The smartphone company on a mission to democratise 5G

The growth of 5G cov­er­age has been encour­ag­ing, with the tech­nol­o­gy enjoy­ing strong adop­tion across mar­kets like Chi­na, the US and Europe. In Q1 2021, just two years after the launch of the world’s first com­mer­cial 5G net­work, almost one out of every three smart­phones sold was 5G.

As of May this year, 60 coun­tries around the world had launched 5G, 12 of which are emerg­ing mar­kets.

How­ev­er, bar­ri­ers remain for the wide­spread adop­tion of the new tech­nol­o­gy among con­sumers, such as the afford­abil­i­ty of the devices, a lack of dig­i­tal lit­er­a­cy and skills, and the costs of mobile data.

The need to democ­ra­tise 5G is the dri­ving force behind one smart­phone dis­rupter brand. realme is on a mis­sion to make cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies acces­si­ble to every­one.
While realme may not yet be a recog­nis­able brand among UK con­sumers, its mes­sage has been gain­ing huge trac­tion world­wide. Estab­lished in 2018, realme is the fastest-grow­ing smart­phone brand glob­al­ly. It has a glob­al user base of more than 70 mil­lion and is now the world’s sev­enth-largest smart­phone com­pa­ny.

The com­pa­ny has an ambi­tious goal of enabling 100 mil­lion young con­sumers to use a 5G smart­phone with­in the next three years.

“realme believes that 5G is for the younger gen­er­a­tion – inter­net natives who are look­ing for ways to con­nect and express them­selves beyond the phys­i­cal world,” says Mad­hav Sheth, vice pres­i­dent of realme Glob­al and CEO of realme India & Europe.

“By empow­er­ing the young, we hope they can, in turn, become the fore­run­ners of 5G adop­tion and help lead more peo­ple into the 5G era.”

Meeting consumer demand

How is realme aim­ing to pop­u­larise 5G? So far it has focused on offer­ing high-end, high-spec prod­ucts at sur­pris­ing­ly afford­able prices.

In 2020, realme launched 14 5G devices in 21 mar­kets. By 2022, the com­pa­ny aims to increase its 5G offer­ings to more than 20. More­over, realme plans to take the indus­try lead in launch­ing a 5G mobile phone at a $100 price point in the next few years, a move that is set to fur­ther accel­er­ate 5G adop­tion, espe­cial­ly across rapid­ly emerg­ing economies.

“Our 5G prod­ucts have cov­ered flag­ship to entry-lev­el,” says Sheth. “We most­ly sell our prod­ucts online, which always helps to con­trol final prices. We main­tain our focus on R&D and design, not mar­ket­ing or oth­er areas, so we keep extra costs under con­trol, so the con­sumer won´t be impact­ed in the final price of the prod­uct.”

How­ev­er impor­tant to the con­sumer, Sheth believes price is not the decid­ing fac­tor in realme’s plan to democ­ra­tise emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies like 5G.

“realme’s goal was nev­er to grab mar­ket share or rank­ing, and realme will not blind­ly fol­low any oth­er brand. Instead, we will pro­vide prod­ucts which tru­ly meet con­sumer demands,” he says.
To fur­ther sup­port the glob­al adop­tion of 5G prod­ucts, realme is set to estab­lish sev­en R&D cen­tres around the world in 2021, ded­i­cat­ed to explor­ing 5G tech­nolo­gies and prod­ucts. At present, 90% of realme’s R&D resources have been con­vert­ed to 5G tech­nol­o­gy and prod­ucts. In the next two years, realme will invest $300 mil­lion in 5G tech­nol­o­gy research and prod­uct devel­op­ment, as well as in pro­mot­ing glob­al 5G pop­u­lar­i­sa­tion.

Addi­tion­al­ly, realme is soon to launch its lat­est “Flag­ship Killer” device, realme GT, into glob­al mar­kets.

“The realme GT exem­pli­fies the company’s ‘Dare to Leap’ spir­it by bring­ing cut­ting-edge design and tech­nol­o­gy, cap­tur­ing the orig­i­nal essence of the Grand Tour­ing (GT) expe­ri­ence for young peo­ple,” says Sheth.

Tak­ing pride in its sta­tus as an indus­try dis­rupter, realme is going all-in on 5G in its efforts to change the world.

Says Sheth: “As we progress into the future, realme will con­tin­ue to dri­ve large-scale adop­tion of 5G tech­nol­o­gy and prod­ucts, break new ground with excit­ing inno­va­tions and cre­ate a promis­ing and excit­ing tech lifestyle for every youth.”

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it realme.com

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