Xreal unveiled its latest AR glasses in London

Chinese augmented reality company Xreal has officially made a foray into the UK market by launching its next-generation glasses in London this week, amid rising interest in the next big consumer product.

Different from bulky headsets that rivals unveiled, Xreal showcases lightweight glasses such as its latest Xreal Air 2 and Xreal Air 2 Pro to a wider range of consumers looking for an easy-to-wear product.

Xu Chi, CEO and founder of Xreal - which is backed by big name investors such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Sequoia Capital and Hillhouse Capital - , said in an interview in Beijing that AR is a very new track that will replace mobile phones as a new mobile terminal in the future.

The AR device market has so far been dominated by enterprise devices. Although AR has proved popular with consumers on smartphones with breakout hit apps such as Pokemon GO and Snapchat, consumer devices have yet to reach the mainstream.

Data from market research company International Data Corp show that Xreal continues to lead the global AR market in the first half of 2023, ranking first in sales, with its sales share in the first quarter hitting 34.49 percent and the second quarter's share rising to 39.03 percent.

In August, Xreal announced that the cumulative global sales of its Air glasses exceeded 200,000 units.

Xu said portable spatial display will be the first AR killer application to have more than one billion shipments.

Within 3-5 years, AR will exceed the overall market share of VR, Xu said.