Nothing's Akis on the Phone (4b) and Navigating the 2026 Smartphone Crunch

India has always been a competitive smartphone market, and especially in the mid-range segment, the competition is cutthroat. While some smartphone makers are cutting corners to preserve razor-thin margins, Nothing is trying a different playbook, "No shortcuts."

Talking about 2026, it has already been a tricky year for smartphone makers, where component costs have been skyrocketing, particularly the memory and storage silicon, forcing OEMs into a corner. The result has been price hikes across smartphone segments and the trimming of features or the pumping out of uninspiring hardware to maintain a presence on store shelves. Nothing's response? Postponing its next flagship, confirmed earlier this year, and now putting the brakes on the CMF phone lineup, and focusing on a singular, highly intentional transition into its brand new "b" series, with the first launch as the Nothing Phone (4b).

At the sidelines of the Phone (4b) launch, we sat down with Nothing's Akis Evangelidis, Co-founder and India President, to pull back the curtain on the engineering realities of navigating a global tech crunch and the all-new smartphone range. In a characteristically candid conversation, Evangelidis calls out competitor battery spec "gimmicks," explains why premium aspiration beats cheap value for money, and details how a last-minute locker-room handshake turned into an ultra-exclusive, championship-inspired Red phone.

On the Target Audience for Phone (4b)

As someone who has covered the Nothing brand since day one (in October 2020), when the very first announcement came, we've seen multiple pivots since then. We saw CMF arrive, we saw the Phone (a) series, and now we have the Phone (b). We believe that the (4b) represents a new beginning for the brand. How does Nothing differentiate itself for an audience that is already buying or has already bought the Phone (4a)?

Akis starts breaking down, "I feel like in India, this year, we've drastically built up brand awareness and consideration to some extent, so it's more to eventually satisfy the user pool, which hasn't yet bought into the "a" series, nor the flagship, which is never meant to kind of compete with our own "a" series buyers. Now, as we've kind of grown awareness, how do we capitalise and convert that in a way, right? And this is why everything comes in step by step. Because what you don't want to do is introduce the brand via your kind of entry point? If someone finds out about the Nothing brand, this phone for me- did we do our job right? It's like they're introduced to the brand and get excited about Nothing. With the Phone (4b), I have a product I can buy into the Nothing ecosystem."

Next, we asked about the specific consumer demographic you are targeting with the Phone (4b)? Akis said, "Definitely leaning towards the younger audience, you know, like 70% of our buyers are below 25 years old, so this eventually was skewing even kind of younger, maybe people at universities, right? All first jobbers."

On Keeping the Glyph Bar Across the Portfolio

Further, we asked what the engineering and cost rationale was behind bringing Glyph Bar to the (4b). Was it to ensure you created a distinct niche, rather than limiting it to only the Phone (4a) or the (4a) Pro? "I think it's something quite iconic, as per kind of Nothing products. You know, if anything, our kind of enthusiast audience, like they want to the Phone 1 or Phone 2 Glyph, you know, which is a lot more rational than something like this, and you know it's again true to kind of our product philosophy when we talk about a more intentional smartphone usage, and so on, and makes it the Nothing product, a Nothing product. It will be, and I don't see a future where they wouldn't be a Nothing Phone without a Glyph Bar. So, let's see how eventually that goes, but I think it was quite important for us to keep it right on the Phone (4b)."

Nothing's India President and Co-founder Akis Evangelidis during RCB Edition Phone (4b) launch in Bangalore

On the Hyper-Exclusive Red RCB Phone (4b)

Akis hinted that Nothing cracked a very last-minute RCB edition based on the Phone (4b) idea. Will this be a one-off, or will we see more limited-edition RCB phones in the future? He answered, "I feel we keep it a very iconic Red clean logo. I love how it kind of turned out, and it will be extremely limited. Unfortunately, those decisions usually need to be made a year ago, so we wouldn't be able to ramp up mass production and so on. So it's just going to be very limited products"

On future collaborations, he said it is tough to confirm that at this point, and Nothing will share more updates when the time is right.

On Surviving the Economic Downturn by Increasing Prices

This year has been incredibly harsh for many smartphone brands. If you look at the top 10 smartphone vendors list globally, almost everyone is bleeding red. Earlier this year, we learned that there wouldn't be a flagship from Nothing coming, and now we know there's no new CMF phone dropping this year either. What is the outlook for CMF's ecosystem products, such as TWS and other audio devices that don't rely on volatile components like memory chips?

Akis explained, "No choice for us as an increase in price, but thank God, we've done things the right way to be able to absorb the price increase because even though we have increased our prices, that demand is still there, it's been sustained, and I think if we hadn't built that, honestly, this year we would have been done for us. Because that's the thing that's the only way that we can cope is by increasing the price, but the good thing is that people are still buying our products. We still have sorted issues, so that's the opportunity we've created for ourselves. In contrast, other brands have been around for much longer than us, but they built a whole value proposition around value for money, and some of them are gone as they struggle a lot more."

Further on the CMF accessories, Akis added that in 2026 we will see IoT products under the CMF brand and that they will reassess the smartphone category once the market settles.

"We initially launched CMF because the brand awareness for Nothing was too small, and we didn't want to introduce lower price segments under the main brand. Also, introducing those entry price segments while maintaining our level of design innovation is very hard, so that's where CMF came into play. Right now, given the intense price pressure from memory component costs, we cannot just deliver on a product that meets our standards. We could have done it as many other brands have, but it would require shortcuts we don't feel comfortable taking as a brand. So, this is why we just decided to postpone."

On Overhauling After-Sales Service and Customer Support

After-sales service is the backbone of any brand in India. We wanted to understand what concrete improvements were made to Nothing's customer support system that can support the brand's growth. Akis said, "We are tracking all the efficiency metrics every time user service is being sent across, and everything is looking great and improving... We had a struggle three years ago, but over the last two years, that mechanism and the level of execution have been impeccable.

"Overall, the sentiment is great... almost 100% of exclusive service centre queries get solved within the same day. Yes, I think that's one thing we shouldn't completely miss out on, because it builds trust. Our customer satisfaction stands now around 98% of solves," Akis added.