Realme can be top player if fulfils 100% demand; components shortage a challenge: CEO

Smartphone manufacturer Realme can be number one player in India if it manages to fulfil 100 per cent demand of consumers but component shortage continues to be one of the challenges in production, a top company official said.

Realme Vice President and CEO for Realme India and Europe Madhav Sheth told PTI that he expects the component crisis situation to ease in the second quarter of 2022 with foundries across the globe expanding their production.

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"Sales volume is a permutation and combination of various things. We have not scaled up our production but if I try to gauge demand then according to demand, we can be number one. There is a huge demand for Realme products. If I fulfil that demand I will be number one but I don't have supplies to fulfil that demand. Right now we are just able to fulfil 70 per cent of the demand...," Sheth said.

According to market research firm IDC, Realme ranked 5th in terms of smartphone market share in India in the first quarter of 2021.

"We have reached 100 per cent of our capacity now. Right now we have a shortage of component supplies, prices are increasing because there is huge demand for chipsets everywhere globally," Sheth said.

He said that there is a huge surge in demand for automobile vehicles particularly for smart vehicles which is driving demand for chipsets too.

"There is huge demand for chipsets... There is a huge surge in demand from mobile, internet of things segments, automobiles etc. I believe the situation is likely to ease in the second quarter of next year when foundries will expand their capacities. It takes too much time to scale up production," Sheth said.

He said that the prices of components have increased by 7-10 per cent which is being passed on to consumers.

"We are unable to absorb (rise in component price). I believe none of the brands are able to absorb it. It has to be passed on to the consumers," Sheth said.

Meanwhile, Realme has promised to bring 5G phones below Rs 10,000 next year though the 5G services are yet to be rolled out in the country.

Sheth said the company has started giving people a vehicle to experience 5G and entire research and development of chipset companies, mobile phone companies including that of Realme is moving towards 5G.

"5G services will be icing on the cake. If you see (Mediatek) Deminesity 700, Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1000 chipsets, if you only use the chipsets, response in devices is far better. 5G chipsets are a lot more advanced than 4G chipsets. They give better responses. Be it touch response, battery optimisation, data storage, data transfer etc you will see a lot of difference between 4G and 5G chipsets," Sheth said.

Sheth said that an ideal day in the 5G environment will be full of sensors including consumer durables, home, health, payments etc.

He said sensors in the coming days will sense the requirement of the device owners and customise the home environment, alert the suppliers of food, grocery, medicine as per the preferred settings and choice of the consumer.

Realme was the first company to launch a 5G smartphone in India and also started adding internet of things products to capitalise on 5G technology.

Sheth said that people are now buying better devices to meet their needs of work from home, online education but at the same time they have increased the replacement cycle.

"We have developed a Realme link app which makes a smartphone as a hub to control all devices around you. We have already launched smart TV. We are going to launch laptops, tablets. We are going to launch a number of devices. Realme is not going to be just only smartphone brand, it will be a complete ecosystem brand. We have to ensure that mobile phones have to be very strong. It cannot fail when it is controlling a number of devices," Sheth said.