Exclusive: Realme to open 21 stores for offline consumers in India

After selling smartphones through brick-and-mortar retailers, Chinese smartphone maker Realme is now planning to open 21 exclusive stores in India in the second half of this year.

"Currently we are operating in 35 cities at over 3,000 retail outlets and we will increase it to 20,000 stores in 150 cities by the end of this year," Realme India Chief Executive Officer Madhav Sheth told GizBot in an exclusive interaction.

"We are also planning to open 21 exclusive stores in the second half this year in Tier I and Tier II states," he added.

When asked about the reason behind large retailers refusing to sell Realme smartphones, Sheth said, "They are asking for higher margins at the cost of the user and we wanted to sell our devices at the right price."

He said, "We are selecting our partners very carefully and the reason behind going offline was to give touch and feel experience to the users."

Meanwhile, the company is planning to bring Realme 3 Pro next month to the Indian market. According to some reports, the smartphone is expected to to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC, OLED display and an in-display fingerprint sensor.

On being asked whether the company is planning to launch any smartphone on Mediatek P90, he said, " We are still under discussion but at present, we don't know which model we will launch with that processor."

The Chinese handset maker has recently launched Realme 3 in the Indian market for Rs 8,999 onwards. The newly launched device packs a 6.2-inch display, MediaTek Helio P70 chipset, 13MP+2MP dual rear cameras, a 13MP front shooter, and 4,230 mAh battery.