
Meta buys £2.6bn stake in Rayban maker Essilor Luxottica amid VR sunglasses push
The owner of Facebook has snapped up just under 3 per cent of the £100billion Franco-Italian group and is considering further investments which could see its share boosted to 5 per cent, Bloomberg reported.
The pair have worked together since 2019 and launched Meta smart glasses, which cost around £300 and allow users to take photos and videos, listen to music, make calls and livestream.
Around 2m pairs of Meta Ray-Bans have been sold since late 2023, according to EssilorLuxottica boss Francesco Milleri in February.
The group plans to boost annual production to 10m by the end of 2026. And the firms are planning to soon sell smart glasses under the Oakley and Prada brands.
Ray-Bans are famously worn by Tom Cruise in Top Gun and its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Guardian
7 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Textor insists Palace influence ‘not decisive' as club fear Europa League ban
John Textor has insisted that he didn't have a decisive influence at Crystal Palace as the FA Cup winners await Uefa's decision on whether they can compete in next season's Europa League. Palace are facing the threat of being demoted to the Conference League by European football's governing body because the American businessman also owns a majority stake in Ligue 1 side Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League. The French club have successfully appealed against relegation to Ligue 2, with Uefa having delayed its ruling on Palace last week pending the outcome of Lyon's appeal. Uefa sources have indicated that its Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), which investigates alleged breaches of its multi-club ownership rules, is due to decide on Palace's fate this week. Clubs are barred from competing in the same Uefa competition if an individual or ownership group is considered to have a decisive influence over more than one of those teams. Textor recently agreed to sell his Palace shares to the New York Jets owner, Woody Johnson, a deal that is expected to be ratified by the Premier League in the coming days. Textor also owns Brazilian side Botafogo, who defeated Paris Saint-Germain during the group stages of the Club World Cup last month, but he revealed that he did not even consider placing his shares in Palace into a blind trust before Uefa's 1 March deadline because it was clear he was not in day-to-day control at Selhurst Park. 'Why should I put my interest in a trust back before March when the rule says you only have to do it if you have decisive influence? I don't,' he told TalkSport on Thursday. 'If I had a decisive influence, then those Brazilian players that just beat PSG in the Club World Cup, half of them would be coming to Crystal Palace next year. But you don't see one single player from our network of clubs that's made its way onto the Palace roster, which is the source of my frustration with the lack of collaboration that we've been able to have with Crystal Palace. I am dumb enough and successful enough to not predict in advance what a governing body is going to say.' Asked what his influence was at Palace, Textor added: 'I helped. I helped a lot. I showed up during Covid. I paid off the Covid debt. I helped finish the academy. The capital, I'm sitting there on the board with four other guys. [Chairman Steve] Parish is making decisions. He's bringing us players. He involves us, but he doesn't really listen to us. He does, but a suggestion from time to time is not the same as decisive influence.' Textor also rejected reports that he had told the CFCB that he had been instrumental in the decision to hire Oliver Glasner as Palace's manager last year. 'I tried to hire him in Lyon. And if [former Palace sporting director] Dougie Freedman notices and he goes to visit him in Salzburg just the way I did and he ends up at Crystal Palace, is there a connection there? I don't know. Steve's not going to be told who to hire as a coach,' he said. 'It's incredibly untrue. We sat in front of the Uefa panel and were extremely consistent on the lack of decisive influence. I don't even know if I suggested him to Dougie but Dougie recruited him.' Textor confirmed that he attempted to take full control of Palace two weeks before the FA Cup final against Manchester City. But he claimed Parish had been given a 'stay of execution' after he failed to agree a deal to buy the 36% stake owned by fellow Americans Josh Harris and David Blitzer, with the threat of being banned from the Europa League having forced him to sell his shares to Johnson. 'This obviously strengthened him in that position,' he said of Parish. 'I think his ambition every year is to avoid relegation. Our ambition is to climb the table.' Asked whether his hopes of taking over Palace had been scuppered by Uefa's rules on multi-club ownership, Textor added: 'I never want to be the man. Ask the guy that drives the red Ferrari that. But I'm not that guy.'


