(Yicai) Dec. 12 -- Alibaba Group Holding’s Quark AI Glasses have seen demand far exceed expectations since their launch last month, prompting key suppliers to urgently expand production capacity to ease supply shortages ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year shopping season.

Since last month, the team behind Quark AI Glasses has been closely monitoring production capacity and has added an assembly line at Luxshare Precision Industry’s factory while increasing component supplies, with output expected to gradually improve starting next week, an insider from the Dongguan-based assembler told Yicai.

Another supplier of core optical components such as waveguide plates, Greatar Tech, is also ramping up production to fulfill large orders from Quark AI Glasses, with newly purchased equipment already put into operation, Meng Xiangfeng, founder of the Beijing-based supplier, said to Yicai.

The team’s main goal is to fully unleash production capacity by January next year to catch up with the consumption boom during the Chinese Lunar New Year, an insider from Quark AI Glasses told Yicai.

Quark AI Glasses officially launched on Nov. 27 and are Alibaba’s first hardware product equipped with the Qwen large language model. The product line includes two series, S1 and G1, covering six models in total. The S1 series starts at CNY3,799 (USD538), while the G1 series starts at CNY1,899.

Since the launch, Quark AI Glasses have seen explosive sales. On major e-commerce platforms, the official flagship store releases a limited amount of stock each day, which sells out immediately. At physical stores, customers may need to wait about a month or even up to 40 days for their orders to arrive, a staff member told Yicai.

Compared with smartphones, the supply chain for smart glasses is significantly more complex, requiring longer assembly lines and much higher calibration precision for key components. The products also combine traditional optical technologies for eyewear with emerging fields such as virtual reality and extended reality, Song Gang, head of Alibaba’s smart hardware terminal business, previously said.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Emmi Laine