Entertainment
Forbes releases list of 100 richest Indian celebrity, Salman Khan on No.1 spot
New Delhi: Bollywood superstar, Salman Khan is the richest Indian celebrity, according to the 2018 Forbes India Celebrity 100 list, which he has topped for the third consecutive year. Shah Rukh Khan has fallen out of the top 10 list.
The 2018 Forbes India Celebrity 100 List rankings are based on estimates of entertainment-related earnings of celebrities. The period under consideration is October 1, 2017 to September 30, 2018.
The actor’s earnings are pegged at Rs 253.25 crore. Salman, 52, cemented his place in the top spot thanks to the commercial success of his movies “Tiger Zinda Hai” and “Race 3”. His earnings were backed by endorsements of several consumer-facing brands, and constitute 8.06 percent of the total earnings — Rs 3,140.25 crore — of the top 100 celebrities for the year, read a statement from Forbes.
Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli jumped one spot to the second rank, with total earnings of Rs 228.09 crore, a sharp increase of 116.53 percent from the previous year. Actor Akshay Kumar completed the top three, with Rs 185 crore in earnings in the period under consideration for the list.
With no movie releases in 2017, Shah Rukh Khan, who was at the second spot on the 2017 Forbes India Celebrity list, fell out of the top 10. His earnings were down 33 percent this year, at Rs 56 crore from endorsements, placing him at rank 13 on the list.
Newly-wed actress Deepika Padukone broke into the top five on the Forbes India Celebrity 100 list — the first woman celebrity to find place in the top five — with earnings of Rs 112.8 crore, placing her firmly at rank 4, thanks to the commercial success of “Padmaavat”, and her brand endorsements.
Salman Khan is richest Indian celebrity on Forbes, Shahrukh Khan out from top 10:
Cricket star Mahendra Singh Dhoni rounded up the top five with Rs 101.77 crore, followed by Aamir Khan (Rs 97.50 crore), Amitabh Bachchan (Rs 96.17 crore), Ranveer Singh (Rs 84.7 crore), Sachin Tendulkar (Rs 80.00 crore) and Ajay Devgn (Rs 74.50 crore) making it to the top 10.
There is mixed representation from the prolific South Indian film industry. There are 17 celebrities from the South this year against 13 on the 2017 list. The number of Bollywood actors is down from 33 to 31, despite their cumulative earnings increasing by 12.89 percent from the previous year.
Brian Carvalho, Editor, Forbes India, said: “The Celebrity 100 is a definitive barometer of earnings of celebrities. Besides the earnings charts and cover stories on high-fliers like Sachin Tendulkar, Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone, we have also covered in the Celebrity 100 Special issue a whole new generation of celebrities — the unlikeliest of YouTube stars from the hinterland, a rapper from the Mumbai ghettos and an activist actor from Kerala taking on misogyny head-on in the testosterone driven Malayalam film industry.”
Indian cricket team all-rounder Hardik Pandya, with earnings to the tune of Rs 28.46 crore, was the highest gainer (in percentage terms), with his annual earnings rising nearly nine times.
Actress Nayanthara, whose earnings stand at Rs 15.17 crore, is the only woman from the South Indian film industry to make it to the list, following the success of her dark comedy, “Kolamavu Kokila” and the thriller “Aramm”.
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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