Nothing, which is still a fairly new brand, has managed to make a big mark in this competitive smartphone market. While many companies take years to establish themselves in this segment, Nothing is among the few that have found the right mix of content with great marketing strategies. In less than 4 years, the brand sold 4 million products, which is an impressive number for this young brand. Akis Evangelidis, co-founder of Nothing, attributes this success to the brand’s focus on providing a unique user experience with good hardware, innovative design, and clean software experience, as he told India Today Tech in an interview.

Speaking about the company’s latest success with the CMF Phone 1, Evangelidis explained the rationale behind creating the CMF brand as a separate entity. “Transparency (design) and innovation have a price,” he said. He revealed that Nothing could not maintain its operational standards within those cost constraints. Therefore, separating their brand was important, as they believe they have established a unique and strong brand identity on par with Apple. They did not want to compromise on this identity, but still wanted to offer well-designed and thoughtfully developed products in the more affordable segment.

He added, “Everyone is driving brand equity around value for money. We have struck the right balance with the CMF Phone 1. But we also offer something unique that you can only experience with our product. This element will be interesting to grow our business and create a very loyal fan base.”

And that has been true for almost all of the company’s products, whether it’s the Nothing Ear (A), the Phone 2A, or the upcoming Nothing Phone 3. At least that’s what Evangelidis told us about the latter. The co-founder says the Phone 3 will also have a “unique” factor, which will be done primarily by AI integration on the device. “The Phone 3 will be a milestone in our AI journey. And we didn’t want to rush it; we want to make sure we put out a product that we’re really proud to launch,” he said.

Unlike its usual launch timeline of unveiling flagships around June-July every year, this time Nothing announced that the Phone 3 will be delayed until 2025. But the company teased that it is working on some major AI integration on the device. Evangelidis says the phone will have a refined user interface that will offer a more “contextualized and personalized” experience.

“AI is the future of user interfaces,” he said. “We are working on integrating AI in a way that will revolutionize the way users interact with our products.” This vision includes personalized, context-aware interfaces that anticipate user needs and meet them intuitively.

Evangelidis gave a great example: simplifying travel experiences through AI. Imagine a smartphone that automatically checks you in for flights, orders a cab to the airport, shows you your boarding pass upon arrival, and updates you on weather conditions at your destination — all without having to switch apps or navigate multiple screens. This is how Nothing envisions the future.

“I think there will be a step-by-step approach to get there, but that’s the ultimate goal. The essence of Nothing is that technology is integrated all around you, flowing across different interfaces in real time.”

He did not reveal whether the Nothing Phone 3 will retain the transparent design, but assured that people can expect “a lot of cool and fun things.” Regarding the timing of the launch event, he said it “may or may not” happen in the first quarter of 2025, indicating that it is still too early to confirm.

Evangelidis said that 2024 is about “scaling” and the next year will be focused on “aggressively pursuing innovation.” This suggests that there could be more exciting products coming besides the Nothing Phone 3. As for scaling, he revealed Nothing’s plan for “aggressive offline expansion” this year.

“That’s where we’re doubling our teams, expanding service centers, and building a much stronger offline presence as well as the entire ecosystem.”

Currently, Nothing has a very strong online presence and demand is very high. “It took us two years to sell the first million, a year to sell the second million, six months to sell the third million and recently we crossed the fourth million in less than three months,” he said. Nothing initially reported that it sold 500,000 units of the Phone 1 and 100,000 units of the Nothing Phone (2a) on the first day.