CMF, the consumer electronics brand from Nothing, is set to spin off into a standalone Indian company as founder Carl Pei looks to deepen the brand’s R&D capabilities in the country.
The new entity will be headquartered in India and majority owned by Indian shareholders, with its team and research and development operations based locally. Nothing will retain a stake in CMF and continue as a partner.
Pei believes India has the ingredients to develop globally recognised consumer electronics brands, pointing to its large smartphone market, manufacturing ecosystem, young population and software talent. However, he argues that the country’s next phase of growth needs to move beyond manufacturing towards product development and engineering.
According to Pei, meaningful R&D involves capabilities across product engineering, camera systems, operating systems, antenna design and supplier co-development. He sees these capabilities as critical to building a deeper domestic electronics ecosystem.
Drawing from his experience in China, Pei said the growth of the country's component ecosystem was supported by local smartphone companies developing strong engineering teams and working closely with suppliers to build new capabilities.
He believes India has already made significant progress on manufacturing, noting that 99% of smartphones sold in the country are now manufactured locally, compared with almost none a decade ago.
“Manufacturing is step one. Step two is R&D: the capability that sets harder problems for suppliers and pulls a full value chain into the country,” Pei said.
CMF’s transition is expected to build on Nothing’s existing technical capabilities, including its operating system, industrial design and camera processing, along with direct collaboration with suppliers across displays, chipsets and camera modules.
Pei also sees India as a potential base for CMF’s international expansion, with the company targeting production of 100 million phones annually. He believes a larger scale could allow the brand to play a greater role in shaping the supply chain rather than simply operating within it.
