Why Indian Game Developers Prefer iOS Over Android for Premium Content

Developers in India find Apple’s ecosystem much more promising over Google’s, especially for premium games.

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Why Indian Game Developers Prefer iOS Over Android for Premium Content

Developers in India find Apple’s ecosystem much more promising over Google’s, especially for premium games.

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Xiaomi leads Indian smartphone market shipments, OEMs ship record 37 million units in Q2: Counterpoint

Setting a new second-quarter record in the Q2 2019, the smartphone shipments in India grew to 37 million units with Xiaomi retaining its top spot (28 percent market share), a new report has said. According to the latest research from Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, the growth was driven by new launches, price cuts on older devices and channel expansion across brands. The market research firm also said that people in the country are now looking to buy phones that range from Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000.

“Brands which focused on offline channels expanded to online channels with online-exclusive series. Similarly, brands which entered the market with online-exclusive series are now expanding their reach towards offline channel by forming partnerships with key offline retailers. This strategy is working well for all the leading at-scale players. Also, brands are launching multiple series to target or expand into new product tiers. This is helping them to expand their product portfolio to target multiple fast-growing segments and also diversify,” Tarun Pathak, Associate Director, said in a statement.

“In India, the pricing sweet-spot for consumers has moved to Rs 10,000-20,000 price band and it will remain the biggest contributor in the Indian smartphone segment this year. Brands are focusing on bringing the latest premium level specifications such as notch display, full-screen view, multiple rear cameras, pop up selfie feature and in-display sensor technology in this segment to stimulate consumer demand,” he added.

Brandwise segregation

 

Xiaomi captured the top spot in this quarter with a 28 percent market share. Its shipments grew 6 percent (YoY) driven by portfolio expansion, and offline expansion in the budget segment. Samsung shipments declined by 7 percent YoY, but, it has shown 30 percent growth quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) driven by refreshed A-Series and M-Series, price cuts of older J-Series and higher channel incentives during IPL season.

Samsung’s A-series remained popular with Galaxy A10 being the top-selling device for the South Korean brand. The brand also expanded the M-series with launch of Galaxy M40 in June. Samsung remained strong in the premium segment with good performance of its Galaxy S10 series flagships.

Oppo and Vivo increased their offline channel incentives on their entry to mid-level devices to drive volumes. These devices were coupled with promotions for IPL and Cricket World Cup events. Vivo’s shipments remained almost flat YoY, however, its performance remained strong in less than Rs 10,000 price band due to Y91 series. Oppo’s shipments declined 3 percent YoY, however, it showed 53 percent QoQ growth due to new launches.

This is the third consecutive quarter that Realme has been within the top 5 brands driven by strong performance of Realme C2 and Realme 3 Pro and various discount offers rolled out on online platforms. Realme C2 crossed the 1 million mark within a couple of months of launch, and became the fastest brand to reach 8 million smartphone shipments in India market within one year of its debut for any brand ever in India.

Huawei’s trade ban also impacted India market as its shipments declined YoY. However, the brand continues to be in the top ten smartphone brands category. In the premium segment, OnePlus surpassed Samsung to become the number one player driven by strong demand for its newly-launched OnePlus 7 series.

“The top five brands’ contribution to the total shipments volume reached its highest ever level driven by new launches and hybrid channel strategy. Localisation, branding, and innovation will remain to be the next key drivers for growth in a highly competitive market like India. The market will continue to become more concentrated with majority of share controlled by a few brands leading to more number of exits among the long-tail brands in the market moving forward,” Anshika Jain, Research Analyst at Counterpoint Research, added.

While the smartphone market registered growth YoY, the feature phone market witnessed a steep decline of about 39 percent annually. The feature phone demand is back to 2017 (pre-Jiophone) level but it remains to be seen if the entry-level smartphones in coming quarters are able to attract the hundreds of millions of feature phone users. Due to the slowing demand for Jiophone, players such as Samsung, Lava and iTel were able to capture shares in sub-Rs 1000 segment during the quarter.

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PUBG Season 4 Update (v4.1) Now Live for PC Gamers, Weapon Issues Fixed

PUBG Season 4 has debuted through the Update 4.1 that brings a revamp of the Erangel map and includes a new Survivor Pass.

