London-based consumer technology company Nothing, on Thursday, announced that its design-focused sub-brand CMF will operate as an independent subsidiary, with India as its global headquarters for operations, R&D, and manufacturing. The move underscores India’s growing role as a hub for building and scaling next-generation consumer technology brands.
As part of this transition, Nothing and Indian electronics major Optiemus Infracom have formed a strategic joint venture to establish India as a global production and export base for Nothing and CMF products. The venture entails an investment of over $100 million and is expected to create more than 1,800 jobs over the next three years.
Nothing has already invested over $200 million in India to date.
Moneycontrol, on April 7, had exclusively reported that Nothing was exploring a joint venture with top electronics manufacturers in India.
“India will play a key role in shaping the future of the global smartphone industry,” said Carl Pei, CEO of Nothing. “With our end-to-end capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to now build CMF into India’s first truly global smartphone brand. Our joint venture with Optiemus is a key milestone toward making that vision a reality.”
For Optiemus, which has a track record of manufacturing for leading global technology brands, the partnership is a step toward deepening India’s electronics manufacturing ecosystem. “Global brands choosing India to build is a testament to the strength of the Indian ecosystem and the vision of Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” said Ashok Gupta, Executive Chairman of Optiemus.
Industry experts see the move as strategically sound. Navkendar Singh, associate vice president at IDC, said, “This move makes sense since CMF has found a market in the budget segments in both phones and wearables in India. This will allow for a more focused approach to take on intense competition in these segments from established players like Xiaomi, Realme, Vivo, Motorola, boAt, Noise, etc. Another driver could be that Nothing wants to avoid having a value-for-money rub-off on itself coming from CMF. That makes sense since Nothing seems to be focused on the mid-premium end of the market.”
The announcement follows a series of strategic moves positioning India at the heart of CMF’s global operations, including shifting CMF’s global marketing function to India and appointing Himanshu Tandon as VP of CMF Business.
Earlier this year, Nothing closed its $200 million Series C round at a $1.3 billion valuation, led by Tiger Global with new investors such as Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath.
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