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China’s Realme, sister brand of Vivo and Oppo, surges past 200 million smartphone shipments

  • Realme, owned by Chinese consumer hardware giant BBK Electronics, says it reached the milestone in the second quarter
  • The company plans to take on premium phones with its coming Realme GT 5 Pro, which features Qualcomm’s latest high-end chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

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Chinese smartphone vendor Realme says it has shipped more than 200 million handsets to date. Photo: Handout
Reuters
Chinese smartphone maker Realme said it had shipped more than 200 million handsets since it was established a little over five years ago, most of them outside China, with data showing it was the fifth-fastest smartphone vendor to achieve this milestone.
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Realme, owned by Chinese consumer hardware giant BBK Electronics which also controls the Oppo and Vivo brands, said it had reached the 200-million mark in the second quarter.

Data from market analytics firm Counterpoint Research shows that only four companies – Vivo, Huawei Technologies, Samsung Electronics and Apple – have taken less time to ship the same number of units. In total, just 14 companies globally have shipped over 200 million smartphones to date.

“We came into existence when there were over 700 smartphone brands in the world,” said Xu Qi, Realme’s chief marketing officer. “We are extremely proud that we have been able to be in the world’s top 10 brands for the past five years.”

According to Counterpoint, there were more than 700 smartphone brands in 2017 and that number has plunged to about 250 as of September.

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Xu said Realme was ready to take on the premium smartphone market with its next launch, the Realme GT 5 Pro, which will be among the first handsets to feature Qualcomm’s latest high-end chip the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Sony’s new Lytia camera sensor.

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