According to our information, the French branch of Realme is at a standstill and its general manager France is preparing to leave. Everything now goes through China. The story of a sudden and astonishing stop for a brand that seemed launched into insolent growth.
1365%. At the end of 2021, this is the insolent growth rate displayed by Realme in Europe. In May 2022, the brand even entered the Top 5 of the biggest smartphone sellers in France. We thought then that the company was launched in a mad cavalcade towards the heights, that it was ready to come and fight with the Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and even why not Samsung and Apple. This scenario, which could have seemed realistic a few months ago, now takes on the air of science fiction. Everything suggests that Realme is going through a bad patch in France. Here are the items we collected.
Silence on the networks
The first alert comes from publications on social networks. Or rather their absence. The last posts from the brand’s French branch date back to December 2022. The last on Twitter thus dates from December 21, 2022, and on Instagram we find activity a day later, December 22, 2022. Similarly, on the Realme France site, in the tab dedicated to press releases, the last one dates from February 16 2022. Something to alert us to, but also to confirm that the French antenna has simply stopped communicating.
How to explain this sudden stop? According to our information, this could simply be explained by the dissolution of the French branch of the brand. Various sources confirm the following information: the general manager of the brand in France, Frédéric Chevrier, is preparing to leave Realme. Surprising, because in May 2022, when we met him for an article devoted to the common points between Realme and Xiaomi, the DG seemed relatively calm. He was almost ironic about the group’s crazy growth, stating ” we are impatiently waiting for growth to slow down, that will mean that we have reached the same level[NDLR : sous-entendu le même niveau que Xiaomi dont la croissance ralentissait à ce moment-là]”.
You should also know that, like almost all of its competitors, Realme used an external agency to manage daily relations with journalists and therefore Frandroid. As often happens in this industry, the brand decided to part with it around September 2022. Another agency then took over the baby, but recently it appears that it only works sporadically for the brand, without any real continuity.
This may seem anecdotal, but all our usual contacts in France with the brand suddenly stopped talking. This too is quite worrying. Only one name now comes back: a press officer responsible for managing all of Europe on her own. According to our information, this new contact would be based in China. She also confirmed the following: “currently, our press manager in France has left the team and I am temporarily in charge of the French market. You can send me your questions and I will give you our comments. »
Realme is doing well in Europe
It’s no secret that 2022 has been an overly complicated year for the entire industry. Global sales fell 11%. This could explain the activation on the side of Realme of a fallback strategy. Other brands also slowed down last year. We think of Xiaomi, which has not released its Ultra model in France, or Huawei, which has greatly reduced the air in Europe by repatriating part of its activities to Düsseldorf.
But if we look closer, Realme had quite a good year in Europe. According to Counterpoint Research, Realme is recording good growth on the Old Continent, going from 1.2 million smartphones sold in the 3rd quarter of 2021 to 2.2 million in the same period in 2022. One element partly explains this: the brand continues to sell its devices in Russia, just like Xiaomi and therefore takes advantage of the absence of Apple or Samsung who left the country after the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
Incidentally, you will notice that over the same period, Oppo, which belongs to the same group, recorded a significant decline. Does this mean that Oplus, the parent company, has decided to sacrifice the Realme soldier to help Oppo? We can only assume so for now.
All these elements put end to end allow us in any case to interpret that the brand has put a stop to its French branch. It will not be the first nor the last and that will not prevent it from continuing to sell telephones in France.
Many outstanding questions
Several questions remain, however. We contacted the brand to try to see more clearly, especially on crucial issues such as its after-sales service in France.A priorithe support always works when we call it and we did have a French speaking person on the phone.
Another question: is the closure of the French branch temporary or permanent? And does this closure herald a future outright withdrawal of the brand from the French market? Difficult to determine, some signals lead us to think so, such as the fact that it is impossible to buy the recent Realme 10 on the brand’s website. Conversely, other elements give us confidence. Example: the brand presented its Realme GT 3 at MWC 2023 in Barcelona, paving the way for a European release. One thing is certain, for Realme in France, abundance is over.
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