Carl Pei might have shown off the Nothing Phone at MWC to Qualcomm execs

Last week, a report from TechCrunch suggested that Nothing was almost ready to unveil its first smartphone and that we could see an official announcement sometime next month. CEO and Founder Carl Pei was spotted at Mobile World Congress, where he was rumored to be showing off a prototype for the finished product.

Thanks to @evleaks, it seems that someone managed to catch a glimpse of Pei showing off something rather unique to Qualcomm’s CEO Cristiano Amon. Unfortunately, the image provided by Blass doesn’t really reveal anything about what Nothing could potentially announce next month. The object that Pei is holding is covered in a bunch of those barcode-looking stickers which pretty much indicate that this isn’t a finished product.

Even if you try to zoom all the way in on the object itself, it’s just not a high-enough quality image for anything specific to be identified. In addition to the different stickers that are on it, it’s obvious that there’s also an incognito case around to try and hide the design.

Until now, Nothing has only entered the tech market by releasing its Nothing Ear (1) earbuds. However, different company executives have confirmed that Nothing is working on an ecosystem of devices which likely includes a smartphone launch. Pei himself even kind of teased his “return to Android” on Twitter, with the tweet seeing responses from the official Android and official Qualcomm accounts.

According to the report from TechCrunch, the Nothing Phone will include elements of transparency, continuing the trend that the company started with its earbuds. Hopefully, we don’t have much longer to wait, as Nothing could end up replacing OnePlus as the smartphone brand for enthusiasts here in the U.S. While it’s unlikely that Nothing would launch a flagship smartphone as its first mobile device, it wouldn’t come as much of a surprise given Carl Pei’s history and rep in the smartphone industry.