Finnish phone maker HMD today launched its first smartphone, called Vibe 2 5G, preloaded with the Indian AI company. Indus, Sarvam’s chatbot. The two companies had first announced the partnership at the India AI Summit held in New Delhi in February.
The Indus app is powered by Sarvam’s locally trained 105 billion parameter model – a measure of the scale and sophistication of AI – and launched at the AI Summit. The app supports 22 Indian languages and mid-sentence code-switching (the ability to seamlessly mix languages in the middle of a conversation, such as switching between Hindi and English), which helps the assistant better understand the context of a query. Currently, the app does not support offline use and does not have any in-device functionality to invoke the AI assistant via a shortcut.
The partnership provides a potential testing ground for both companies to gauge the appetite for an India-focused chatbot.
“With this partnership, the first thing we want to do is bring the Indus app to consumers,” said Ravi Kunwar, CEO and VP of HMD for India and APAC, in an interview with TechCrunch. “Once they start using it, we will move to phase two to focus on more traction and grip. Right now, by preloading the app, we want to be more accessible to users,” he said.
The Vibe 2 5G is a mid-range Android phone with a 6,000mAh battery and a price tag of ₹10,999 ($114). Kunwar added that Vibe smartphone series devices will also get the chatbot, and the company is also expected to launch a feature phone with Sarvam AI integration in the coming months.
This feature phone integration could ultimately prove more important for both companies. HMD had a 4% share of India’s feature phone market in 2025, but its smartphone share was negligible – the company doesn’t even appear in the top 15, according to analyst firm IDC.
Even though Indus is still in its infancy, the download numbers reflect it. Nearly three months after its launch, the app has been downloaded just over 293,000 times in India across all platforms, according to Appfigures. For comparison, ChatGPT has been downloaded 43.9 million times in the country.
This is a significant gap, but the strategy behind the HMD deal might matter more than the initial numbers. Bundling a regional AI assistant with affordable hardware – particularly feature phones – is one of the most direct distribution plays available in a market as large and linguistically diverse as India, where English-language AI tools have limited reach. For investors and operators watching how AI adoption grows in emerging markets, this partnership is worth watching.
Sarvam is one of India’s most renowned AI startups. Beyond the launch of the Indus app, the company has focused on partnerships with businesses, especially for voice-based solutions. It is poised to become one of the most funded AI startups in the country, with reports suggesting a $300 million funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation is in the works.
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Ivan covers global consumer technology developments at TechCrunch. He is based in India and has previously worked for publications such as the Huffington Post and The Next Web.
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