BI Report: Google Glass Will Sell 21 Million Units By 2018

Google Glass will become a mainstream product that sells almost a million units when it’s released next year, and grow to selling more than 21 million units by 2018. That’s according to a new Business Insider (BI) analyst report out this week.

“Despite the clunkiness and awkwardness of the early beta version of Glass, we think computerized glasses will establish themselves in certain professional niches and gradually become a mainstream product,” the report says. “Early adopters will use them for medical training, scientific exploration, and photography. They in turn will popularize Glass and other smart eyewear among wider populations still unsure about the appeal.”

BI says Glass sales will be spurred by lower prices over time (it expects the device to sell for about $600 in two years, and then fall from there), increased developer interest and public acceptance of things like looks, privacy and safety issues. All of that combines to produce sales estimates that look like this:

If the average price of Glass over that period is $500, BI estimates Google will be getting about $10.5 billion dollars in annual revenue from Glass by 2018.