Lenskart Adds Smart Glasses To Its Cart: Next Growth Arc Or Risky Bet?
“We have the super power to do things which we could not have imagined earlier,” Lenskart founder Peyush Bansal said last week at an industry event, explaining the eyewear giant’s strategy around AI, acquisitions and building tech capabilities.
That super power, the CEO said, is the foundation that Lenskart has built over the years in terms of supply chain, channel strategy, manufacturing and a lot more.
Indeed, no one can deny that Lenskart has not changed how Indians buy eyewear and spectacles, but now the unicorn is eyeing something else.
Lenskart is set to announce a foray into the smart glasses space next week, through a partnership with semiconductor giant Qualcomm, sources aware of the matter revealed.
The collaboration will likely be announced at Qualcomm’s XR Day event in Delhi on July 21, signalling a major push by the Delhi NCR-based startup into the smart glass segment after testing the waters earlier this year.
Insiders told Inc42 that the next phase for Bansal and Lenskart is making a bid for one of the hottest tech product categories in the world.
Questions sent to Lenskart didn’t elicit any response at the time of publishing this story.
The biggest tech companies on the planet and eyewear giants are collaborating to launch smartglasses and Extended Reality (XR) devices. Even though Lenskart’s smart glasses are unlikely to directly compete with Apple Vision Pro or any other devices with heads-up displays, such as the Meta Quest 3, it signals that the SoftBank-backed company is changing its DNA for the next phase of its journey.
Inside Lenskart’s Smart Glasses Project
Known over the course of the past 15 years for its dominance in prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses, Lenskart now sees itself as a serious player in wearable technology and consumer electronics.
This is not an overnight change; Lenskart is said to have been working on this product category for more than a year.
As per sources close to the company, Lenskart will also be partnering with at least two more tech giants besides Qualcomm in the coming months to push forward. The eyewear maker will leverage Qualcomm’s chips and spatial computing expertise for its second-gen smart glasses.
In January 2025, Lenskart launched Phonic, its first pair of smart glasses which brought Bluetooth connectivity, access to AI assistants and discreet on-board speakers. Incidentally, Phonic was positioned as a first generation pair of smart glasses by Lenskart, so it’s likely that the new range of smart glasses will carry the same branding.
The Phonic launch was soon followed by Lenskart’s investment in Thane-based Ajna Lens, a........
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