Nothing Technology vs vivo

Carl Pei was born in Beijing in 1989, grew up in Stockholm after his family relocated, briefly attended the Stockholm School of Economics, and dropped out to work at Nokia, Meizu, and Oppo. In 2013, he co-founded OnePlus with Pete Lau — a Chinese startup that sold flagship-quality Android phones at a fraction of Samsung and Apple's prices, using an invite-only system that created scarcity and community energy. The OnePlus One sold nearly 1.5 million units in its first year. Pei became the face of OnePlus globally — the marketer who built its distinctive culture and international brand voice. By 2020, OnePlus had shipped tens of millions of devices.

In October 2020, Carl Pei resigned from OnePlus — the company he had helped build over seven years. His explanation: OnePlus had begun to feel corporate; the original disruptor energy had been absorbed into its parent company Oppo's ecosystem. The smartphone industry had become predictable and joyless: every new phone was a rectangle of glass with incrementally better specs and no personality. Pei wanted to make technology that excited people again. He founded Nothing in January 2021 and spent the following months raising $7 million from investors including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Tony Fadell (inventor of the iPod), Casey Neistat, and Kevin Lin (Twitch co-founder). His thesis: design and transparency could differentiate a hardware brand in a commoditised market.

Nothing's first product — Ear (1) wireless earbuds — launched in July 2021 at $99. The defining characteristic was visual: a transparent case and transparent earbuds that exposed internal components — speakers, antennas, circuit boards — creating an aesthetic that was simultaneously industrial and oddly beautiful. The design borrowed from Braun, from Dieter Rams, from the tradition of making the mechanism visible rather than hiding it. The Nothing Phone (1) followed in July 2022, featuring a "Glyph Interface" — 900 white LED lights on the back of the phone that responded to notifications, charging status, and ringtones in customisable patterns. The glyph became Nothing's signature — a genuinely novel use of a smartphone's rear surface.

By 2024, Nothing had surpassed $1 billion in lifetime cumulative sales, with annual revenue exceeding $500 million and over 7 million devices shipped. In India — the world's most competitive smartphone market — Nothing became the fastest-growing brand with over 577% year-on-year growth. The CMF by Nothing sub-brand, launched at a lower price point, was spun off as a separate company in 2025. Nothing raised additional funding at a valuation above $1 billion, making Pei a unicorn-founder in under four years. The Phone (3), launched in July 2025, targeted a higher price tier — competing more directly with Samsung and Apple — while retaining the distinctive glyph design and transparent aesthetic that no competitor had successfully imitated.

Nothing's Phone (3) launched in July 2025 alongside the Headphone (1) — over-ear headphones with audio by KEF, maintaining the transparent industrial aesthetic. The company's CMF sub-brand was expanding internationally, providing a volume product line that subsidised the flagship development costs. Nothing OS — the company's custom Android skin — had developed a growing feature set around AI integration, particularly "Essential Space," a second-memory AI tool. The broader question for Nothing remained the same one all hardware challengers face: how to maintain design distinctiveness and cultural relevance against competitors who had unlimited resources to copy any successful idea. Carl Pei's record — building two distinct phone brands from scratch — suggested he had a better answer to that question than most.

vivo's origin lies with BBK Electronics, a Chinese consumer electronics company founded by Shen Wei in Dongguan in 1995. BBK initially built its business in VCD and DVD players, then expanded into electronic learning products and, as the mobile market emerged, into smartphones. BBK's distinctive strategy was to operate multiple independent smartphone brands targeting different customer segments and geographies, rather than building a single global brand: OPPO was established in 2004 for style-conscious consumers; vivo was spun off in 2009 with a focus on music and camera capabilities; and OnePlus was established in 2013 as a premium price-performance brand (though OnePlus subsequently merged with OPPO).

vivo differentiated initially on audio: the brand invested in Hi-Fi audio chips, integrated DAC (digital-to-analog converters) that audiophiles noticed, and positioned itself as the premium music phone in China's mid-range market. The audio focus gave vivo a technical identity at a time when most Chinese brands were competing primarily on processor specifications and screen resolution. vivo entered India in 2014 — a strategic decision that proved transformative. India's smartphone market was growing at extraordinary rates with a large aspirational middle class willing to pay a premium for camera and display quality. vivo invested heavily in cricket sponsorships, including the Indian Premier League (IPL) title sponsorship, to build brand visibility.

vivo launched the first commercial smartphone with an under-display fingerprint sensor in 2018 — a technology that Samsung, Apple, and other major brands subsequently adopted. The achievement demonstrated that BBK's brands could genuinely innovate in hardware design rather than simply iterating on existing concepts. vivo's X series pursued camera leadership aggressively, partnering with Zeiss — the German optical manufacturer — from 2021 for camera optics and imaging science. The Zeiss partnership gave vivo's flagship photography credentials with a prestigious European optics heritage, echoing similar partnerships between Huawei and Leica, and Xiaomi and Leica.

vivo's X100 series launched in 2023 with a 200MP main sensor and a periscope telephoto lens system developed with Zeiss achieving 4.3x optical zoom and 10x optical zoom variants. The camera specifications attracted attention from camera reviewers who consistently ranked vivo's flagship photography among the best available. In India, vivo maintained market share in the top-five alongside Samsung, Xiaomi, and OPPO, benefiting from years of brand building investment and a distribution network that reached tier-2 and tier-3 Indian cities. vivo's international footprint extended across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

vivo was consistently ranked among the world's top five smartphone brands by shipment volume — alongside Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, and OPPO — with annual shipments exceeding 100 million devices in strong years. Annual revenue was estimated at approximately $25 billion. The brand remained private under BBK, with no disclosure of detailed financial results. vivo's strategy in 2024 focused on the premium segment — competing with Samsung's Galaxy S series and Apple's iPhone in markets like India and Southeast Asia — while maintaining volume in the mid-range that sustained distribution relationships. The camera brand that BBK had spun off in 2009 with a Hi-Fi audio focus had grown into one of the most significant consumer electronics brands in the world.