The fastest growing phone brand in the world

this video was sponsored by curiosity stream when you sign up at the link in the description you will now also get free access to nebula a new video streaming platform that I and a bunch of your favorite educational youtubers have built for ourselves in January 2018 Xiaomi overtook Samsung to become the number one smartphone brand in India the second largest smartphone market in the world by volume after two years of incredible growth the company shipped almost a quarter of all smartphones in the country and its rise seemed unstoppable its relentless focus on aggressive pricing and its rabid online fan base spread the brand so quickly show me was not only driving local Indian brands like Micromax and carbon out of the market but even one successful international players like Samsung Oppo and VEVO were starting to feel the pressure Oppo in particular was having a tough time sliding back from its 10% market share at its peak to single digits despite having spent an obscene amount of money on promotion and sponsorships in the country simply throwing more money at the problem wasn't working for them they have to try something new and in May of 2018 just four months after Xiaomi took the crown of India that something became real me now the fastest-growing smartphone brand in the world that not only managed to stop the growth of Xiaomi in India but also managed to go from zero to becoming the seventh largest smartphone brand worldwide in just a year and a half as it turns out a real me was actually built by my former colleagues from back when I still worked at Oppo and ir-2 managed to interview some of them for this video I also managed to get my hands on the X to probe their latest flagship so in the 60th episode of the store behind Sears let's take a look at what I've learned about the incredible rise of this new company [Music] real quick before we started if you want to see more in-depth analysis of tech companies especially from a business perspective consider subscribing to tech out are a real me let's launch seem like a half-hearted experiment that Opel rushed out of the gate in their desperation to claw back at least some market share from Xiaomi in India the real me one was launched with the Opel logo still on ran o pose very own color OS instead of a custom real me software skin and really only had two standout features first its flashy back cover which was simply a recycled design from older Opel phones and second a very strong price performance ratio that tried to match show me as closely as possible oppa was apparently so uncertain about this experiment that they also launched the exact same phone under the Opel brand and some markets as the Opel f7 youth so in case it didn't sell under the real me brand that they could still push it out through their usual channels s and Opel phone and the real one wasn't revolutionary in any way even its brand name was clearly designed to imitate red me rather than create an entirely new identity of its own but starting at just under ten thousand rupees or a little over a hundred euros it became a huge success among price-conscious Indian consumers nonetheless the first batch of the phone sold out in two minutes then real me went on to sell over 400,000 units in its first two months of existence I've heard that Opel was actually very much surprised by just how successful their first real Mead device was which suddenly not only proved to them that they could in fact compete against Xiaomi directly but unexpectedly also gave them a pretty clear blueprint for how to do it see as I said this phone really only had two standout features a processor that was stronger than competitors in its class and its flashy design when most competitors looked rather bland at this price point at almost anything else it was worse than the competition it was made of plastic instead of metal it had single instead of dual cameras and it didn't even have a fingerprint reader but the processor and the design proved to be the exact things to focus on because those two made the phone booth look like it was a category above the competition and then give it a spec sheet that instantly backed up that first impression to its spec hungry target audience sacrificing all the other nice to have stuff for those two were the exact right decision and I'm told that even now flashy design and specs have continued to be the top priorities that the company puts above everything else and so with those learnings Oppo actually started taking this experiment extremely seriously and Double Down unreal me with a ferocity and with an agility that would actually put most startups to shame let alone companies of this size if they quickly turn real me into its own legal entity moves a bunch of key people from Opel over to this new company created a whole new branding and design identity for it built a massive portfolio of 15 phones that range from entry level to flagships build up their own web shops as well as strong partnerships with online retailers entered over 20 markets and recently even established their own online forums which show me was so successful with within just the 18 months they actually replicated almost every strength xiaomi had and sprinkled their own unique approach of focusing on eye catching design and performance on top with devices like the x2 probe which is a full flagship with a snapdragon 855 plus 50 watt super boot fast charging and a 90 hertz screen that starts at an insane 399 euros it's clear that they are in the ring at every price point ready to compete with anything Xiaomi brings to the market now while all of that is incredibly impressive and kudos to the real me team for all