2020 has already brought so much trouble to everyone that you involuntarily expect only bad news from the news, but it seems that today
Spiraling stories: nothing is new under the moon
History always develops in a spiral:we have already seen all this, more than once, everything happens according to what is already clear and approximately the same (with a discount for the modern digital society, the speed of change of which is sometimes frightening). Japanese companies have already gone through this path once, then Korean companies, and now Chinese companies are going through it. This is a way to reduce prices while maintaining quality. Now this will sound surprising, but, for example, the success of Panasonic in the 20th century was founded by the founder of the company, Konosuke Matsushita, whose goal was to organize the production of a mass product accessible to millions of people. Sony's Walkman was also used by millions, and the device changed the music consumption habits of millions of people. In the past decade, Samsung and LG (and in the automotive industry, their fellow countrymen KIA and Hyundai) have gone down this path. What they were doing? Yes, the same thing, in essence: the same products as Sony and Panasonic, only 20% cheaper. This year ends the second decade of the 21st century, and Chinese companies have already entered the arena: Huawei, DJI, Xiaomi - these names are already known all over the world, and today they are by no means synonymous with cheap, low-quality goods. The example of Xiaomi (which has already become the new Samsung) clearly shows what helps promote their smartphones around the world - creating their own ecosystem and entering adjacent markets, gradually increasing expansion. Xiaomi simply created a new distribution model, uniting dozens of manufacturers of good equipment from China under its umbrella brand, allowing them into its (primarily online) distribution channels. In general, distribution is the key to success, and not technical characteristics and price, as geeks are accustomed to believe. A simple recent example is the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola RAZR smartphones with folding screens. The products are similar in many ways, but the sales are vastly different. And not because the Samsung product is many times better, it is not because the place on the store shelf matters. If it is there, there will be sales one way or another; if there is no product on the store shelf, sales simply have nowhere to come from.
And where is Citrus?
Although not the largest player in Ukrainianmarket, Citrus has become a major problem in a prominent location for the entire electronics retail industry. More experiments (including bold, risky, scandalous and provocative ones - we tried absolutely everything). More shocking and more desire to be heard. The company is constantly looking for ideas and new segments. They were the first to massively sell personal electric vehicles (adding them up with rental points in their native resorts of Odessa and Kyiv, where they trained and educated customers, involving them in using the product and making it a part of their lives). Citrus had an interesting and not very long history with the promotion of the Meizu brand, a lot of effort (and money) was invested in its promotion. In general, it’s worth saying that for a retail company, being a distributor is very profitable - you get not only a wholesale margin, but also a retail margin (which, as a rule, is even higher). The position of an exclusive distributor (all sales channels are tied to you) brings additional benefits - any sale of a device officially imported into the country gives you a pretty penny, even if it was not you who sold it at retail. It looks like realme will become a new diamond for Citrus - the stars, as they say, have aligned.
Why are realme products destined to be popular?
It's all very simple - the key sales factorin our market (as in all poor countries not included in the “Golden Billion” sphere) this is a low price. The price factor is a trump card that always plays in our country. Of course, this does not mean that iPhone or Samsung buyers will suddenly switch to a new brand, far from it. But all the price segments in which realme products are released are budget categories. The target audience was also chosen correctly - young people who, under any circumstances, are looking for new means of self-expression, and also love to do what their parents did not do. This also applies to preferences in choosing brands. I have noticed more than once how forty-year-olds still remain loyal to “Japanese” brands, while the names Sony, Panasonic (and with them Sharp, Hitachi, Toshiba, JVC, Pioneer - in the era of my youth there were a lot of them) are an empty phrase for eighteen-year-olds , like a chapter on the Stone Age from a history textbook. Lack of money (we don’t take into account the “golden youth” with new iPhones - they are not the majority) and the desire to try something new and different from their parents - this is an explosive mixture that forms the basis of a planted bomb. Well, and the expansion of the assortment, of course - it allows the brand to expand its presence in the lives of consumers and be heard more often (and also be advertised from every smart screen).
