Nothing boasts of six figure Phone 1 sales in its first month of sale in India

It’s only been on sale for less than two months, but Nothing has already revealed some early sales figures for the Phone 1 in India, where it released on July 21st.

Speaking with GSMArena, Nothing’s vice president and general manager for India, Manu Sharma, said the company had sold over 100,000 Phone 1s in 20 days of sales in the country via retailer Flipkart (its exclusive sales partner), and that over 10 million users had signed up to be notified when the phone went on sale. Sharma says the phone was the bestselling handset on Flipkart in the ₹30,000-plus (around $378) price category.

Not bad for a first effort, but those figures pale in comparison to the total Indian smartphone market, where analysts IDC report that around 35 million devices were shipped between April and June (Q2) this year, which works out at an average of roughly 11.7 million per month. Although IDC is yet to publish comparable figures for July and August, last year it reported that 48 million phones were sold during the third quarter of 2021, or an average of 16 million per month. Either way, it suggests Nothing’s market share in India is less than one percent.

Compared to the a previous independent startup that tried to enter the smartphone market, however, Nothing’s figures compare more favorably. Android Authority points out that IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo previously estimated that then smartphone startup Essential had shipped just 88,000 units of the Essential Phone in 2017 (it released in August). Essential disputed this, and said sales were “well in the six figures” in that year. Regardless, these numbers suggest Nothing is on the way to comfortably outperforming Essential’s initial release.

Another comparison: Jeronimo previously noted that OnePlus sold nearly a million units of its debut smartphone in its first six months of sale in 2014. Then again, with the backing of Chinese smartphone giant BBK, OnePlus wasn’t a startup in the same way as either Nothing or Essential. OnePlus also made its first smartphone available in North America, a market that Nothing has skipped with the Phone 1.

It’s too early to say whether the Phone 1 has been a sales success or not. I guess the only real test will be whether Nothing is still around in half a decade’s time. A spokesperson for the company did not respond to questions about its sales figures in other markets like Europe.