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PUBG Mobile Lite vs PUBG Mobile: Game Modes, Maps, Gameplay, Server Options, and More

PUBG Mobile Lite is now available in India. In this article, we will take a quick look at what exactly is different between PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite.

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Google Pixel 3a helped company sell twice as many smartphones in Q2 YoY: Sundar Pichai

Thanks to the launch of the affordable Pixel phone, the Pixel 3A and the Pixel 3A XL, Google was able to sell twice as many smartphones in the second quarter of 2019 as compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The information was provided by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during Alphabet Inc’s Q2 earnings call, in which the company announced that its overall profits tripled on year-over-year basis to $9.9 billion (approx Rs 68,400 crores) while revenues increased 19 percent to $38.9 billion (approx Rs 2,68,000 crores).

“With the launch of Pixel 3a in May, overall Pixel unit sales in Q2 grew more than 2x year-over-year. In addition to Verizon and the Google Store, we successfully expanded our distribution to T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular, Spectrum Mobile, and additional partners which has greatly diversified our sales footprint in the US,” Pichai said in the earnings call. The Google mid-range series consisting the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL were introduced in May this year at the company’s annual I/O developer conference.

Interestingly, Google has declared the Pixel smartphone revenue as a part of other revenues, which includes the company’s hardware business, like Google Home smart speakers, as well as its cloud computing division. “Other revenues for Google were $6.2 billion (approx Rs 42,800 crores), up 40 percent year-over-year, fuelled by Cloud with an ongoing strong contribution from Play,” Ruth Porat, Chief Financial Officer, Alphabet, added.

Pichai also revealed that Google Cloud will soon be generating a revenue of $8 billion annually, which is $2 billion per quarter. The executive also noted that YouTube channels with over one million subscribers grew by 75 percent year-over-year in the second quarter. According to Google, YouTube is still the second-biggest contributor to Alphabet's revenue growth.

“Our effort to build a more helpful Google for everyone brings countless opportunities to help users, partners, and enterprise customers every day. From improvements in core information products such as Search, Maps, and the Google Assistant, to new breakthroughs in AI and our growing Cloud and Hardware offerings, I’m incredibly excited by the momentum across Google’s businesses and the innovation that is fueling our growth,” Pichai added.

If you wish to know about all the topics that were discussed during the Alphabet Inc's Q2 earnings, you can watch the video below. To know more about the Google Pixel 3a, you can read Why should you buy Pixel 3a?.

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Nokia 82 may launch with Android Q, and have a 32MP pop-up camera

Nokia is gearing up to launch the Nokia 8.2 soon, according to recent reports. We do not have a release date yet but some of the key specifications have reportedly been leaked. Nokia 8.2 will be the successor to the Nokia 8.1 that was launched last year in India, and is selling at Rs 19,999 right now. The successor could reportedly sport a 32MP front camera, housed in a pop-up module.

The MySmartPrice report says that the Nokia 8.2 could include features such as a 32MP pop-up camera, 8GB RAM, 256GB of internal storage, and come loaded with Android Q. Hence, it is expected that the phone will be released anytime before the official roll-out of Android Q, which means we shouldn’t expect to hear anything official about Nokia 8.2 before the end of the year. Also, the rumours are very specific, with the mention of only one model - 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

HMD Global has not followed the traditional smartphone naming strategy, instead, it has used numbers as a sliding scale. For example, the Nokia 1 and 2 are budget smartphones, Nokia 6, 7 and 8 are mid-rangers, whereas the Nokia 9 Pureview is a flagship smartphone. Their successors have been Nokia 2.1, Nokia 6.1, Nokia 7.1, and more. Hence, the Nokia 8.2 is expected to be a high-end mid-range device, and a successor to the Nokia 8.1.

There is not much information about the chipset that will power the Nokia 8.2. As reported by XDA Developers, “some say it will pick up where the Nokia 8.1 left off and opt for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 700 series (maybe even the rumored Snapdragon 735).”

The report also claims that Nokia is working on two 5G smartphones, so Nokia 8.2 could launch in a 5G variant as well. However, the information must be taken with a pinch of salt as nothing about the Nokia 8.2 is confirmed yet.

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