Unlike already established tech giants with household names like Apple and Samsung, however, Nothing does not have the resources to go full out and produce millions of units straight off the bat. That is why Carl Pei’s Nothing is taking a page from his last company’s book and will initially sell the Nothing Phone (1) to a select group of people via an invite system.
This information is coming straight from Nothing’s latest hype/promotional video for the Nothing Phone (1), where Pei explains the following:
When you’re making a very complicated product like a smartphone, It takes some time to ramp up. We could either wait until we’ve accumulated a lot of phones and start the sales then, or we can start selling as soon as possible. We chose the latter.
He later goes on to add that the phone will first go to the people who deserve it the most, meaning the company’s early supporters. OnePlus had a very similar tactic in its inception days when it came out with its first handset, the OnePlus 1.
Thankfully, unlike the OnePlus 1, the Nothing Phone (1) will spread to a wider audience after initially being sold to early supporters and community members, so we won’t have to wait too long for the phone to be widely available. That being said, the US market might have to wait for another year or so.
While OnePlus was selling its first phones via invites only, those who managed to buy one also had the option to then invite their friends to do the same. Nothing has not mentioned anything of this sort yet, but there is some possibility for this “friend system” to be integrated here as well.
Source: Phone Arena