Realme is planning to expand its position in India by opening exclusive experience stores in the second half of 2019. Realme is making this move in an attempt to expand its territory to the offline market as the new changes in Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) norms for the e-commerce industry are coming into effect.
The Indian government made some changes to its FDI policy for online retailers which has caused a clamor among online retailers. According to the new rules, the e-commerce companies such as Flipkart and Amazon can not enter into exclusive deals for selling products on their platforms. The changes will come into effect from February 1.
Realme has a partnership with both Amazon and Flipkart where it used to sell its smartphones exclusively.
According to industry experts, the smartphone manufacturers like Xiaomi, Realme, Oneplus, Asus, and Honor have no choice other than expanding their reach in the offline markets. Earlier these brands used to sell their smartphone exclusively through e-commerce platforms and create hype among customers with their flash sales and discounts.
Realme recently partnered up with Reliance Digital which will help the company to sell its smartphone across 1300+ Reliance Digital and MyJio stores in 130. Realme will also add 20,000 outlets in 150+ cities in India this year.
Realme has launched 5 phones since its establishment as an Oppo sub-brand: Realme 1, Realme 2, Realme 2 Pro, Realme C1 and Realme U1. Realme focuses on delivering optimum price-to-performance with its smartphones and can be counted among the likes of Redmi and Honor, both of which brands have the same price to performance policy.
However, the situation is only going to get tougher for Realme as Xiaomi has split off Redmi as its sub-brand which will exclusively focus on budget smartphones. Samsung too is looking to put its foot in the budget smartphone market with its M-series smartphone which is due to launch later this month.
Realme 3 is also in the works and might be launched in the second half of the year. The company is also reportedly been working on a 48-megapixel camera phone, however, it is not revealed which device will be coming up with the flagship camera.
Realme had recently launched Realme Yo Days as a celebration for its 4 million smartphones being sold. The company offered huge discounts, a set of Bluetooth earphones, and a bag worth ₹2,399 as a part of the celebration.
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