The Realme brand, which was born in 2018 under the wing of Oppo, has been acting as an independent player since 2019, and by November last year it managed to supply 200 million smartphones to the global market. In the next three years, it expects to ship 100 million AI-enabled smartphones and become one of the top three players in the European market. She’s already in fourth place, so it won’t be that difficult.
Image source: Realme
As Realme CEO Sky Li admitted in an interview with the South China Morning Post, the company expects to supply 100 million smartphones with artificial intelligence functions to the market over the next three years, trying to increase the popularity of such devices among young audiences. At the same time, Realme hopes to make such smartphones more affordable. Gradually, AI functions will no longer be attributes of only the most expensive smartphones and will appear in devices of more affordable price categories.
«2024 serves as the starting point for AI smartphones, AI itself is an opportunity for the smartphone industry to redefine the future and continuously drive innovation,” said Sky Lee, adding that for Realme, AI is an opportunity that cannot be missed. as this area “will become a new battlefield full of challenges.”
Among regional markets, in addition to Chinese, European is of particular importance for Realme. In the first quarter, the company already took fourth place in the number of smartphones sold, and over the next three years it expects to be in the top three. In the first quarter of this year, Realme controlled 4% of the European smartphone market.
In the Chinese market, the company expects to use AI functions to double smartphone sales by 2026. If the share of smartphones with AI support in the global market, according to Canalys forecasts, will reach 9% by the end of this year, then in China it will grow to 12%.