Nothing Phone 2 Is Launching In The US Later This Year. Here's What We Know So Far
Nothing has confirmed that its second smartphone is in the pipeline, and it will officially be making its way to the United States. To recall, the Carl Pei-led company only brought the Phone (1) stateside as part of a beta program a few weeks ago, months after its debut in the international markets including Europe and Asia.
Pei told Inverse that the upcoming device will be called Nothing Phone (2) and it will break cover later this year. Nothing has been pulling in good revenue figures and has already sold over a million devices, which include its maiden phone and two wireless earbuds — the Nothing ear (1) and Nothing ear (stick) — rocking the brand's signature transparent design elements.
Explaining the brand's delayed arrival to the U.S. smartphone market, Pei reasoned that "when you make a smartphone for the U.S. you need to work with the carriers on certification and adapting some of their features into your OS." The OnePlus alum added that the company has now doubled its workforce and also commands more leverage in the supply chain, allowing it to expand its wings to more markets.
The next one is going to be a step up
Notably, Pei claims that the Phone (2) won't just be an iterative successor to the Phone (1) from a hardware upgrade perspective. Instead, it will be a more premium phone. However, the Nothing CEO didn't outright classify it as a flagship, and neither did he reveal any other details about its design or the upgrades that it will bring to the table.
However, it appears that Nothing is coming to the U.S. not solely because it now has the resources to do so. Instead, a third of the company's entire earbuds sale comes from the U..S market. "By not launching our phone in the U.S., we're leaving potentially a third of the volume on the table," Pei explains while talking about Nothing's smartphone strategy in the U.S. market.
Pei also revealed that with the Phone (2), the company will lean more into the software side than before. To recall, the current version of Nothing OS is mostly a stock Android affair with a handful of clever enhancements and a promise of long-term software support. We'll have to wait and see what Nothing has been cooking up in its labs for its second phone that will shake things up in the U.S. market, where Apple and Samsung reign supreme.