Entertainment
Had inhibitions to cast Vicky Kaushal in ‘Masaan’: Director
New Delhi: Vicky Kaushal may be earning plaudits for doing justice to his role in “Masaan’, but director Neeraj Ghaywan says he had his doubts before casting him as one of the leads in the film.
“Vicky and I go a long way. Both of us started our career at the same time with ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ as ADs (Assistant directors)… that was our first job. For this film, I had something else in mind because I wanted Rajkumar Rao,” Ghaywan said at an event here, adding that he “was very particular about getting all the nuances about culture and looks right and he had inhibitions to cast Vicky”.
Ghaywan spoke about his film at the inaugural ceremony of five-day Jagran Film Festival, which was opened by “Masaan” here on Wednesday.
The movie follows the stories of four people from a small town and how they fit into the moralities. Vicky plays role of a lower caste man, who burns dead bodies for a living and how his life takes a drastic change when he falls for a girl from upper caste.
The director, who already has two international prizes in his account for his directorial debut film, noted that the audition tape change his mind. Since then, there was no looking back.
“I saw the audition and was blown away by it. The kind of effort he has put in and hard work to get the part right is worth mentioning. There was a point where I derived my director notes from him as he became more the character than the director,” said the director.
The movie, set in Varanasi, won the Promising Future Prize and the International Federation of Film Critics (Fipresci) Award.
After making a mark internationally, the film is all set to release in India on July 24.
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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