Realme unveils first laptop after meteoric growth

Realme, a fast-growing Chinese smartphone vendor, has unveiled its first laptop, the Realme Book. The move came after the company had sold over 100 million smartphones worldwide, and is part of Realme's latest push to build a robust internet of things ecosystem.

Realme said it took only 37 months for the company to sell over 100 million smartphones from scratch. Now, its products are available in 61 countries and regions.

Data from market research company Strategy Analytics show Realme is now among the top five smartphone vendors in 18 markets, including the Philippines, Bangladesh and India.

Xu Qi, vice-president of Realme, said: "Realme has accumulated a sizable base of fans in the past three years, which brought us to a turning point from making a quantitative change to a qualitative change. We are now accelerating our pace to build an AI-enabled IoT ecosystem, with notebooks being an important part of that."

According to Xu, the company's laptop is targeted at young people from 18 to 30 years old. Currently, young people prefer light and thin notebooks. They also pay attention to mobile gaming experiences. Those are the two areas of focus for Realme to perfect its laptops, the senior executive said. Priced from 4,299 yuan ($661) in China, Realme Book comes with a 14-inch 2K full display and it has a thickness of 14.9 millimeters.