CMF to Become Indian, Nothing’s Carl Pei Announces While Highlighting India’s ‘Inevitable’ Growth Potential

Nothing is spinning off CMF from the London-based tech firm, the company's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder, Carl Pei, announced on Monday. The executive further added that CMF will no longer be a subsidiary of the smartphone maker and will be constituted as a “standalone” Indian firm. Further, he emphasised that building an end-to-end research and development ecosystem within India should be the next step to build an Indian global consumer electronics brand. This comes after Nothing registered CMF as an Indian entity, while also moving its headquarters to the country. Earlier this year, Nothing also inaugurated its first flagship store in India.

Nothing's CMF to Become a Standalone Indian Company

In his latest article titled ‘India Is Inevitable', published on X, Nothing's Pei writes about the growth potential of India's consumer electronics sector, stating that it has now become the second-largest smartphone maker in the world. Further, the executive highlighted that 99 percent of the smartphones sold in India are manufactured domestically. In the article, the tech industry veteran announced that Nothing will soon spin its subsidiary, CMF, into a standalone, majority Indian-owned company.

However, after the restructuring, Nothing, the current parent company, will remain a stakeholder. CMF is already headquartered in India. It became an independent entity, registered and headquartered in the country earlier this year, in January.

Apart from this, Nothing's CEO highlighted the need for India to create an end-to-end research and development (R&D) ecosystem. He said that “Real R&D” would include the “ability to design, engineer, and keep improving a product in-house”. According to Pei, this will help India create its own “global champions” or global consumer electronics brands, similar to how Japan, China, and South Korea did. He further talked about India's large young population and demographic dividend.

In July, the Ministry of Information Technology and Electronics (MeitY) announced that the Union Cabinet has greenlit the Mobile Phone Manufacturing Scheme (MPSE) with a budgetary allocation of Rs. 62,500 crore. The scheme aims to help homegrown electronics brands in the country while enabling them to “achieve technological sovereignty” and economies of scale.