Brick-and-mortar cellphone retailers are refusing to sell Realme mobiles, which are available only on e-tailer platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon, because of low trade margins, The Economic Times reported, citing industry executives.

Reliance Retail, Sangeetha, Poorvika and Big C have decided not to sell Realme due to low margins, sources told the paper.

This phenomenon, the report said, is being witnessed for the first time in the smartphone industry and is generally seen in the FMCG space. Brands such as Realme have been selling at lower margins on e-tailer platforms due to the lower cost of distribution, compared with offline trade.

Earlier, Realme entered into a pact with Reliance Digital for sale of their handsets through 600-odd stores last November. However, Realme India CEO Madhav Seth confirmed that the collaboration with the Reliance group was called off.

(Disclosure: Reliance Retail is the subsidiary of RIL, that also controls Network18 Media that owns in CNBC-TV18)