Meta's investment in EssilorLuxottica will be 'symbolic', Zuckerberg says

MILAN (Reuters) -A prospective investment by Meta Platforms in eyeglasses maker EssilorLuxottica will be a "symbolic" gesture to cement their long-term partnership, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told technology news website The Verge.

Earlier this month, EssilorLuxottica said it had extended its partnership with Meta for developing smart eyewear.

"I think we've talked about investing in them. It's not going to be a major thing. I'd say it's more of a symbolic thing. We want to have this be a long-term partnership, and as part of that, I thought that this would be a nice gesture," Zuckerberg said in a video interview published late on Wednesday on The Verge.

"I fundamentally believe in them a lot. I think that they're going to go from being the premier glasses company in the world to one of the major technology companies in the world," he added.

In July, EssilorLuxottica confirmed that the tech giant might invest in the company, after the Wall Street Journal reported that the two companies had discussed Meta taking a 5% stake in the French-Italian group.

EssilorLuxottica and Meta have been collaborating since 2019, creating two generations of Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses.

Zuckerberg said sales of the latest version were going "very well", with demand much stronger than expected.

"We thought that Ray-Ban Meta was probably going to sell three or five times more than the first version did. And we just dramatically underestimated it," he said.

Zuckerberg said it was hard to gauge real demand for Ray-Ban Metas because they had sold out. But more manufacturing lines have been built and the situation has been resolved, he added.

Facebook owner Meta showed off its first working prototype of augmented-reality glasses, called Orion, during its annual Connect conference on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Elisa AnzolinEditing by Mark Potter)