realme has shipped 200 million smartphones in just 5 years

Chinese phone maker realme has reached a milestone of over 200 million smartphones shipped globally in mere five years since its inception in 2018.

As reported by Reuters, realme said that it had passed the 200 million mark in second quarter this year.

Most of the shipments recorded were outside China—backed with data from Counterpoint Research, indicating realme as the fifth ‘fastest’ smartphone maker to pass this milestone, sitting next from Apple, Samsung, vivo, and Huawei.

To date, only 14 companies globally have shipped 200 million phones.

Reuters quoted Xu Qi, realme’s chief marketing officer, “We came into existence when there were over 700 smartphone brands in the world.

“We are extremely proud that we have been able to be in the world’s top 10 brands for the past five years.”

In 2017, there were more than 700 phone brands, and that number has plummeted to only 250 in September 2023.

realme entered the smartphone scene in 2018 as a sub-brand of Oppo, then eventually had become an independent brand. realme and Oppo along with OnePlus and vivo are all under the umbrella of BBK Electronics—a hardware giant based in China.

realme’s very first smartphone, the OPPO realme 1, launched in May 2018. Since then, the brand has been one of the strongest contenders in the Philippines with records in 2022 being the top smartphone brand for seven straight quarters.

Now, the brand is looking to enter the premium smartphone segment. Its upcoming flagship realme GT5 Pro 15 will be one of the first handsets to boast Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen3 chipset as well as the new Sony Lytia camera sensor.