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Finnish phone-maker HMD bundles Indian AI chatbot onto new smartphone in push to reach local market

Posted on May 22, 2026 by faz_business

Finnish phone maker HMD today launched its first smartphone, called the Vibe 2 5G, which comes preloaded with Indian AI company Sarvam’s chatbot Indus. Both companies had first announced the partnership during the India AI summit held in New Delhi in February.

The Indus app is powered by Sarvam’s locally trained 105-billion-parameter model — a measure of the AI’s scale and sophistication — and launched at the AI summit. The app supports 22 Indic languages and mid-sentence code-switching (the ability to fluidly mix languages mid-conversation, like switching between Hindi and English), which helps the assistant better understand the context of a query. Currently, the application doesn’t support offline usage, and it doesn’t have any integrated feature with the device to invoke the AI assistant through a shortcut.

The partnership is a potential testing ground for both companies to gauge the appetite for an India-focused chatbot.

“With this partnership, the first thing we want to do is get the Indus app to consumers,” said Ravi Kunwar, HMD’s CEO and Vice President for India and APAC, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Once they start using it, we will move to phase two to focus on driving more traction and stickiness. Right now, by pre-loading the app, we want to be more accessible to users,” he said.

The Vibe 2 5G is a mid-range Android phone with a 6,000mAh battery and a price tag of ₹10,999($114). Kunwar added the devices in the Vibe series of smartphones will also get the chatbot, and the company is also expected to launch a feature phone with Sarvam AI integration in the coming months.

That feature phone integration may ultimately prove more significant for both companies. HMD held a 4% share of India’s feature phone market in 2025, but its smartphone share was negligible — the company doesn’t even appear in the top 15, according to analyst firm IDC.

While it’s early days for Indus, the download numbers reflect that. Nearly three months after its launch, the app has been downloaded just over 293,000 times in India across platforms, according to Appfigures. By comparison, ChatGPT was downloaded 43.9 million times in the country.

It’s a big gap, but the strategy behind the HMD deal may matter more than the early numbers. Bundling a regional AI assistant with affordable hardware — particularly feature phones — is one of the more direct distribution plays available in a market as large and linguistically diverse as India, where English-language AI tools have limited reach. For investors and operators watching how AI adoption gets seeded in emerging markets, this partnership is worth tracking.

Sarvam has been one of India’s marquee AI startups. Beyond the Indus app launch, the company has focused on enterprise partnerships, especially for voice-based solutions. It is on track to become one of the most funded AI startups in the country, with reports suggesting a funding round of $300 million at a $1.5 billion valuation is in the works.

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Smartphone maker Nothing to spin off its affordable CMF brand

Posted on September 25, 2025 by faz_business

Hardware startup Nothing said Thursday that it plans to make its affordable device brand, CMF, into an independent subsidiary with India serving as its headquarters for manufacturing and R&D.

The company first launched CMF in 2023 with a pair of earbuds and a smartwatch. Since then, it has introduced smartphones under the brand as well.

Nothing said that it is partnering with Indian ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) Optiemus to create a joint venture for manufacturing. While the startup didn’t reveal the ownership structure of this venture, it said that it aims to invest more than $100 million over the next three years, while creating over 1,800 jobs.

The London-based startup, following its $200 million funding round led by Tiger Global, didn’t say how much money from this round will go into setting up this new venture.

Nothing’s decision to choose India as CMF’s operational headquarters makes sense for a few reasons. CMF’s smartphones have been priced under $200, and that is the dominant category in India, with over 42% of phones shipped in Q2 2025 being in the $100-$200 price range, according to IDC.

India has also been Nothing’s strongest market with over 2% market share in smartphones. IDC told TechCrunch via email that Nothing was the fastest-growing brand in the country in Q2 2025, with 85% growth in shipments year over year.

“India will play a key role in shaping the future of the global smartphone industry. CMF has been well-received by the market since we launched it two years ago. With our end-to-end capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to now build it into India’s first truly global smartphone brand. Our joint venture with Optiemus is a key milestone toward making that vision a reality,” Nothing’s CEO Carl Pei said in a statement.

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The company’s move comes after it poached Himanshu Tondon from Xiaomi’s spin-off brand POCO last month to be VP of Business for CMF.

Brand spin-offs have been increasingly common in the last decade, especially for brands based in China. Examples include Xiaomi spinning off POCO, Huawei selling off Honor, and Oppo making Realme a separate company.

Phones aren’t always bad for kids. Social media does the real harm

Posted on March 26, 2025 by faz_business

Smartphones are often blamed overwhelmingly for ruining the mental health of kids and fostering a wide range of issues such as showing digital addiction patterns or imbibing bad ideas from the internet or games.

As per research, however, smartphone ownership is not always a bad thing. On the contrary, it can be a well-being agent. The study, which was conducted by experts at the University of South Florida, analyzed the smartphone usage habits of 11 to 13-year-old kids.

Smartphones actually do good

Impact on phones on wellness of kids. — USF

According to the experts behind the study, children who own a smartphone rank higher on well-being metrics and were less likely to show patterns of depression or anxiety. Moreover, they are more engaged with people in their real lives and generally feel better than kids without a smartphone.

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As per the expert panel behind the study, which also includes journalists, psychologists, and public health experts, it’s acceptable for kids as young as 11 years of age to own a phone, and that it could actually reap positive outcomes.

“We went into this study expecting to find what many researchers, teachers and other observers assume: smartphone ownership is harmful to children. Not only was that not the case, most of the time we found the opposite – that owning a smartphone was associated with positive outcomes,” said lead researcher, Justin D. Martin.

Despite owning a smartphone, kids also more inclined to engage in activities such as exercise, have in-person interaction with friends, and report higher self-esteem, says Poynter Institute, which was also on the advisory panel.

The 88-page Life in Media survey report will now inform a nationwide study that will last over a span of the next 25 years, while data will be collected on a six-month basis.