14 DAY TRIAL // While Samsung and Apple are still Europe’s biggest phone companies, the continent’s fastest-growing smartphone brand award goes to a different name this time.
It’s realme, the brand whose growth in 2021 has been impressive, to say the least, with Strategy Analytics revealing in a recent study that its market share reached 3 percent.
This represents an increase of no more, no less than 548 percent, which allowed it to overtake several other more popular brands in Europe.
Samsung continues to be the kind of the castle with 29 percent, though the South Koreans recorded a drop of 1 percent year over year. Apple is the runner-up with 23 percent and an increase of 11 percent.
“realme’s smartphone shipments in Europe grew +500% YoY and +548% YoY in Q4 2021 and 2021 respectively. It managed to become the fastest growing smartphone brand in both of the Europe’s sub region i.e., Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and Western Europe (WE). In CEE, it grew +643% YoY while in WE, it grew +416% YoY for 2021 (albeit smaller base in both the sub-regions),” Abhilash Kumar, Industry Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said.
Oppo could be realme’s next target
This is the first time realme enters the top 5, and there’s a chance the company would continue to increase its market share in 2022 as well.
“In Europe, realme pushed into top 5 list in 2021, for the first time ever. In WE, realme surpassed several vendors to gain 5th spot in Q4 2021 from 13th in Q4 2020. Similarly, in CEE, realme gained the 4th spot in Q4 2021 from 13th in Q4 2020,” Linda Sui, Senior Director at Strategy Analytics, explained.
Xiaomi is currently the third name in the harts with 20 percent market share, while OPPO is fourth with just 5 percent, so it’s likely realme’s next target.