Carl Pei — he of the OnePlus fame — co-founded the company in 2021 with the mission of “making tech fun again”. Four years and a bit later, it can be argued that Nothing has pulled it off. The company has released smartphones and earphones that are unique and, yes, fun. Even beer and clothes have come from Nothing’s stable, and the company manages to be a part of the conversation with pleasing frequency.
“We wanted to create a design identity that you could identify from two metres away without having to look at logos … because … for us, it was extremely sad at the time — everything looked the same,” Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis, a former OnePlus honcho, told CNBC-TV18.
Back in 2021, when Nothing was founded, the brand had little going for it apart from Pei’s reputation. Many knew it would be a consumer electronics brand, but from what cloth it would be cut remained to be seen.
Today, 10 days before the launch of its latest smartphones, Nothing has earned over $1 billion in revenue by selling more than 7 billion devices. In January, the company sought to raise at least $100 million in a Series C funding round.
What’s more, India is the brand’s biggest smartphone market. Counterpoint Research found that Nothing’s smartphone sales in India surged by 577% year-over-year in 2024, positioning it as one of the country’s fastest-growing brands. This growth was fueled by strong demand for the Phone (2a) series and the CMF by Nothing sub-brand.
Nothing: Starting from Scratch
Starting and sustaining a technology startup can be extremely tricky and challenging and has been so for a few years. It’s compounded for a consumer electronics company with heavy R&D and manufacturing overheads. So, Nothing had to come up with something to instil confidence among investors and convince them it was worth investing in.
To do that, Nothing had to get their thinking caps on, and they settled on a pair of TWS earbuds.
“[The TWS market] was sort of spiking at the time, but the segment has been considered saturated — no room for a new player. So we said, ‘Okay, that’s a good proof of concept to show that there is appetite for a new player’,” Evangelidis said.
The company released its first product, the Nothing Ear (1), in July 2021. The Truly Wireless Stereo (TWS) earphones sported a quirky, transparent design set against white. They looked classy, elegant and, more importantly, different and fun. They sounded good too, which was a plus. The warm reception for the Ear (1) was exactly the gust of wind Nothing needed.
“[Ear 1] enabled us [to] basically say, ‘Okay, guys, there is appetite … people are getting excited about Nothing.”
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So what happened next?
“So we managed to raise more money and started working on the smartphone,” Evangelidis said, tongue firmly in cheek.
He was referring, of course, to the Nothing Phone (1), which Carl Pei announced on X (formerly Twitter) in March 2022. The next few months saw a masterclass in minimalist marketing, with Nothing teasing its growing fanbase into a frenzy, drip-feeding tidbits about the upcoming phone. Nothing even organised a product reveal in Basel, Switzerland, at an event that was more Met Gala than a tech showcase.
The Phone (1) released to generally positive reviews in July 2022. This was a feat in itself as this marked the first time a startup launched a smartphone that was so highly anticipated and hyped. In fact, the last success story in this segment came from — you guessed it — Carl Pei himself when he oversaw the launch of the wildly successful OnePlus 1 in 2014.
What makes Nothing’s debut smartphone even more impressive is that the company lacked the vast resources of OnePlus, which is owned by OPPO and its parent company, BBK Electronics.
Evangelidis, who was vice-president for France at OnePlus when he embarked on the Nothing journey, peeled back the curtain and showed just how the deck is stacked against the little guy — in this case, Nothing.
When it came to its first smartphone, Nothing had everything to lose. While developing a new smartphone, a company’s first, may seem exciting to tech enthusiasts looking in from the outside, it could literally make or break a company. Evangelidis says if Nothing had not nailed Phone (1), it would have come as a body blow.
“Right up from the get-go, you put all your cash up front, especially as a new player, because [in the last 10 years], no one has managed to launch [a smartphone] successfully,” Evangelidis said.
The failure of several brands to successfully take off in the maturing smartphone market burned many investors’ fingers, and they were understandably wary. And, with next to nothing against its name barring some seed capital, Nothing had no choice but to grab hold of whatever opportunity it got to make its first smartphone.
