Micromax: 2016 to be the year of large screens, cheap smartphones, videos.

The year that has just begun will be the year of large screens and videos, the demand for cheaper smartphones will grow and 3G and 2G users will continue to co-exist over the next few years in India, Micromax, one of the country's leading smartphone makers, has predicted.

In 2016, entry of Chinese and Indian brands in mobile manufacturing market would be a key driver for new business models to emerge to ensure unit level profitability, the Micromax study noted, adding that it may be difficult for Chinese companies to enter and flourish if the Goods and Service Tax (GST) is implemented.

It also pointed out that e-commerce might flatten out and mobile internet ecosystem would grow beyond the 150-200 million smartphone users.

“The massification of smartphones will continue in India to keep on catering to the needs of first time smartphone users and the growth will depend on vernacular usage, access costs and penetrating distribution and awareness,” the findings showed.

Although the country saw the proliferation of 4G-enabled devices, 3G and 2G users will continue to co-exist over the next few years.

“The auction of LTE (4G) centric spectrum in 2016 could make 4G to play a crucial role in building Digital India,” it noted.

Samsung and Micromax dominated the handset market last year by ramping up domestic manufacturing.

Shockingly, the study said that in 2016, e-commerce websites may flatten out as these platforms will cut back their cash burns. However, the reach will expand to newer towns.

The study pointed out that with the wide availability of data network, content, personalisation and hardware such as large screens, smartphones will become a more preferred source for video consumption in 2016.

Mobile-led services across sectors like entertainment, travel, healthcare and banking will become mainstay and mobile internet ecosystem will grow beyond the 150-200 million smartphone users.

The key to this growth will be simplification through relevant services and availability of these in various Indian languages, the study said.

Virtual reality set to transform filmmaking

Chris Milk stepped onto a TED Conference stage and took the audience on an awe-inducing trip into the future of movies. While much of the early attention on virtual reality has focused on use of the immersive technology in video games, Milk and his US startup Vrse are using it to transform storytelling and filmgoing. "We have just started to scratch the surface of the true power of virtual reality," Milk said. "It's not a video game peripheral. It connects humans to other humans in a profound way... I think virtual reality has the potential to actually change the world." He had everyone in the Vancouver audience at TED , which ended Friday, hold Google Cardboard viewers to their eyes for what was billed as the world's collective virtual reality experience. Google Cardboard gear is literally that -- cardboard

Explained: Camera Improvements in the New HTC 10

With the HTC 10, the Taiwanese company is promising to undo the past wrongs in the cameras of its previous flagship phones. The camera has long a weak point in HTC devices. At first, HTC sacrificed image resolution in the M8 and made the size of individual pixels larger to capture more light (what HTC called Ultrapixel). But the resulting 4 megapixel images were often fuzzy, especially when cropped or enlarged. To fix the issue, in its next flagship - the M9 - HTC went with smaller individual pixels in a 20-megapixel camera last year, but it still underperformed in extreme situations, such as indoors and close-ups. In the HTC 10, the company attempts to strike a balance with larger individual pixels (1.55µm), but not as large as before and a 12 megapixel sensor in its camera coupled with a ƒ/1.8 lens. HTC accepts that in the imaging performance in the M9 was not up to the kind of spec of what they really like to see in a flagship. HTC is giving a slight boost to the selfi...

Freedom 251: 30,000 Units Sold, Components for Up to 2.5 Million Will Be Imported

Ringing Bells, the makers of the Rs. 251 smartphone - the Freedom 251 - confirmed to Gadgets 360 on Tuesday that it has still only accepted payments for 30,000 units of the phone. It also added that the components for these phones will be imported, and only assembled in India, not made here. Ringing Bells stopped accepting orders on February 19, and claims to have received over 70 million registrations. The company President and Director both repeatedly stated that the price of the phone would be made possible through economies of scale, and making the phone in India to cut out import costs. Economies of scale? However, in a discussion with Gadgets 360 the company revealed that it had only sold 30,000 units of the phone on day one. The company has now confirmed that it has not sent out the payment emails to anyone else who registered - "we were working out details of cash on delivery, which we are announcing now, so we will be sending emails to the first 2.5...

IntellectBeat

Search This Blog