New Delhi, September 21, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
India is moving towards producing globally recognised consumer electronics companies, with Nothing CEO Carl Pei identifying the country’s large smartphone market, young population, manufacturing ecosystem and software talent as key advantages.
Pei said countries such as Japan, South Korea and China had followed a similar trajectory, developing large-scale consumer electronics manufacturing before producing brands with a global presence. He believes India has now reached a comparable stage of development.
According to Pei, India already has much of the industrial foundation required to build global consumer electronics companies. However, he said the crucial missing element was the development of strong, in-house research and development capabilities.
“India will produce global consumer electronics companies. The only question is when, and that depends on who builds them,” Pei said.
He argued that sustained success in the sector requires companies to develop and continuously improve their own products rather than relying primarily on manufacturing partners.
“Manufacturing is step one. Step two is R&D,” Pei said.
Pei said Nothing plans to contribute to India’s evolving electronics ecosystem by spinning out its CMF brand as a standalone Indian company. The new entity will be majority Indian-owned and headquartered in India, with its own team and research and development capabilities in the country. Nothing will continue as a shareholder and partner in the business.
Drawing on his eight years of experience in China, Pei said he had witnessed first-hand how a manufacturing ecosystem could develop into a global consumer electronics powerhouse. He said that experience reinforced his view that India could follow a similar path if companies invest in engineering and product development alongside manufacturing.
Pei also recalled India’s smartphone market in 2015, when domestic brands accounted for nearly half of smartphone sales and an Indian brand briefly overtook Samsung to become the country’s best-selling smartphone brand.
He said the next phase of growth for Indian electronics companies would depend on their ability to design and develop products themselves, rather than focusing only on assembly.
FOLLOW NOW
