India, Sept. 23 -- Opening thoughts. This week, Carl Pei, CEO of Nothing, wrote a letter on social media, in which he says "India is inevitable", comparing a consumer electronics manufacturing scale trajectory that he sees as similar to Japan, Korea and China-in terms of producing "it's own global champions". OnePlus is spinning off the CMF brand into a standalone Indian company, which he says will be majority Indian-owned, headquartered in India, with its own team and R&D in the country. The manifesto is structurally sound as far as the intent goes, and there needs to be a closer diagnosis of certain points Pei had raised.

I'll start with the reference of 2015, making the decline of Indian brands in the smartphone market, which has sinc...