In a conversation with Inverse, Pei Yu confirmed that the Nothing Phone (2) will be released in 2023, and talked about some upgrades to the new phone.
Pei Yu said that their next Nothing Phone (2) will be “more advanced” than the first generation and that software will be one of its “main focuses”.
Commenting on the relationship between the existing Nothing Phone (1) and Nothing Phone (2), Pei Yu said, “The mobile chip has really been enhanced in the last seven to nine years. That’s why I would avoid calling the Nothing Phone (2) a flagship because that would make it seem like the Nothing Phone (1) is not a flagship. Among Nothing products, Phone (1) is a very important flagship in terms of our own attention. That’s why I chose the word “premium” to describe Phone (2), it’s a more advanced upgrade, but it’s as much a flagship as Phone (1).”
Meanwhile, Pei Yu also confirmed that Nothing Phone (2) will enter the US market later this year and that the company will make it a priority this year. “We’re excited about the U.S. market because it’s a big country. If you look at the sales of our headsets, you’ll see that about a third of them come from the U.S. If we don’t launch the phone in the U.S., then we’re probably going to lose a third of our sales.”
In Pei Yu’s view, the overall decline in sales in the smartphone market represents a market that will be more open to innovative, fresh products. “From a business perspective, Apple and Samsung shouldn’t go very niche or try something completely different, because that could alienate them from existing users. Whereas a small company like us can go in and try to do something different, it’s not that we’re smarter or they can’t do it, it’s just that it really doesn’t make much sense for them to do it.”
Pei Yu also revealed that the main reason Nothing didn’t sell its first-generation phones to the U.S. in the past was its inability to meet the compliance, and feature integration requirements of local telcos. “When you make a phone for the U.S., you need to work with the telcos to certify and integrate some of their features into your OS. nothing used to not have the resources to do that, but now we do.”
Since its founding in 2021, Nothing has grown from 200 to 400 employees.
