When established electronics brands were fighting chip shortages and reconfiguring their supply chains to fight the pandemic, Nothing joined the highly competitive industry last year in October . Led by Internet entrepreneur Carl Pei, who had co-founded OnePlus, Nothing roped in several big names as its investors and the brand managed to grab the mindshare of tech enthusiasts globally in a short span of time.
For a tech brand that started during a pandemic and all key employees being hired remotely, Nothing seems to have done a fairly good job when it comes to creating a differentiated product story. Nothing entered the consumer tech space with a TWS earbud– Ear (1) promising big on design, audio performance while keeping value-for-money in mind.
Manu Sharma, Vice President & General Manager, Nothing India in an interaction with Debashis Sarkar of News18 shared how the brand plans to play big next year.
“Imagine starting a company in the midst of a pandemic and collaborating with people from different time zones. It has been quite an amazing journey for us and we have come a long way,” said Sharma.
He joined Nothing India in February this year as the company’s vice president and general manager after working close to a decade with Samsung. Sharma played a key role in the launch of many flagship Samsung Galaxy phones along with wearables in India.
“In the personal technology space, the passion is completely lost. One brand launched a white TWS earbuds and literally everybody copied it. All products looked exactly the same,” he said when asked about his decision to join the startup. He also mentioned that at Nothing, the brand aims to focus on unique design while offering good performance and value to consumers.
Talking about why Nothing started by launching a TWS earbuds first, Sharma said, “We have plans to launch devices to create an ecosystem. The Ear (1) is just a starting point for us. It’s a very fast growing market and it’s a product category that we can easily get into. Honestly, when we started this product we were just oiling the engine for bigger product launches in future.”
“We felt that with Ear (1), we were able to set up our operations and we are happy with the success of Ear (1). Think about a brand that comes from nowhere and is able to sell product stocks in minutes. Within 45 days, we were number 3 in the premium segment market of TWS as per Counterpoint Research,” he added.
Big 2022 Plans: Rapid Hiring, New Partnerships And 5 New Products
Commenting on plans for 2022, Sharma said that the company is working in full-swing to cement its position in the consumer tech industry. “Next year, in 2022, Nothing will shake up a lot of heads in the industry where people will start recognising us as a brand to reckon with.”
As far as new product launches are concerned, Nothing has remained tight-lipped about its plans for now. However, Sharma confirmed that Nothing will venture into five new product. A lot of rumours have been around the launch of a smartphone by Nothing, while there is no official information about the same, it’s highly unlikely that the brand will skip launching a smartphone in 2022, especially when it’s focusing on creating a connected ecosystem of products.
Rumours suggest that Nothing may venture into the wearables category along with accessories such as power banks. Recently, the brand launched another variant of the Ear (1) TWS earbuds in black colour.
Sharma also reiterates that these products will be positioned mainly in the premium category while making sure consumers find enough value in buying them.
In order to grow its footprint in India, Sharma said that Nothing will be hiring rapidly across the country while another key focus would be building new partnerships.
“India is a very important market for us and our market planning is done in such a way that newer products come to India just after launch,” he added.
Nothing has already partnered with Flipkart to sell its products in the country. Next year, Nothing will be continuing with online sales as there’s no immediate plans for the company to shift to offline mode.
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