Q. How do you see Pakistan’s overall mobile market?
Q. How do you see Pakistan’s overall mobile market?
A. The Pakistani mobile industry is robustly growing and developing at an unprecedented pace. The pandemic has not dimmed its growth with consumer interest and sales touching record-levels every quarter. Therefore, the environment is quite conducive for the smartphone industry in Pakistan to offer a wide range of their products as local assembly lines are becoming operational as well.
This is where realme has also gained a lot of momentum. We have made our local assembly line operational to provide value-for-money and top-notch quality to our consumers in Pakistan. The end-user benefit with locally assembled smartphones shall be tremendous, and will open the floodgates of growth for the entire industry.
At the same time, realme has partnered with three key distribution partners namely Airlink Communications, Muller & Phipps (M&P) and United Mobile for the aggressive development of its offline footprint. For 2022, our lead strategy is to organise our sales output with our consumers as the ultimate benefactors.
Q. What is realme’s market overview in Pakistan?
A. Pakistan is an extremely important market for realme. It is one of the top four markets in the South Asian region and we aim to become the top three smartphone brands in the country. At the same time, our realme consumers have also shown a lot of commitment to the brand which is why we are the fastest growing smartphone brand in the country with over two million handset sales in the shortest span of two years.
Q. What are the sales/market share expectations for Pakistan?
A. Our eyes are set to become one of the top three smartphone brands in Pakistan and that is why we are poised to increase our offline footprint and organise our online sales partnerships.
Q. What market segment are you targeting in Pakistan?
A. I’d reiterate here that realme is a brand for youngsters who are technology savvy, fashionable and are aware of the choices they make. We target Gen-Z in the age bracket of 16 years to 25 years and choose to partner with KOLs that resonate with that age bracket.
Therefore, our pricing, product packaging, communications and marketing tactics centre on Gen-Z touch points. realme was the first smartphone brand to launch a product at a university campus. We aim to be number one in android gaming smartphones and offer ground-breaking gaming performance in our smartphones. With the 2022 product line-up and innovations, achieving that feat looks quite promising.
In Pakistan, we are also engaging quite closely with the media both in the conventional and contemporary segments.
Q. How do you see realme’s success against its competitors?
A. The smartphone industry in Pakistan offers a healthy competition between brands that are vying for consumer eyeballs and market share. We are the only smartphone brand to sell two million devices in the shortest span of time, which is a testimony of the love and trust that our consumers have in realme.
Q. There seems to be a continuous battle between brands in Pakistan, how do you ensure brand loyalty with so many options around for consumers?
A. The company ensures brand loyalty by providing an innovation-first approach in our products and true value-for-money. Our products – no matter which series it may be, offers outclass quality and affordability in their price segments. Our features are top-of-the-line and that is where our consumer retention takes a tremendous leap.
We continue to be a ‘populariser of 5G’ and our 5G share in emerging market smartphone shipments went up from 8.8 percent in Q1 to 15.9 percent in Q2, ranking the third according to the counterpoint market monitor service data Q2 2021.
Q. How much have you invested in Pakistan so far? Do you have any investment plans in future?
A. realme invests heavily in research and development, because we are an innovation-first brand. In order to promote global 5G popularization, 90 percent of realme's R&D resources have been invested in 5G technology and products. In the next two years, realme will invest $300 million globally in 5G research and product development, bringing products with leap-forward performance to global users.
Recently, with the realme GT 2 Series, we also introduced three world firsts: a back cover made of bio-polymer material, a 150° ultra-wide camera, and realme's innovation forward communication.
These innovations trickle down into Pakistan through our products that are assembled at the local assembly line in the heart of Pakistan – Lahore.
Q. Pakistan government is focusing on exports, giving incentives, do you have any plans to export from here?
A. The government support to the IT sector is quite a welcome development and we have just opened a local assembly line in Lahore. Through locally assembled smartphones, we are incentivising our end-consumers by offering more value-for-money, making our product pricing more attractive.
The writer is a marketing specialist
