Realme is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer which belongs to the Chinese BBK Electronics group like Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus. Realme was originally founded in 2010 as an Oppo subsidiary under the name “Oppo Real”. In 2018, the company was set up on its own and has been operating independently from Oppo since then. Nevertheless, Realme smartphones still use Oppo’s own Android Custom ROM “ColorOS” as their operating system. But this will change soon, because Realme is working on its own Android firmware called “Realme OS”.
In the beginning, the Realme brand was mainly aimed at the Indian market, but is now pursuing a global expansion course. In May 2019, the company officially entered the Chinese market and started the official expansion to Europe in June. At the beginning, the offer in Europe was very limited, but was significantly expanded in October 2019. Since then Realme has been pursuing a rather aggressive expansion course and is trying to put pressure on competitors such as Xiaomi and OnePlus. The manufacturer offers extremely well equipped smartphones at very attractive prices.
So far, this strategy seems to be working, as Realme has recently recorded enormous growth. In India, the manufacturer has already managed to work its way up into the top 5 smartphone manufacturers. In addition, the brand is also receiving enormous attention in the specialist media internationally and consistently receives good ratings, particularly with regard to the quality of the cameras. So Realme seems to be on the right track and has the potential to become a serious competitor for Xiaomi and OnePlus in Europe.