Going old school: Nothing phone (1) will be sold via invites like OnePlus used to be

Let’s go back a few years. When OnePlus started selling its smartphones, they took an invite-only route. That not only kept the smartphones exclusive, but it also gave the company time to ramp up its stocks and keep the devices in the news for longer. Now, taking a page out of this playbook is Nothing for the Nothing phone (1) - and it makes sense.

Nothing CEO Carl Pei explained in a video that when it comes to making a “complicated product” like a smartphone, it takes time to “ramp up”. So, as Pei said that either they could choose to wait and accumulate enough devices to start selling en masse, or they could start selling as soon as possible. The company has chosen to do the latter.

Pei added that the company wants at least some of its devices out and in the hands of people and, thus, have decided to initially sell the Nothing phone (1) through an invite system “so that people who deserve it the most will be able to buy it in the beginning”.

Of course, the next question is how is this invite going to work?

Nothing says that it wants to make sure that its early supporters and community members get the Nothing phone (1) first. And once it starts ramping up the production of the device, wider sales are going to start. Besides this, Nothing has not exactly revealed any other details about the invite system.

When OnePlus started selling devices in 2014, it sent out invite codes to members of the online forum for the OnePlus One smartphone. Once these people bought the devices, they could send their own invite codes to others. The catch was that every invite code would have to be accepted within 24 hours. OnePlus finally dropped the invites in 2016.

It is possible that Nothing might take a similar route, but it remains to be seen. Also, Nothing is not going to use the invite system in the US and Canada, and the Nothing phone (1) is not going to be sold in North America, at least officially. The device is scheduled to launch globally on July 12.

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