Realme beats Google and joins Samsung, Apple in this elite ‘Top 5’ club

Yes, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are mighty cool and all the rest, but when it comes to sales, it turns out that people are more interested in just discussing the latest and greatest from Google, not actually buying a Pixel.

That’s why the list of the five phone makers that have hit the 200 million shipment milestone the fastest is the following (spoiler: it doesn’t include Google, as big and powerful as they might be):

• Apple
• Samsung
• Huawei
• Vivo
• Realme

The latest member of that club (again, these are the brands that have sold 200 million – or way more – phones in no time) is Realme. The Chinese maker was established a little over five years ago. Realme is owned by Chinese consumer hardware giant BBK Electronics which also owns the Oppo and Vivo brands (via Reuters).

The data from market analytics firm Counterpoint Research shows that only four companies (the aforementioned Vivo, Huawei, Samsung and Apple) have taken less time to ship the same number of units. In total (and not accounting for time), just 14 companies globally have shipped over 200 million phones to date.

"We came into existence when there were over 700 smartphone brands in the world," said Xu Qi, Realme's chief marketing officer. "We are extremely proud that we have been able to be in the world's top 10 brands for the past five years."

Xu said Realme was ready to take on premium phones with its upcoming launch, the Realme GT 5 Pro, which will be among the first handsets to feature Qualcomm's latest high-end chip the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Sony's LYT-T808 (OIS support included) camera sensor.

Other rumored specs include a massive 6.78-inch OLED display with 1.5K resolution and 144Hz refresh rate. As rumored, the Realme GT5 Pro will be coupled with 16GB RAM.

Also, the smartphone will pack a large 5,400 mAh battery with 100W wired and 50W wireless charging supports. No word on the phone’s availability outside of China yet.