Qualcomm, the US-based chip designer and manufacturer, said it will revamp its entire Snapdragon chip architecture by the end of the year with a view to addressing the fast-growing tablet market. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, the company’s primary all-in-one chip, is one of the most popular chips for making smartphones and tablets at present, but is […]
Government has issued show cause notices to the top four private mobile operators in the country violating the laws related to Mobile Number Portability (MNP). As of 2nd May, show cause notices have been issued to Bharti Airtel Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltd, Reliance and Vodafone for failing to carry out their duties under the MNP […]
China has finally overtaken the United States as the world’s top smartphone market. According to numbers released by research firm Canalys, shipments in China doubled and overtook those in the US for the first time in the first quarter of 2012. In Q1, China represented 22% of global smartphone shipments, while the US accounted for […]
The numbers are in, and contrary to many expectations, India’s number portability has actually ended up helping the big three incumbent operators — Idea Cellular, Vodafone and Airtel. As of March end, a total 4.2 crore subscribers have used India’s mobile number portability — 15 months after they were introduced in January 2011. The sheer […]
Idea has managed to convert only 2.6 million out of its 113 million customers to its 3G platform, more than six months after the services were launched, according to the March-end numbers released by the company today. That translates to a conversion of just about 2.3%, highlighting the difficulties operators in India are facing in […]
The Datawind Ubislate tablet, a more powerful version of the Aakash tablet, was launched by the Canadian company today. Thanks to its cheaper price — a difference of Rs 2500 — the Ubislate 7C, which has a capacitive display, is now the most value-for-money tablet in India. It is also the cheapest tablet in India […]
Digital research agency comscore today said Amazon’s Kindle Fire now accounts for more than half of all the Android tablets sold in the United States. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab has seen its share tumble over the last three months, numbers revealed. Within the Android tablet market, Kindle Fire has almost doubled its share in the past […]
It was the result of much effort and pain by the mobile operators in India, but going by the latest signs, the uptick in average call rates in the industry may not have lasted more than a quarter. According to the latest industry numbers, everything went up in the December quarter of 2011- right from […]
India and Russia will be the first two markets to get Nokia’s next generation imaginging-oriented phones — the Nokia 808 PureView. Nokia said Nokia 808 PureView will start rolling out in May, starting with the two countries — now Nokia’s biggest markets. The Nokia 808 PureView has a 41 megapixel camera with high-performance Carl Zeiss […]
Blackberry’s new Blackberry Curve 9220, priced at just Rs 10,990, will help the Canadian smartphone maker RIM to further increase its presence in India, Cyber Media Research said. Earlier in the day, Research in Motion announced that it was launching the Blackberry Curve 9220, targeted at the ‘mass’ market. Unlike the usual Blackberry, the Curve […]
Google Plus has expanded its ‘update and track via SMS’ feature to most of the countries in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The feature, which lets you update and follow others’ updates on SMS on mobile phones, was initially available only in the US and India markets. Others like Facebook and Twitter already […]
Call it the 3G effect, or the result of a relentless and ruthless assault on call rates by leading operators in India: today, the contribution of call revenues to overall sales has fallen below the 50% mark for most Indian telecom operators. An analysis of numbers crunched by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of Inda (TRAI) […]
TRAI’s decision to recommend steep auction reserve prices may have rattled the industry, but the telecom regulator had its own reasons for suggesting the relatively high price. It recommended a spectrum auction reserve price roughly double that of actual prices discovered in 3G auctions in 2010 for the 800-900 MHz band that has so far […]
The Cellular Operators’ Association of India, representing the interests of the major telecom operators of India including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, has issued a clarification that it is not in favor of the Government trying to override Supreme Court decisions by making laws that would apply to periods before they were made. The clarification was […]
If the boom in the smartphone market has helped any company, it is the U.S.-based Qualcomm. The chip maker’s performance in 2011 lived up to its reputation as the most viable threat to the dominance of Intel in the worldwide semiconductor (chip) market. According to full-year numbers released by technology market research firm Gartner, Qualcomm […]
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) today announced that its @WalmartLabs operation is expanding in Bangalore with the hiring of 100 additional developers and a move into a new facility. Wal-Mart plans to hire an additional 100 people to create a next-generation e-commerce platform. The new platform is designed to connect Walmart’s digital and physical properties […]
India came one step closer to having a robust mobile banking infrastructure in place with the notification of the ‘Mobile Banking (Quality of Service) Regulations’ by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) today. The regulations are meant primarily to prevent mobile operators from refusing to co-operate with, or providing poor cooperation to, banks that […]
Google’s surprisingly good results yesterday was partly the result of the tighter focus brought in by founder Larry Page after he took over as CEO. But the sharper focus also makes it tougher for Google to maintain its glamorous reputation in the tech world, analysts warned. Page had took over from long-time CEO Eric Schmidt […]
Reliance Communications, one of the top three mobile operators in India, has struck a partnership with Google to jointly promote Google’s Android operating system in the country. Reliance has become the first operator in India to enter into the special and exclusive marketing tie-up with Google, and the agreement will follow the patterns of such […]
Overruling objections by big telecom operators, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recommended allowing district-level operators. Anyone, including local cable operators, will now be able to offer landline and mobile, Internet and other services after paying the Rs 10 lakh entry fee per district, if the recommendations are accepted by the Government. In […]
