Nothing founder and CEO Carl Pei has revealed on Twitter that the Nothing Ear (1), the company’s first product, will be seeing a price-hike close to the end of this month. Launched at $99 in the US and an equivalent price in many other regions, the price of the Ear (1) will soon go up to $149.
In a tweet, Pei has revealed that the reason behind the significant hike (about 50 per cent) is due to an increase in costs. “When we started developing it, we only had 3 engineers. A year later, we have 185. During this time, the Ear (1) has received 15 firmware and tuning updates, and is a completely different product to when we launched it,” Pei added in a subsequent tweet.
On October 26, we’ll be raising the prices for Ear (1) to $149 due to an increase in costs. pic.twitter.com/jJDlaXzzJ6
— Carl Pei (@getpeid) October 18, 2022
Sharing that the Ear (1) has sold over 6,00,000 units, Pei also added that the earbuds were key in paving the road for Nothing’s first smartphone, the Phone (1).
Nothing is also launching a new pair of earbuds called the Nothing Ear Stick on October 26. The features and specifications of the new earbuds have largely been kept a secret. Leaks have suggested that apart from the new design of the case, the buds themselves could be a watered down version of the Ear (1), perhaps without noise cancellation.
With the Ear (1) moving to a higher price segment, the Nothing Ear Stick could take its place as the brand’s audio product under $100, although this is not yet confirmed.
What about Indian prices?
The price of the Nothing Ear (1) has already been hiked in India to an extent. The earbuds currently cost Rs 7,299 for the white variant, which had launched at Rs 5,999 last year. Meanwhile the newer black variant is priced at Rs 8,499 instead of its launch price of Rs 6,999.
It is unclear if the international price hike for the Ear (1) will also affect the India prices which have already gone up significantly.
A direct conversion of the $149 could point at an Indian pricing of about Rs 12,200, which would put the product closer to the price of some older premium earbuds by Samsung and Apple. We should know more details on this during Nothing’s Ear Stick launch on October 26.
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