“When we entered, we had really bad payment terms — we had to pay everything upfront. The stuff would get shipped. We would assemble the phone, then we would ship the phone to sales partners,” Evangelidis said.
Even if a company manages to secure enough capital to develop and sell a new smartphone, it’s still touch-and-go. “Eventually, if you launch your product successfully, and you create enough demand, you will get [the investment] back with some margin. But if anything goes wrong, if the development of the product. the assembly line doesn’t go well and anything gets delayed, then your cash flow is gone, and you go bankrupt,” he said.
The Phone (1) was finally launched in 2022, and I absolutely loved the freshness of the design, its quirkiness and a price tag that was quite reasonable. Many others agreed too — Nothing sold more than 700,000 units of the Phone (1) and established itself as a brand to be taken seriously.
The success of the Phone (1) was important to Nothing not just from a business perspective, but also from a long-term identity and user-retention point of view.
“[Developing Phone (1)] was fun to do in a segment where, historically, everyone has entered focusing on spec wars and value for money. You don’t build any brand equity that way. If you are the best value for money today, someone else will come. And if that’s the reason why people bought [your products], they will be changing brands very easily. But for us, it was about having this very unique user experience — a design-first philosophy.”
In the two years and a bit since the Phone (1), the brand has launched a smorgasbord of devices and products — a total of six pairs of TWS earbuds and four smartphones, alongside two pairs of TWS earphones, two smartwatches, a GaN multi-port charger, and a smartphone under its sub-brand, CMF by Nothing.
Sure, Nothing’s product lineup as it stands is, frankly, bewildering, as is its go-to-market strategy. Look at the sequence in which these products have been released.
| Brand | Product | Released |
| Nothing | Ear (1) | July 2021 |
| Phone (1) | July 2022 | |
| Ear (stick) | October 2022 | |
| Ear (2) | March 2023 | |
| Phone (2) | July 2023 | |
| Phone (2a) | March 2024 | |
| Ear | April 2024 | |
| Ear (a) | April 2024 | |
| Phone (2a) Plus | July 2024 | |
| Ear (open) | September 2024 | |
| CMS By Nothing | Buds Pro | September 2023 |
| Watch Pro | September 2023 | |
| Buds | March 2024 | |
| Neckband Pro | March 2024 | |
| Buds Pro 2 | July 2024 | |
| Watch Pro 2 | July 2024 | |
| Phone 1 | July 2024 |
While the naming scheme is all over the place, the release window is far from locked down. For instance, Nothing has not released a flagship smartphone in 20 months since July 2023 when it launched the Phone (2), which at the time was obviously considered the successor to the Phone (1).
However, the true successor to the Phone (1) was the Phone (2a), released in March 2024. The Nothing Ear is the successor to the Ear (2), while the Ear (a) is a more affordable option.
From a consumer standpoint, the lack of predictability makes brand loyalty harder. If a Phone (2) user genuinely loved their experience and now wants to upgrade to a Nothing smartphone, their only options are to buy less-powerful phones or wait for the next flagship smartphone, which remains unannounced at the time of writing.
When Evangelidis put all these things into perspective, however, it all made sense; Nothing’s strategy seems less chaotic and scatter-gun.
“Last year, it was about taking this very unique product offering and scaling [it] by entering different price segments, yet keeping the same recipe.” Evangelidis said, explaining why there was no flagship product in 2024. “Last year, our plan was all about scale and building on the success of Phone (1), Phone (2). And having done that successfully, we further scaled the team and resources, and also took time to kind of refine our flagship value proposition,” he added.
Evangelidis said that, for the moment at least, Nothing’s approach may not change in favour of more predictable release timelines.
“In the long run [yes], but [for] now, we still need to be a bit quite tactical on how to do things and how we roll [products] out. I feel it’s good that people are on their toes and don’t necessarily know [what’s next],” Evangelidis said.
So, with $1 billion in sales, 7 billion devices sold globally and two smartphones on the horizon, what’s next for Nothing?
The Nothing Phone (3), for one, with Evangelidis telling me the device will release “this summer”, meaning the British summer. So, possibly in July 2025.
Until then, I’ll keep my eyes peeled for anything from, well, Nothing.
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