Nothing made waves in the tech community with the launch of the Nothing ear (1) earphones. Carl Pei, formerly of OnePlus, is the company's founder, and many have been waiting to see what Nothing would do next. Nothing already purchased Essential towards the start of this year after raising $15 million in Series A funding, which led many to speculate that the company would launch a smartphone in the future. Now it seems that's the case, as a new report states that Nothing is looking to launch its first smartphone in early 2022.

The report comes from 91Mobiles who spoke with Mukui Sharma, otherwise known as @stufflistings, just a couple of days after Nothing announced a partnership with Qualcomm. The report doesn't contain much information about the device except that it's planned to launch early next year. In the same report, 91Mobiles also said that a Nothing-branded power bank called "Nothing Power (1)" could launch before the smartphone. It's expected to debut within the next few weeks, or at the very least before the end of the year.

Information is scarce, but the most we can gather at this point in time is that the smartphone will feature a Qualcomm chipset. The only product sold by Nothing right now are the ear (1) earphones, which the company teased for months ahead of their launch. If the company is working on a phone to launch sometime at the start of next year, we might start seeing some teasers soon.

Nothing's acquisition of Essential lead many to believe that the venture would make use of the company's Home smart hub and speaker tech it had been working on before shutting shop last year. Carl Pei has already confirmed that Nothing is working on various smart home products. Essential was also working on a unique smartphone design, codenamed GEM, before its closure, which raises speculations about Nothing’s plans to enter the smartphone market in the not-so-distant future.