Key Takeaways
- CMF will now be standalone: Different from last year’s subsidiary structure.
- Nothing will remain a shareholder: But CMF will operate independently.
- India could be a key focus: Manufacturing and engineering talent support the move.
- CMF’s share declined: From 25% in 2025 to 11% in H1 2026.
- Memory costs add pressure: CMF’s value-for-money positioning limits price increases.
- CMF could strengthen India’s smartphone landscape: Potentially competing with Boult, Mivi and Lava.
- Optiemus Infracom to acquire 51.1% of the equity in the joint venture.
Last year, CMF was spun off as a subsidiary
So last year, around the same time in September, there was news that CMF had been spun off from Nothing as an independent subsidiary. That was something which caught the attention of a lot of people.
At that time, CMF was still a part of Nothing. It was just a subsidiary of Nothing. Hence, the operations and everything would be handled by Nothing India in a way, but it would have an identity of its own, in simple terms if I can say this.
This year, the structure is different
Now, this year again in September, there is news that Nothing is spinning off CMF as a standalone company. This might look similar to what happened last year, but the difference is that last year it was a subsidiary, while this time it is a standalone company.
This means the balance sheet of Nothing and CMF will be different going forward.
What has happened now is that Nothing has spun off its CMF sub-brand as a standalone company, and Nothing will continue to be a shareholder and a partner in that company. It will not be controlled by Nothing and it will not be a sub-group of Nothing anymore.
This is where the technicality has changed.
Now, the market narrative about why it has been done versus why we think it has been done will be followed in the next part of the blog.
Why Nothing says it is happening
As per Nothing, the manufacturing capacity of India is pretty good. The engineering talent is good. So, it feels that there is no major homegrown electronics brand. If CMF becomes an Indian standalone company, it will give a boost to India and a lot to domestic manufacturing. This can be the reason for sure, but what’s hidden may be another reason.
What the SAG data tells us
So, let me talk about some of the data points of SAG estimates.
In 2025, the CMF sub-brand made up 25% of the total Nothing phone volume share globally. But guess what? It reduced to just 11% in the first half of 2026.
This 25% to 11% is very significant.
Exhibit 1: CMF’s share of Nothing’s global smartphone volume declined in H1 2026
And by the way, I’m talking about the smartphone part of things only right now.
If we notice carefully, there was no smartphone launch from CMF because of the memory price hike which has happened recently, and CMF doesn’t want to increase the price range because it was designed as a value-for-money brand.
These are some of the insights which I could understand.
CMF has also seen leadership changes
There has been, in the recent past, a CMF leadership exodus, one of the prominent Indian leaders who was previously heading a Chinese brand also left the company.
CMF’s positioning in the Indian smartphone market
So, talking about the current Indian scenario, if CMF becomes a standalone Indian company, then probably we are seeing not just Boult, not just Mivi, but also CMF entering as an Indian brand in the Indian smartphone market.
In this scenario, we believe CMF has a great positioning as a smartphone brand because the products which they have launched in the past couple of years were really great and the sales volume has been really nice.
So, this gives CMF an edge over the recently launched brands like Mivi or boAt and can be a tough competitor to existing Indian brand Lava.
Who takes over?
Optiemus Infracom will acquire 51.1% of the equity of the CMF joint venture and they will invest in local research & development and engineering. The news gave a massive boost to stock pricing of the public listed Optiemus as the stocks touched the upper circuit of 20%. Both CMF and Optiemus Infracom will benefit from it driven by government’s push to incentivize companies making Indian smartphone brand. This is probably one of the key reasons why we are seeing multiple Indian brands entering the market in 2026 including Mivi, Boult and now CMF x Optiemus.