Tech trendsetter in expansion mode

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.