Tech trendsetter in expansion mode

It has been a very busy month for Li Guangyong, who is in charge of the European business of Realme, the world's fastest-growing smartphone brand, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

One day after unveiling the company's latest 5G smartphone in Madrid in late February, Li traveled to France for a meeting with local partners.

Before the novel coronavirus cases started to surge in Europe, Li had to spend 30 percent of his time in Spain and the rest traveling across other European countries.

Li's tight schedule reflects the broader ambition of Realme. The company aims to enter 90 percent of the European countries and regions by the end of this year. That's because it foresees huge opportunities arising in the emerging 5G handset market and the internet of things.

Though relatively new to the smartphone game, Realme has caused eyebrows to lift with its meteoric rise. Launched first in the middle of 2018, the relatively new brand has quickly emerged as the fourth-largest smartphone label in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. Currently, its products are available in 27 countries and regions.

Having shipped over 25 million units of smartphones in 2019, the company now eyes a 100-percent year-on-year growth in shipments this year. To achieve the goal, one crucial task is to expand its presence in Europe, where consumers prefer premium, cutting-edge products.

Riding on its instant popularity among young online consumers in Asia, Realme aims to leverage its "asset-light" model to quickly enter more European markets, Li said.

"We excel in internet-based marketing and we boast good products. Once we find appropriate local partners, we can quickly crack a market," Li said in an exclusive interview.

According to him, Spain is currently the company's European focus. Last October, Realme held its first official European product launch event in Madrid. On Nov 25, the first day of the Black Friday shopping spree, its X2 Pro model topped online sales in its class on Amazon Spain. Currently, Realme is the fifth-largest smartphone brand in Spain.

"We are also partnering with a string of Spanish retail chains to sell our smartphones offline. And we have gone through several rounds of talks with major local telecom carriers for cooperation. Very soon, we will announce a deal with at least one Spanish carrier," said Li, who did not disclose more details.

According to him, by the first half of 2020, the company will organize more events like branding shows in the open, or non-telecom carrier, market in almost all European countries.

In the second half, Realme will hold talks with each country's telecom carriers one by one for partnerships, Li said.

Xiang Ligang, director-general of the Information Consumption Alliance, a telecom industry association, said that in Europe, telecom carriers are very important sellers of smartphones. They could account for 40 to 80 percent of all smartphone sales in a market, depending on each country's specific characteristics.

"Securing partnerships with local telecom carriers is of high importance for Chinese smartphone brands to crack open European markets, but it will be a time-consuming process," Xiang said.

Fu Liang, an independent telecom analyst, however, said the novel coronavirus outbreak in Europe will affect the local smartphone markets, and it is likely to hamper Chinese smartphone makers' efforts to grab a bigger share there.

Another big challenge for Realme is localization. The European smartphone market differs considerably from Southeast Asian markets, where the company had already established itself as a competitive brand loved by young consumers.

"But we have worked hard to have a better picture of local consumers' product preferences, and scrambled to localize our products and marketing strategy," Li said.

"We are considering launching tailor-made smartphones for western European consumers," Li said.

His comments came after Realme unveiled its latest 5G smartphone model, the X50 Pro 5G, in Madrid in February. Priced from 599 euros ($699), the new model is powered by US tech giant Qualcomm Inc's Snapdragon 865 chip, and comes with a sleek screen, flash charging and fancy design. It is the first 5G model from Realme to be launched in Europe.

"Though lagging China a bit, Europe will see faster 5G development than Southeast Asian countries. In the second half of 2020, Europe will see more shipments of 5G handsets and we aim to be the tech trendsetter," Li said.

Realme's European team currently has dozens of employees. It is working to expand and localize the team to better meet consumers' growing demand for its products.

"We will hire senior country managers from local people to take charge of each market. The manager will be the core in planning local marketing. Localized teams will help us rapidly move forward," Li said.

Meanwhile, Realme said it will unveil more than 20 IoT products powered by artificial intelligence this year, to satisfy consumers' desire for smart home devices. Most of such products will also be available in Europe.

"We want to hear what consumers really want, and try our best to match our products with their demand," Li said.