As we predicted would happen last month, Realme is now laying off employees in India. 91mobiles confirmed the information with an executive from the company, as OPPO has started to take over. That move was announced last month as well. It was announced as a restructuring move by the company.
Realme was born in March 2018, and at that time, it was a sub-brand of OPPO. By September 2018, the Realme 2 was launched, and the company moved away from OPPO, it became an independent company.
Realme is moving under the OPPO umbrella
It has been nearly seven and a half years since then, and Realme is now moving under the OPPO umbrella. Why? Well, that’s the part we explained last month. Keeping Realme alive as a separate brand has become unsustainable, basically.
This way, the expenses will be lower, and a single company doesn’t have to pay for everything twice, ranging from R&D to service networks. Realme users will gain access to OPPO’s 5,000+ service centers across China. Realme had around 250 of them. Sky Li will stay at the helm, though, under the patronage of OPPO.
Realme, as a separate entity, didn’t really grab a significant market share. In China, it had less than 1.3% of the market as of late 2025. It was in seventh place with that percentage, by far. Each of the companies above held 14% or more of the market.
Realme’s position in India is not bad, but the big picture forced OPPO’s hand
Realme’s position in India was much better, actually. The company was between 4th and 5th place in India, with a market share of around 12-13%. That’s a far cry from the 1.3% that it held in India last year.
China was the main problem, and that was a huge problem, actually. This way, the expenses will be cut, while Realme will stay on the market. The bad news is, plenty of employees will lose their jobs. Considering the fact that Realme is merging into OPPO, part of the workforce is simply not necessary anymore.
The R&D department in China was hit hard last year. Some departments were actually cut in half. The first wave happened in November, while the second wave followed in December.
Will this affect you? Honestly, probably not. If anything, this could be positive for consumers. Realme devices are not going anywhere, nor will you lose support for the existing ones. In fact, the support should be even better now that everything is consolidated under OPPO.Â
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