Entertainment
Shankar Mahadevan enjoys complete freedom with ‘MTV Unplugged’
Mumbai, Dec 17 (IANS) National Award winning music director and vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, who performed some unplugged versions of songs with his sons Siddharth and Shivam, says “MTV Unplugged” gives an artiste total freedom.
Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV “Unplugged” Season 7 started its multi-city tour live concerts from here on Sunday.
Sharing his excitement, Mahadevan said: “This is very special to me as I got to sing with my sons. The show has great viewership and the response that we are getting is phenomenal. Usually, the platforms tend to dictate to you what needs to be done and what is commercially viable, but the beauty of this show is that the artiste gets complete freedom to feature whatever is in his/her mind.”
Shankar performed some hit tracks like “Dil Dhadakne Do”, “Uff teri adaa”, “Sajda”, “Mitwa” and “Ik junoon”.
During the meet and greet with the media, Raja Banerji, Assistant Vice President (Marketing), Pernod Ricard India, said: “With each season, Royal Stag Barrel Select MTV Unplugged has taken perfection a notch higher in music and we are looking forward to yet another magnificent season.”
The musical celebration will travel to Kanpur, Delhi, Ludhiana, Guwahati and Bhubaneswar with artistes like Vishal Bhardwaj, Farhan Akhtar, Papon and Monali Thakur.
–IANS
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Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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