Carl Pei's Nothing to locally manufacture smartphone in India: Official

Google-backed technology company Nothing, led by former OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, will manufacture all smartphones that it will sell in India locally, a senior company official said on Monday.

In March, the company had announced plans to expand its device ecosystem beyond the audio segment starting with foray into the smartphone business.

"We are thrilled to announce that every phone (1) sold in India will be manufactured locally," Nothing India vice president and general manager Manu Sharma told PTI.

The smartphone will be manufactured in Tamil Nadu.

Nothing is developing its own Operating System (OS) for Phone (1), which will be built using Qualcomm's Snapdragon mobile platform.

The UK-based company has plans to expand the product portfolio to set up a full device ecosystem and is looking to create an ecosystem of connected products, which will be an alternative to Apple ecosystem but it will be open for other brands as well.

"Nothing phone (1) is the real start of our journey and we cannot think of a better way to establish ourselves in India, which is a key market for us," Sharma said.

The company has been selling audio devices ear (1) in India since last August. The company smartphone is scheduled to be unveiled on July 12.

For the upcoming Nothing phone (1), the company is expanding its customer support in the region to over 270 authorised service centres in more than 250 cities as well as year-round support via the Nothing India channels.

The company plans to sell Nothing phone (1) through e-commerce platform Flipkart.

EQT Ventures, C Ventures and other private investors, including Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape & inventor of the iPod), Casey Neistat (YouTube personality and co-founder of Beme), Kevin Lin (co-founder of Twitch) and Steve Huffman (co-founder and CEO of Reddit), have also invested in the company.