Extension of the realme line today
Realme Buds Air Neo and Buds Q— TWS headphones for 999 and 699 hryvnia.This is not at all the price of AirPods, nor the price of the excellent Galaxy Buds and Huawei Freebuds. This is the price on Aliexpress (well, you can, of course, find it cheaper, but the prices are about the same). Some are an external copy of AirPods (why reinvent the wheel, good artists, as you know, copy, and great ones steal) for those who love the plug-in design. Others - with rubber seals - for connoisseurs of in-ear headphones. Connect to a smartphone via an application and now they can be called “smart” with a clear conscience. No special technology is needed.
realme watch— smart watch for 1599 hryvnia.The price is almost the same as Haylou Solar LS05, which was sensational on Aliexpress last week. With the difference that you won’t have to wait a month or two until they arrive on riding snails from China (after sales begin, of course, this will only be in a couple of weeks). A design taken from the “you know what watch.” Measures sleep phases, heart rate and blood oxygen levels. Twenty types of dials at once and the promise of hundreds more in the coming months. With such data, they do not need to be the most technologically advanced and energy efficient. The price does its job, and the price, supported by an aggressive advertising campaign (Citrus succeeded like no other in these games), even more so.
realme TVs on Android TV- difficult for logistics and difficult forcompetition commodity. In a box with one TV you can bring dozens of smartphones, whose cost and profit will be hundreds of times higher. However, TVs are still an important screen in our lives, so yes, it is worth doing to strengthen your brand. There are only two diagonals - 32 and 43 inches, the price is slightly lower than that of Xiaomi, weak technical characteristics (the younger model has an HD panel, have you heard about this lately?) We are not talking about high technology, but, for example, buy 43 - an inch Android TV (there is little point in buying another now) for 7,500 hryvnia (installments are available) - why not? You don't really need 4K in the kitchen, really. The price tag of 4399 hryvnia for the younger model looks ridiculous. When pre-ordering, they also give you wireless headphones, albeit inexpensive ones, for 500 hryvnia, but in this price segment the war is going on for every hundred hryvnia, so this looks like an appropriate and profitable offer - not at all a discount the size of a full tank of gasoline on the cost of a Mercedes. In addition, the developers approached the issue with a full understanding of the market situation. That is, yes, we don’t have 4K, like Xiaomi, but we have 2x12 watt sound, and not 2x8 watt, like Xiaomi! Here you go! And not everyone will watch a film in 4K, but you will feel the sound every day, that’s it.
realme X3 SuperZoom smartphone— it’s not so simple here anymore, in the price segmentat 12,000 hryvnia it will be much more difficult for a new player to compete. OPPO, vivo, and Samsung can confirm this. In general, this segment looks like the domain of Huawei and Honor. The promise of 60x hybrid zoom looks similar to the promise of 100x zoom on the Galaxy S20. In words and in presentation it looks very nice, but in practice it makes little sense. Although it is worth saying that the previous older model realme 6 Pro looks interesting, the brand’s passion is no longer enough here - the target audience loves simpler price offers. But the company also cannot avoid having such a conventional “flagship” - it plays its image role on the same shelf in the store, helping (this really helps, believe the seller with considerable experience) to sell cheaper models of smartphones.
In the dry residue
Citrus can be congratulated not only on the acquisitiona successful brand to add to your collection/portfolio, but also with how well the realme ideology fits into our frankly poor market (it’s not for nothing that realme holds its world premieres in India - there is a huge audience with low incomes) market. Well-balanced products, competent expansion of the product line (TVs, power banks, TWS headphones are the most popular products in the electronics segment today, not counting the smartphones themselves). Here you might suddenly think that Citrus really wants to become the “king of the hill” in the market. It's not like that at all. The company’s ambitious plans to become the third best-selling brand in smartphones on the Ukrainian market by the end of this year. The goal, by the way, is not simple, but this is what an ambitious goal should be. It will be enough for Citrus to have its own “candle factory,” and so far realme’s global successes look much more successful than Meizu’s in its best times.
This is what I did not see at all at the presentation (althoughand did not really expect to see) - so this is the announced world of AIoT (like, artificial intelligence, combined with the Internet of things). No, of course, if you call the Internet of things any wireless device with Bluetooth today, and AI shove where you need and where you do not need, then everything is in order. But the sediment, as they say, remained. For the rest, look, if there is an extra hour of time and desire, a presentation - although it was made with a reasonable share of marketing bullet for such a case, it looks a lot more realistic and thoughtful than most of such speeches I have seen (and I saw a lot of them, to put it mildly ) A clear understanding of the audience, its specific and quite competitive advantages. And so everything will work out with realme. In any case, the fact that these new products will be popular, and will allow Citrus to earn some money (and it’s natural for customers to save money) in these difficult times for all of us.