Made in India smartphone brand Ai+ hopes to cross 1 million unit sales this financial year

NxtQuantum Shift Technologies debuted the Ai+ brand of smartphones back in July this year, touting to be the first fully designed and made in India phones and focused heavily on data security. The company founded by former Realme CEO Madhav Sheth entered Nepal in September and is looking to enter more international markets in coming months.

It will also expand its offering and launch wearables in January, Sheth tells THE WEEK. “I am looking at multiple other markets. I have started working on four different markets, and there is a huge potential in these markets where I see there can be a product coming out from India,” he said, without disclosing the locations.

NxtQuantum had introduced two smartphones at launch - Ai+ Pulse and Ai+ Nova – targeting the budget customers. These phones are sold exclusively through Flipkart and Sheth claims to have sold over seven lakh units so far and hopes to end the financial year with sales of over a million units.

The company will launch another couple of products next year. However, the focus will continue to remain on the entry-to-mid-level buyers.

“Entry and mid put together, it is around 75-80 per cent of the volume market in India. So that is something I want to focus on to start with. I want to move up the ladder and make sure I also have a part of the mid-range, which will be next year,” said Sheth.

Sheth says the company will continue its exclusive online partnership with Flipkart for a few more years. But he does want to expand gradually to certain offline channels so that customers can experience the product before they buy.

“It would be more need based rather than a grade based expansion,” he said.

Chinese companies dominate the Indian smartphone market. In the July-September quarter of 2025, Vivo and Oppo were the top two players in the market, with a share of 18.3 per cent and 13.9 per cent respectively, according recent data published by IDC. Other Chinese brands Realme, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Motorola among others together held over 35 per cent share. Its worth noting that Vivo, Oppo, OnePlus and Realme are all owned by one company BBK Technologies.

Several Indian companies have tried scaling up in the smartphone business in the past, but with little success. Sheth believes the opportunity is now.

“India has the potential to do it. It is the right time to put India on the global map. What we did not have is technology transfer, which has not happened from Japan to Taiwan to China. This is happening. And if we are able to build a platform here and scale it up globally, its a huge opportunity,” he said.

Sheth pointed that while the Indian smartphone market was growing, there were millions still using feature phones and that offered a huge growth potential.

“India has over 650 million smartphones. But around 400 million consumers are still using feature phones and many don't have any phone. So there is a huge digital divide, which I see as an opportunity,” he pointed out.

According to Sheth, a big focus for the company has also been on data security and all the important telemetric data is stored on servers in India. Consumers also get a privacy dashboard on their phones throwing a light on who is accessing the data and how, he stated. The phones are also powered by NxtQuantum operating system, claimed to be India’s first sovereign mobile OS built on Android.

So far, the company hasn’t been spending a lot of marketing. Instead, says Sheth, he would rather gain customer loyalty by launching right products at right pricing.

India