Realme is currently dominating the Indian smartphone market with back to back phone launches. At almost every launch event, Realme talks about Xiaomi because it's the leading smartphone brand in the country right now. Back at the Realme 3 Pro launch event in India, Realme India CEO, Madhav Sheth, said that the company will not sell ads like Xiaomi. However, that isn't the case anymore. Realme officially confirmed that it will place ads inside the system apps on smartphones running ColorOS 6 and above. Similar to Xiaomi, Realme also operates on very little profit margin when it comes to hardware and the move to place ads inside ColorOS will not surprise many.
Realme Smartphones Now Display Ads Inside System Apps
A couple of months ago, we spotted ads on the Realme 1 running ColorOS 6.0. Back then, Realme said that it was 'Beta' software and there's no need to worry about. And now, the company has officially announced the Realme phones running ColorOS 6.0 or above will display 'commercial content recommendations.' Realme phones will display the content recommendations or ads in two places- the Phone Manager app and the Security Check page after an app gets downloaded from the Google Play Store.
That said, there are just two places which will show ads on Realme phones, but the list may get bigger over the period of time. Xiaomi also displays ads inside MIUI and there was a time when users even spotted ads in the Settings app. Xiaomi also shows ads in various in-built apps like Music, Video and on the App Valut page. Notably, Xiaomi is not placing ads inside the MIUI on Redmi K20 phones- the Redmi K20 and the Redmi K20 Pro. But Realme did not confirm anything as such and the company's officials are silent on this aspect. If Realme shows ads even on the Realme X2 Pro, then it will be a deal breaker for a lot of people who purchased the device.
How to Disable Ads on Realme Smartphones?
Having said that, Realme is allowing the users to switch the 'commercial content recommendations' with just a few simple steps. For those who don't want to see these recommendations in the two places mentioned above, there's a simple workaround to disable it. Head over to Settings>Additional Settings>Get Recommendations and disable it. By defaut, the feature will be enabled, so you have to follow the above step to disable the recommendations. This is an easy process which every Realme smartphone user on ColorOS 6.0 can follow.
In MIUI, the process of disabling ads is slightly difficult and we have detailed it over here. Xiaomi was rumoured to introduce a 'switch' inside the Settings app to allow users disable the ads, but that feature never saw the light of the day.
Realme Following the Footsteps of Xiaomi in Every Aspect
For years now, Xiaomi dominated the Indian smartphone market and it was unchallenged in the industry. But in 2019, every smartphone brand upped the ante; Samsung introduced Galaxy M and A series of phones at competitive prices and Realme went head on with Xiaomi in every price range. In 2019, Realme challenged Xiaomi in almost every price range and it will continue in 2020 as well. In the first half of January 2020, we may see Xiaomi launching the Mi Note 10 and Redmi K30 phones in the Indian market which are expected to come at aggressive prices after the Realme X2 India launch.
