Markets

China's AI Glasses Makers Are Racing Each Other to Wall Street

Four Chinese smart-glasses brands filed or prepared IPOs in 2026, backed by government subsidies and a global AI glasses market that grew more than 300% in a single year.

Mainstay Communications Team · September 9, 2026 · 7 min read

In brief

China's AI glasses industry shifted from fragmented startup territory to a serious capital market story in 2026. Backed by a new national trade-in subsidy and a worldwide market that shipped 8.7 million units in 2025, brands including XREAL, Rokid, RayNeo, and INMO each advanced new products this year while racing toward public listings. ByteDance scrapped its first Doubao glasses before launch. The question facing every player is whether a category with triple-digit growth can also produce companies with durable margins.

The Policy Tailwind

Beijing gave AI glasses a meaningful push at the start of 2026. China's National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance added smart glasses to the national consumer goods trade-in subsidy program, the first time the category had qualified. Buyers can now claim a 15% subsidy on qualifying devices, up to CNY 500 per unit, through designated sales channels.

The change is structurally significant. China's trade-in program has driven meaningful volume in smartphones and home appliances since it launched. Extending it to smart glasses lowers the effective purchase price for consumers at a moment when Chinese brands have products ready to sell.

Global AI glasses shipments hit 8.7 million units in 2025, up 322% year over year, according to data cited by TechNode from research firm Omdia. China's domestic market accounted for a substantial share of that growth, led by audio and camera-equipped frames rather than display-forward products.

XREAL Files First

XREAL became the most advanced of the Chinese hopefuls in capital markets terms. The Beijing-based company filed its prospectus with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in April 2026, with China International Capital Corporation and Citigroup as joint sponsors.

The financials in the prospectus show a company with real revenue but deep losses. XREAL reported RMB 516 million (roughly $72 million) in revenue for 2025, with gross margins expanding from under 20% in 2023 to over 35% by last year. Cumulative losses over three years exceeded RMB 2 billion. Cash on hand at the time of filing was reported at 63.63 million yuan.

More than 70% of revenue came from overseas, which separates XREAL from its Chinese rivals. The company has built a distribution network across roughly 40 countries and says it's ranked first globally in the AR glasses segment since 2022. Its product pipeline includes a flagship device developed in partnership with Google on the Android XR platform.

Rokid Prepares to Follow

Rokid, a Hangzhou-based AI glasses maker, completed what multiple reports described as a shareholding system reform in preparation for a public listing, with sources telling the South China Morning Post the company was preparing to file for a Hong Kong IPO as early as late April 2026.

Rokid brought in new shareholders ahead of the filing, including Lens Technology, which supplies components to Apple and Samsung, and SenseCapital, the venture arm of SenseTime. Founder Zhu Mingming disclosed in November 2025 that cumulative sales of Rokid's AI glasses had exceeded 300,000 units.

On JD.com, Rokid's AI-powered frames held the top position in the smart glasses category for three consecutive months as of April 2026, according to CNBC reporting. That ranking came despite Rokid's pricing running roughly $100 higher than its nearest domestic competitor. The company also served as the exclusive AI glasses broadcast partner for the 2026 World Cup.

RayNeo and Alibaba's Layered Push

RayNeo, the smart glasses brand owned by TCL Electronics, has taken a different path. Rather than racing to a listing, RayNeo has deepened its technology partnership with Alibaba, integrating Alibaba's Qwen large language models across its device lineup. The collaboration marks one of the first significant pairings between a Chinese LLM developer and an AI glasses hardware maker.

RayNeo launched the iO, a camera-free smart glasses model focused on audio and connectivity, in 2026. The company had already brought its Air 4 Pro AR glasses to a global audience at CES 2026, touting HDR10 display support and 0.6-inch Micro-OLED panels rated at 1,200 nits. In H2 2025, RayNeo held 42% market share in the video-centric AR glasses segment globally, ahead of XREAL at 28%, according to Counterpoint Research.

Alibaba's own hardware play runs alongside its RayNeo partnership. The company launched the Quark AI Glasses S1 in China in November 2025 at CNY 3,799 ($536), with an entry-level G1 model at CNY 1,899. The S1 runs Alibaba's Qwen model and added proactive AI capabilities in a May 2026 update, surfacing reminders and contextual suggestions before a user speaks. On JD.com's smart glasses list in late December 2025, the Quark S1 had held the top spot for 17 consecutive days, before Rokid overtook it in early 2026.

INMO Goes Global via Crowdfunding

INMO chose a different route to market. The Shenzhen-based company unveiled the GO3 at CES 2026, where it won a Digital Trends Publisher Award, and launched the device on Kickstarter in April 2026 at a $499 price point.

The GO3 targets productivity use cases: real-time translation across 98 languages, meeting transcription, an AI teleprompter, and hands-free navigation via HERE Maps, all inside a frame the company says is comparable in weight to conventional eyewear. A swappable magnetic battery system addresses the endurance problem that has hampered most competing products. INMO was showcasing the GO3 at IFA Berlin in early September 2026.

Huawei Enters the Category

Huawei launched its first AI glasses on April 20, 2026, making it one of the last major Chinese consumer electronics brands to enter the segment. The device runs HarmonyOS and connects with Huawei's XiaoYi AI assistant. It weighs 35.5 grams excluding lenses, carries a camera, and uses three internal batteries for an estimated 11 hours of continuous operation under load. Two price points launched at approximately CNY 2,499 and CNY 2,899.

The device doesn't include a display, which puts it in the same functional category as the Meta Ray-Ban line rather than the AR glasses segment that XREAL and RayNeo occupy. Huawei's strong existing installed base in China gives it a distribution advantage that purely glasses-native brands don't have.

ByteDance Steps Back

One major tech company found the category harder than expected. ByteDance reportedly scrapped its first-generation Doubao AI glasses before the device reached consumers, with supply-chain sources telling The XR Beat and Pandaily that the product was dropped because it wasn't sufficiently differentiated from existing market options.

The company did not formally announce the cancellation. ByteDance reportedly moved ahead with two second-generation models following the decision, though specifications and timing haven't been disclosed. The company had already secured Qualcomm AR1 chips for the project. ByteDance's Doubao AI brand has strong consumer recognition in China, which makes the hardware delay notable: the open question is whether ByteDance's product can justify the interest it can generate.

The Meta Comparison

The frame of reference for investors and analysts evaluating the Chinese field is Meta's Ray-Ban line, which sold over 7 million units in 2025 after a years-long investment in the category. Meta's scale and the EssilorLuxottica manufacturing relationship have set a commercial benchmark that Chinese brands are actively pitching against.

The differences are structural. Chinese brands mostly serve their domestic market first and face distribution barriers internationally. XREAL is the clearest exception, with 70% of revenue outside China and an Android XR partnership that gives it access to Google's ecosystem. Rokid and RayNeo are earlier in their international buildout. All of them are dealing with a category where consumers don't yet have strong purchase habits, which is precisely why the government subsidy matters: it converts hesitation into a transaction.

Whether the IPO window stays open long enough for multiple Chinese glasses makers to list depends partly on how the revenue story develops in the second half of 2026.

Sources

Companies mentioned

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