mature and users frequently complain about product pain points, platforms can establish a user review and feedback mechanism to help brands optimize their products. At the same time, platforms should screen for compliant brands to avoid overblown marketing that damages user trust in the platform. Platforms can also leverage their own large model and ecosystem capabilities to build open collaboration with brands, develop exclusive products adapted to the platform ecosystem, and build the platform's own differentiated advantage.

The AI glasses industry is currently at a critical stage of capitalization acceleration, with new industry trends and new unsolved problems emerging. Key insights are summarized below:

1. New industry trends: First, multiple leading AR glasses brands are rushing to IPO at the same time, competing for the title of "first AI glasses stock", which has significantly accelerated the industry's capitalization process. Second, product R&D thinking has shifted: instead of continuing to pursue a solution to the impossible trinity of performance, battery life and lightweight design, brands are actively streamlining their focus to a single core selling point, pursuing differentiation based on large model capabilities, and the industry has shifted from homogenized competition to segmented track competition. Third, leading startup brands have explored an open ecosystem model: they build barriers by tying up industry chain players via strategic investment and opening up software systems to attract developers, which is a distinct approach from the closed ecosystem model adopted by big tech companies.

2. Unresolved industry problems: First, products are not yet truly mature, and still face multiple common pain points; user growth relies on word-of-mouth expansion, and the product category has not truly entered mass daily life. Second, the business model has not been proven viable, and most leading brands remain consistently unprofitable, needing to demonstrate sustained profitability to capital markets. Third, competition risk is high: most leading brands' differentiated advantages are built on top of big tech ecosystems, so first-mover advantages can easily be displaced once big tech players enter the market.

3. Business model insights: Startup AI hardware brands can draw on the open ecosystem and industry chain binding model to quickly accumulate resources and build barriers, which is well suited to capturing market share in the early development stage.