Reuters
20 minutes ago
- Reuters
Pfizer, BioNTech ask UK court to overturn Moderna's COVID vaccine patent win
LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech asked London's Court of Appeal on Thursday to overturn a ruling that their COVID-19 vaccine infringed one of Moderna's patents, in the latest round of a long-running legal dispute between the two sides. A year ago, the High Court ruled that one of Moderna's (MRNA.O), opens new tab two patents relating to the messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that underpinned its COVID-19 vaccine was valid and that Pfizer (PFE.N), opens new tab and BioNTech's ( opens new tab Comirnaty vaccine had infringed it, meaning Moderna is entitled to damages in relation to sales after March 2022. The court also ruled last July that the other Moderna patent under challenge in the case was invalid. Pfizer and Moderna are seeking to overturn the decision that one of the patents is valid, after Judge Richard Meade gave the two companies permission to appeal against his decision. They argue Moderna's developments of mRNA technology were obvious developments of previous work, rendering the patent invalid, though Moderna says the judge's ruling should be upheld. Pfizer and BioNTech generated more than $3.3 billion in revenue from global sales of their vaccine Comirnaty last year, while Moderna generated $3.2 billion from its vaccine Spikevax, according to company reports. Sales of both vaccines declined significantly between 2023 and 2024 after the pandemic ended. Pfizer and BioNTech had sued Moderna in London in September 2022, seeking to revoke the two patents held by Moderna, which hit back days later alleging its own patents had been infringed. The London lawsuits are just one part of a global battle between Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna over their competing vaccines, which helped save millions of lives during the pandemic. The companies have also been involved in proceedings in Germany – where a court ruled in Moderna's favour in March – the United States Patent Office, which held that two Moderna COVID-19 vaccine patents were invalid, and elsewhere.


The Sun
39 minutes ago
- The Sun
Wimbledon superfans fork out £600 on giant tennis racquet – even though it would fall apart if they used it
WIMBLEDON'S gift stores have flogged two giant tennis racquets for £600 each — after shops got into a race to sell them first. The four-and-a-half-foot bit of sports gear has drawn the attention of thousands of punters since the start of last week. 2 Selling the prop, which is more than three-and-a-half foot tall, has become one of the toughest challenges for temporary workers in SW19's merchandise stores. It even sparked a race between three of the gift shops, in the club's museum, Centre Court and Court No1, to be the first to get rid of one this year. It is understood that a Canadian couple bought one of the mega-racquets last week and are in the process of trying to get it back across the pond. Another was sold over the weekend at full price. The racquets, a replica of Babolat's official tournament model, are very fragile and can't be used on court. They have a light metal frame and use actual string instead of carbon fibre or nylon, making it impossible to hit with. One worker told The Sun: 'We have some very good salespeople, but this has proven difficult to shift so far. 'Every year, we have a race to see who can get rid of it first. It's a decoration, and for the right person, it is probably worth the money. 'A lot of people are interested and walk by and say, 'That's amazing'. 'But then they see it's £600 and that kills it pretty quickly. Novak Djokovic brutally faceplants ground and left writhing in agony as worried wife Jelena watches on at Wimbledon 'If you tried to play with it, it would just fall apart.' Even for staff who pull off the Wolf of Wall Street-style sales pitch, do not get a bounty or any commission for any items they personally flog. Another employee said: 'We've spent lots of time trying to find the best spot for it. 'Nobody could really believe we had actually sold one. 'I suppose, if you have the money, and you love tennis, maybe it's a worthwhile investment for a big house, but I wouldn't want it in a tiny flat.' For fans who can't quite stretch to the £600 price tag, a tiny desk version, which is just seven inches tall, is also on sale for £20. 2