While Realme started out as a subsidiary and sub-brand of Oppo, the company now operates as an independent entity. Established to do what Oppo may find difficult – sell phones exclusively online at competitive prices – Realme has offered superior specifications and quality devices at competitive prices that give incumbent online players such as Xiaomi and Honor a run for their money. And similar to how Xiaomi has now expanded to the offline segment, Realme could be planning to do so as well.
Speaking with PTI, Realme CEO Madhav Sheth stated that the company was planning to expand its line-up to the offline space, and could tie up with Reliance to initially sell its devices at select offline locations in major cities. This is a strategy that is widely different from that of Oppo, which can usually be bought at numerous neighborhood mobile retailers. Sticking to Reliance will allow users to purchase offline, but won’t reach as many customers.
Initially, such a strategy could work for the company, since the reason it is able to sell its smartphones at competitive prices is because of the economies of online selling. Offline sales require maintaining inventories at locations and usually higher margins for the retailer, but tying up with a single operator such as Reliance Digital will reduce these costs a bit.
WATCH: How Realme Phones Are Made
Realme recently launched the U1, its latest smartphone in the mid-range segment. Priced from Rs 11,999, the Realme U1 is powered by a MediaTek Helio P70 SoC, and sports up to 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. While other online-focused companies are selling slightly more expensive products as well, Realme seems to have its focus purely on the affordable space.
