New Delhi — India is positioned to produce its own global consumer electronics companies, Nothing CEO Carl Pei said, pointing to the country’s large smartphone market, young population, manufacturing capacity and expanding technology talent.
Pei said countries that built consumer electronics industries at scale, including Japan, South Korea and China, eventually created major global brands of their own.
He said India is now approaching a similar turning point. The country is already the world’s second-largest smartphone manufacturer and has a large young population and a deep pool of software talent.
According to Pei, India’s next challenge is not manufacturing capacity but developing the ability to design, improve and refine products through domestic research and development.
He said strong in-house R&D capabilities distinguish companies that can sustain long-term growth from those that rely heavily on products created by manufacturing partners.
“India will produce global consumer electronics companies. The only question is when, and that depends on who builds them,” Pei said.
Pei said Nothing plans to contribute to that development by spinning out its CMF brand into a standalone Indian company. The new business will be majority Indian-owned and headquartered in India, with its own team and R&D operations in the country. Nothing will remain a shareholder and partner.
Pei said his eight years in China gave him first-hand insight into how a manufacturing ecosystem can develop into a global consumer electronics powerhouse.
That experience helped shape his view that India can follow a similar path if companies invest in engineering and product development rather than focusing primarily on assembly.
Looking back at India’s smartphone market in 2015, Pei said domestic brands accounted for nearly half of smartphone sales, with one Indian company briefly surpassing Samsung to become the country’s best-selling smartphone brand.
He said the next major opportunity for Indian electronics companies will depend on whether they can develop their own products and technology.
“Manufacturing is step one. Step two is R&D,” Pei said, adding that India already has much of the industrial foundation needed to make that transition. (Source: IANS)
