Entertainment
Akash Ambani-Shloka Mehta wedding: Sundar Pichai, Ban Ki-Moon, Sachin, SRK among high-profile guests to grace the event
Former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Blair, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a host of politicians and film personalities graced Akash Ambani and Shloka Mehta’s grand wedding here on Saturday.
Bollywood celebrities Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Ayan Mukerji and Karan Johar, as well as cricketer Hardik Pandya danced away to singer Mika Singh’s live tracks as industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s son Akash made his way to wed his childhood friend Shloka, the daughter of Mona and Russell Mehta.
The celebrities joined the lively and colourful “baraat”, which also saw the groom’s parents — Mukesh and Nita Ambani — and sister Isha Ambani groove.
While Isha sported a pastel pink lehenga, Nita was dressed in a heavily-embroidered lehenga.
The groom looked dapper in a soft pink, intricately embroidered and sequinned sherwani, while the bride chose a traditional red for the D-Day.
Akash kickstarted the wedding festivities by offering prayers to his paternal grandfather, late Dhirubhai Ambani, and maternal grandfather, late Ravindrabhai Dalal.
The wedding venue — Jio World Centre in Bandra-Kurla Complex — was decked up with elaborate floral arrangements set according to a garden theme, complete with a faux waterfall, floral figurines, a fountain and a grand stage with a huge Krishna idol done up with flowers.
Live music added to the festivities at the wedding gala, which saw the Who’s Who of the cinema, political, business and sports world.
Isha and her husband Anand Piramal, along with Piramal Group Chairman Ajay Piramal and his wife Swati, were part of the celebrations. Others from the business sector included Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal and Usha Mittal, Anand Mahindra and Gautam Singhania.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft head honcho Satya Nadella too came for the celebrations, as did politicians like Praful Patel and H.D. Deve Gowda.
As for the film world, the Bachchan family, including Amitabh, Jaya, Shweta, Abhishek, Aishwarya and Aaradhya, were in attendance, as were Rajinikanth, Priyanka Chopra, Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao, Alia Bhatt, Karisma Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Anu Malik, Armaan Jain, Jackie Shroff, Vidya Balan, Vishal-Shekhar, Gauri Khan, Farah Khan, Juhi Chawla, Kiara Advani, Sidharth Malhotra and Shabana Azmi.
Among the sportspersons, Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh, Krunal Pandya, Hardik Pandya, Zaheer Khan, Ajinkya Rahane and Sri Lankan legend Mahela Jayawardene were present on the occasion.
After the wedding, a celebration night will be held on Sunday, followed by a grand reception on Monday.
The marriage was preceded by days of celebrations, which began with a “dandiya” night last month. A three-day extravaganza at St. Moritz in Switzerland saw The Chainsmokers and Coldplay’s Chris Martin perform to an audience full of Bollywood stars, as well as a carnival bash which was opened to the locals for two hours.
The week before the wedding was also full of celebrations for the families with a Harry Potter-themed party, a musical night, a mala and mehendi function and more.
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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