Mumbai: In a major strategic shift, Nothing CEO Carl Pei has announced that the company’s budget-friendly sub-brand, CMF, will spin off into an independent, majority Indian-owned entity. Sharing his vision in an open letter titled “India Is Inevitable” on the microblogging platform X, Pei detailed plans to transform CMF into a homegrown global consumer electronics brand anchored by deep research and development (R&D).
Under the new restructuring plan, CMF will transition from a UK-managed product line to a standalone company headquartered in India. The new entity, formally incorporated as CMF India Private Limited, will have its controlling stake held by Indian shareholders. London-based Nothing will retain a minority equity stake and continue to support the venture as a technology and brand partner.
Pei emphasised that while India has successfully established a massive manufacturing base—with 99 per cent of smartphones sold domestically now assembled within the country—the critical next step is cultivating localized engineering and R&D. “Being a partner means the company is Indian: owned in India, run from India, engineered in India,” Pei wrote.
As part of the spin-off, the newly independent CMF will inherit core assets from Nothing, including the proprietary Nothing OS, its core engineering team, established supplier relationships, and industrial design frameworks. Moving forward, the local company will independently handle structural design, thermal management, software updates, and camera processing.
Setting a highly ambitious long-term target, Pei stated that CMF aims to achieve 100 million annual smartphone shipments. Reaching this massive volume, he argued, would elevate CMF from a mere brand to a robust platform. This scale would enable the company to dictate custom component specifications to global suppliers rather than relying on standard off-the-shelf parts.
This corporate pivot builds upon Nothing’s earlier commitment to the Indian market, which included a $100 million joint venture with contract manufacturer Optiemus to localize production and generate substantial employment over the next few years.
Despite the grand vision for the future, the immediate hardware roadmap for CMF faces a temporary pause. The brand has decided not to release any new smartphones in 2026. This decision stems from escalating component prices, particularly memory costs, which currently make it financially unviable to launch a budget-friendly successor to the CMF Phone 2 Pro. However, CMF still plans to expand its portfolio into entirely new consumer electronics categories before the end of the year.