of their achievements the of course couldn't have done it all alone in fact much like oneplus real me too still benefits and massively from its relationship with Oppo while real me designs and sells their phones on their own now and is slowly becoming more and more independent Opel still develops color OS for them licenses core technologies like Superbook to them and most importantly takes care of the manufacturing and supply chain for real meat in its factories in India China and the rest of the world in fact my personal guess is the the shared manufacturing of Opel oneplus and real me is not only the source of real me success as Oprah is known to have world-class manufacturing and quality control capabilities that easily beat those of Xiaomi who tends to outsource as much as possible to save costs this sharing of resources in my opinion is actually also the reason really exists in the first place and I'm making a couple of guesses here but really on its own really doesn't seem to be that attractive of a business while they somehow claim that they already are technically profitable with prices this aggressive I just can't imagine them doing anything but barely breaking even and while show me who has similarly aggressive hardware prices as trying to make most of their money from ads and software subscriptions that they're pushing through me UI real me tells me that they don't even see that as important so making a real profit doesn't seem to be the main goal of the company at this stage which leads me to believe that the real goal at least originally was to pay simply heard Xiaomi and deny him the chance to become overly dominant in key markets like India and to be create an economies of scale advantage for Oppo and oneplus which worked with the help of we'll meet the three brands together now shipped somewhere around 45 million phones a quarter that is significantly more than even show me does meaning that they can get better prices on components and they can have more efficient supply chains for example while Xiaomi suffers from their pressure so in this way real me has already succeeded and of course real me has almost certainly surpassed all original expectations of Oppo and as time goes on and as it becomes more successful they'll probably want to become more and more independent and just like oneplus has done in the past well start to want to serve its own interests as a company rather than just the interests of the group as a whole I was told for example that real me soon wants to develop their own software skin instead of just using colour OS as well as expand more aggressively beyond just smartphones to adjacent product categories like their recently announced Airport clones or maybe smartwatches and lifestyle items to take on Xiaomi there as well and whatever comes next for them to be it their expansion to Europe that they have just started or their forays to the US which I'm told are on the table as well it will be a fascinating journey to follow I've actually made two more videos that are really closely linked to this topic so one of them is about how Xiaomi operates with its razor thin Hardware margins and this business model explained and then the other one is why all of these smart phone companies launch so many unique brands I think if you like this video you'll like both of them you can watch both of them somewhere here and if you like independent educational creators like me real engineering poly matter tears ooh Wendover production and like a hundred others then I have some really good news we have recently launched nebula our very own video streaming platform that is built and owned by us the creators we put all of our regular YouTube videos there ad free of course and I actually upload my videos a couple of days in advance there because I just don't have to deal with a sponsor on that platform nebula is also quickly getting some really good original content so there's this whole feature-length documentary on airports from Wendover for example a whole series of the logistics of d-day from real engineering and more nebula makes it possible for us to create more great content for you guys without having to constantly worry about that D monetization or somehow pleasing the magical YouTube algorithm and and I think you guys will love the result now as I said in the beginning if this video was actually sponsored by curiosity stream and that's where this becomes even cooler because curiosity stream which of course is v service for watching high-quality documentaries online likes our project so much that they have decided to give everyone who signs up to their service using the link in the description of this video free access to nebula so for a $20 yearly subscription you get unlimited access to both nebula and all of curiosity streams library of thousands of documentaries on anything from wildlife to technology they will simply send you an email with sign up info for nebula once you get your curiosity stream subscription and you're good to go so whether you want to support your favorite creators and watch our videos a few days in advance without ads or whether you want to watch a documentary on the birth of the solar system for example you can now both for just under $20 check it out and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: TechAltar

Views: 341,077

Rating: 4.9162555 out of 5

Keywords: Realme, OPPO, phone, growth, business, story behind, the story behind, tsb, series, strategy, OnePlus, BBK, group, manufacturing, Xiaomi, redmi, real me, realme x2 pro, realme 1, brand, sales, growing, 800%, fastest growth, market share

Id: jT3unx47J8Y

Length: 10min 42sec (642 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019