Carl Pei confirms Nothing is in talks with US carriers, “Phone (2) isn’t launching anytime soon"

The Nothing Phone (1) is a mid-range smartphone from a company founded by Carl Pei, one of the co-founders of OnePlus. When it launched, the Nothing Phone (1) would not be made available in the US just due to how difficult it is for emerging smartphone brands to be successful in the US market without a major partner as a carrier. In an interview with CNBC, this could change soon.

Pei confirms that that Nothing is “in discussions with some carriers in the US to potentially launch a future product there,” and although he didn’t confirm whether it was a smartphone, it’s heavily implied with the discussions about competing with Apple amongst Gen Z users in the States. “There’s a challenge with Android where iOS is just becoming more and more dominant,” explains Pei. “They have a very strong lock-in with iMessage, with AirDrop, especially among Gen Z. So that’s a rising concern for me.”

Pei says “It’s definitely a market where there’s already a lot of interest for our products. And if we launch our smartphones there, I’m sure we could obtain significant growth.” Meanwhile, Nothing expects its revenues to be significantly higher in 2022 – from around $20 million in 2021 to $250 million to 2022. Nothing also has double the number of employees to now more than 400.

The goal is to be profitable in 2024 […] We are not profitable right now. And this year was made even harder due to the foreign currency exchange. We pay a lot of our COGS in USD but we make money in Pounds, Euros, in Indian Rupees – so everything devalued against the USD.” – Carl Pei

Soon after the interview was released, Carl Pei confirmed on Twitter that the “Phone (2) isn’t launching anytime soon,” and that “we won’t churn out dozens of products a year like many others.”

Phone (2) isn't launching anytime soon. We're focused on doing a few things well, and won't churn out dozens of products a year like many others.

Phone (1) is our main focus. We're cooking something really great in terms of software, Android 13 and beyond.

— Carl Pei (@getpeid) December 5, 2022

Pei also iterated that the Phone (1) continues to be the company’s focus and that it is working on future software updates coming with Android 13.

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