Nothing says offline expansion major priority, warns RAM shortage could last till late next year

Nothing says its India story is only just beginning. In this exclusive interview with India Today Tech, Akis Evangelidis talks about Nothing's offline expansion plans, RAM crisis, CMF's future and the company's next big AI bet.

In Short

• Nothing plans to expand offline retail across more Indian cities
• RAM and memory shortage could continue until the second half of 2027
• Nothing also confirms its first AI hardware product will launch later this year

When Nothing entered India in July 2022, it stepped into one of the world's most crowded and fiercely competitive smartphone markets. Four years later, India has become one of the company's biggest growth engines, fuelled largely by online sales. But now, the company is betting just as heavily on offline retail. The reason? Nothing's Bengaluru store.

Nothing's Bengaluru store is its second exclusive retail outlet in the world after London. And in just 4 months it has generated nearly Rs 20 crore in revenue and attracted close to 100,000 visitors, according to the London-based startup. The response, the company admits, has far exceeded its expectations. Now, Akis Evangelidis, co-founder and president, India at Nothing, tells India Today Tech that the success of the Bengaluru store has given it the boost to expand in other cities.

According to Evangelidis, the company's offline expansion will be a major focus over the coming years. He reveals that the brand is already actively scouting locations in several cities, including Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

"If anything, I now feel we should have done that earlier and scaled it," Evangelidis says.

"We're actively looking across Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and quite a few cities where we already have a big user base. It's more about finding the right location first."

While flagship stores remain a top priority, Nothing is also accelerating its offline retail expansion across the country. Evangelidis says the company has expanded from around 2,000 retail stores in India two years ago and expects to reach 15,000 stores by the end of this year.

"15,000 stores sounds big, but we should be able to double that quite rapidly. That's part of the plan," he says.

Growth plan and the memory shortage

As Nothing prepares for its next phase of growth, it is also dealing with one of the smartphone industry's biggest headwinds, which is the ongoing RAM and memory shortage. Evangelidis admits the crisis has already influenced the company's product strategy and it is unlikely to end anytime soon. "It should be until the second half of next year. It's going to be a bit of a new normal for a while," he says.

According to Evangelidis, the ongoing crisis is hitting affordable smartphones much harder than premium devices. He suggests that by the end of this year, the cost of memory alone for a 24GB RAM and 1TB storage configuration could reach nearly USD 200.

That's actually higher than the bill of materials cost of the entire Phone 3a. That's why it's having such a drastic impact on the sub-Rs 30,000 segment, he says.

No new CMF Phone in 2026

Infact, the shortage has already forced Nothing to rethink its own product roadmap. Evangelidis earlier confirmed the company decided not to launch a new CMF smartphone this year rather than releasing a product that didn't meet its standards.

"We could have launched a product, but it wouldn't be a product we were proud of," says Evangelidis. "People buy Nothing products because they expect a complete user experience with no compromise. That's why we preferred not to launch any CMF phones this year and postpone that."

While there won't be a new CMF smartphone this year, Nothing insists that the newly launched Phone 4b is not a replacement for the CMF lineup. Instead, Evangelidis describes it as another entry point into the Nothing ecosystem for buyers who may not yet be familiar with the CMF brand.

"(With Nothing Phone 4b), it's just to ensure those people have an opportunity to buy into the Nothing ecosystem if they don't want to do that through the A-series," Evangelidis says.

CMF, meanwhile, is not being put on hold entirely. Evangelidis says the company will continue expanding its IoT portfolio and has recently started manufacturing the CMF Watch Pro in India through its joint venture with Optiemus.

New AI hardware by Nothing coming soon

Beyond its smartphone business, Nothing is also preparing to enter a new category. "We're actually launching our first AI hardware product by the end of the year," Evangelidis reveals.

Without sharing further details, Evangelidis says the upcoming launch will be part of a broader shift in how smartphones will evolve. He believes future operating systems will become deeply personalised, with AI proactively understanding users' habits and routines and working across connected devices to automate everyday tasks.

"The whole operating system is going to be changing. There's going to be a whole AI hardware product ecosystem around the smartphone," he adds.

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