Some Lessons from My Time Working on the Launch of Realme

Hey everyone, Alex here with today’s substack. I was chatting to someone about Realme earlier and thought I'd share some lessons from my time working on the launch of the brand.

1) Planning - I was working at OPPO at the time when my boss and now Realme Founder/CEO Sky Li told us about the plan to launch a new phone brand. The time to market would be fast for a hardware product: under 6 months.

2) Resources - For people unaware, Realme would be leaning on a larger parent company for resources. This was nothing new since BBK/OPPO, has been doing this successfully for years. Image hat tip

3) Positioning - The first lesson I learned was regarding positioning. It was clear that this brand would focus on value for money and target South and South East Asia. Ironically, not China, it's home market!

4) Competition - Pay attention to competition but not be overawed by it. Xiaomi was big in India but was busy with a vast portfolio of products, building out offline stores, and doing more advertising in an attempt to consolidate market share.

5) Naming - Meanwhile, Realme needed a name. We spent hours brainstorming lots of names on a whiteboard. I even made a spreadsheet testing out names myself! Realme was chosen as it was easy to spell and pronounce in different languages plus Sky liked it. Pretty simple.

6) Branding - The new Realme logo was created in house by a graphic designer and the website was quickly put together - speed was the focus.

7) Product - Similarly the first phone, Realme 1, was very much a budget device. A rebranded OPPO A Series device with their ColorOS and even their logo! Again speed to market was the main focus.

8) Pricing - The price plus distribution was key. Realme 1 was 10,990 Rupees while the popular Xiaomi Redmi 10 was 11,999 Rupees. Xiaomi's phone had better specs but the Realme 1 inherited OPPO's build quality and importantly, offline distribution network! Image

9) Localization - Realme quickly localized in every market they launched, from the product portfolio right through to leadership. People do business with people!

10) Problems 1 - If you target budget-conscious consumers, you need a growing and expanding market. Realme's difficulties, as experienced by other Android brands, are trying to gain more premium consumers amid an overall shrinking smartphone market. Image via

11) Problems 2 - Growing really fast is obviously a good thing but can also bring its own problems. What exactly does the brand stand for and how is it different from others in the minds of consumers? Company culture once set is hard to change..

I want to share more stories from my time in Tech. If you like this post, feel free to follow me or sub to our podcast: HYPEWORKS.