Recently, Realme — the online-only sub-brand from Oppo got separated from its parent company to continue operations as an independent brand. Soon after its split from Oppo, Realme announced a new budget smartphone in the Indian market — Realme 2.
Now, in a major shift in terms of its business operations, the company is reportedly exploring opportunities to sell its devices through offline channels along with the online stores in order to increase sales and grow its market share.
Commenting on this development, Madhav Seth, CEO of Realme India says to ET:
I would never say that Realme will continue to remain an online brand. We can try two different channels. If we don’t have an offline channel, then it’s difficult for us to cater to this segment. We will be present wherever people are. In the last three months, we saw there was a lot of reach, which was not possible, especially in rural India. We want to go there because there is a demand.
He adds that the company has plans to launch four new models in the next six months. The company is focusing on the Rs. 5,000 ($69) to Rs. 20,000 ($276) price band, where it’ll compete with companies like Xiaomi and Huawei, which are already in the process of bolstering their offline presence.
Currently, Realme has an exclusive partnership with Amazon India and the company’s phones account for 32 percent of smartphones sold in the country in the April-June quarter. For those who are not aware, Realme has also adopted an ‘India-first approach’ in an attempt to garner more market share in India, which is currently dominated by Xiaomi.
The recently launched Realme 2 has been well-received in the market. According to the company, in its first sale, it managed to sell 200,000 units of Realme 2 within just 5 minutes. The next sale of the phone is scheduled to take place tomorrow. It comes in three color options — Diamond Black, Diamond Red, and Diamond Blue, with price starting at Rs. 8,990 (~$124).
The Realme 2 features a 6.2-inch 720p FullView 2.0 display with 2.5D curved glass, 18:9 aspect ratio, 1520 x 720 pixels screen resolution, and a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass on top. It is powered by Qualcomm‘s Snapdragon 450 octa-core processor and comes in two variants — 3GB RAM with 32GB internal storage and 4GB RAM with 64GB internal storage. There’s also a microSD card slot for expanding the phone’s storage capacity.
There’s a dual camera sensor on the back, featuring a 13-megapixel primary sensor paired with a 2-megapixel secondary sensor. On the front side, there’s an 8-megapixel shooter for taking selfies and video calling. Unlike its predecessor, the Realme 2 comes with a fingerprint sensor on the back panel. It still has support for software-based Face Unlock feature.
Read More: Realme 2 Pro to debut in September, new teaser suggests
The phone runs on Android 8.1 Oreo operating system out-of-the-box with the company’s own ColorOS 5.1 custom interface. Connectivity options on the device include Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS + GLONASS, and USB OTG. The phone is fuelled by a bigger 4,230mAh battery.
(Source)
