Carl Pei’s Nothing to Spin Off Budget Brand Into India Unit

Swedish entrepreneur Carl Pei plans to carve out Nothing Technologies Ltd.’s budget smartphone and electronics unit into a majority Indian-owned company, betting that the South Asian nation is poised to become the next global consumer technology hub.

CMF will operate as a standalone firm with its own management and research teams in India, Pei, cofounder and CEO of Nothing, wrote in an article titled ‘India Is Inevitable,’ posted on X Monday. London-based Nothing will retain a stake in the business.

Nothing was India’s fastest-growing smartphone brand in the quarter ended June, with shipments doubling from a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. That makes the country an important market for the company when global sales are dominated by Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and China’s biggest handset makers.

India could follow Japan, South Korea and China in producing consumer-electronics companies with global reach, said Pei, who also cofounded OnePlus. The nation has already built a manufacturing base to compete globally, but still needs stronger product engineering, and research and development capabilities, he said. “What it doesn’t have yet is a global consumer electronics brand of its own. That will change.”

In February, Nothing opened its first flagship store in Bengaluru as part of a broader expansion in the country. CMF, which sells lower-priced smartphones and accessories, gives the company a way to reach more price-conscious consumers.

India has emerged as a major smartphone manufacturing base after years of government incentives encouraged handset makers and suppliers to expand production there. While the country still relies on China for machinery and components, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is promoting investments to develop these capabilities at home.

Pei set a long-term target for CMF to sell 100 million phones a year. At that scale, he said, the company would have more influence over suppliers and could spread spending on software, cameras and artificial intelligence across a much larger base of devices.