Nothing’s CMF to Become an Indian Owned Company
CMF will become an independent, India-based company majority-owned by Indian shareholders, Nothing CEO Carl Pei confirmed.
Nothing will remain a shareholder and partner, while CMF will have its own team and research and development operations in India.
The latest announcement expands on plans first revealed in September 2025, when Nothing said it would separate CMF into an independent subsidiary based in India.
At the time, Nothing also announced plans to invest more than $100 million in a joint venture with Optiemus to manufacture CMF products locally. The project is expected to create around 1,800 jobs over three years.
CMF was formally registered as CMF India Private Limited in December 2025. Pei has now confirmed that Indian shareholders will hold the majority stake, although he has not disclosed their identities or the exact ownership structure.
CMF Will Handle More of Its Own Engineering
According to Pei, CMF will take Nothing OS, engineering resources, supplier relationships and brand operations with it.
Nothing OS is the Android-based software developed by Nothing. Pei said every Nothing device released since 2021 has received its scheduled software updates.
CMF also plans to take greater control over smartphone engineering instead of relying heavily on manufacturing partners.
Pei said this will include designing phone structures and choosing materials, managing heat and durability, selecting camera sensors, developing camera software, writing the operating system, committing to software updates, tuning and certifying antennas, and working directly with suppliers on displays, chipsets and camera modules.
He argued that companies that leave most of this work to manufacturing partners are effectively selecting products from existing catalogs and mainly competing on price.
India Is Already CMF’s Biggest Market
CMF launched in September 2023 as Nothing’s lower-priced brand, and India quickly became its largest market.
CMF smartphones sell for below $200. According to IDC data cited in the report, phones priced between $100 and $200 accounted for more than 42% of smartphone shipments in India during the second quarter of 2025.
Pei also pointed to changes in India’s smartphone industry. Indian brands accounted for close to half of smartphone sales in the country in 2015, but their share had fallen to below 1% by 2025.
He argued that many domestic brands relied heavily on ready-made phone designs from manufacturers and lost ground when foreign competitors arrived with stronger engineering capabilities.
Pei noted that 99% of smartphones sold in India are now manufactured in the country, and said engineering should become the next major step.
CMF Is Targeting 100 Million Phones Per Year
Pei said CMF’s long-term target is to sell 100 million smartphones annually.
He believes reaching that scale would give the company enough influence for suppliers to develop components specifically for CMF instead of only offering existing parts.
However, several details remain unclear.
Pei has not identified CMF’s Indian shareholders, explained how ownership will be divided or provided a date for the transition. He also did not explain who will be responsible for Nothing OS updates and customer support for existing CMF devices after the separation.
CMF’s current smartphone lineup also remains limited.
Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis said in June that CMF would not launch a new phone in 2026, as rising memory prices made it difficult to produce a successor to the CMF Phone 2 Pro while maintaining CMF’s pricing.
Other CMF products, including devices in new categories, are still planned for this year. Until then, the CMF Phone 2 Pro remains the brand’s newest smartphone.
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