Entertainment
Bollywood pays no importance to music: Pankaj Udhas
New Delhi: Ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas, who has launched his single “Khwaabon ki Kahaani”, says Bollywood isn’t paying much importance to music and that seems to have brought its standard down.
“Bollywood pays no importance to music. The importance of music has become practically zero in Bollywood. The songs in movies are only there to promote the film. They are not an integral part of the movie or the script.
“Earlier, one used to listen to some good music and poetry because the songs used to be woven into the script and they used to be relevant to the script. Today, the songs in cinemas are not relevant to films. They have brought the standard of music to the pedestrian level and there is nothing that we can do about it,” Udhas told IANS.
A widely popular singer, Udhas has sung songs like “Chitthi Aayee Hai” and “Jiye toh jiye kaise” in movies.
His latest single “Khwaabon ki Kahaani” was launched on hungama.com, an on-demand digital entertainment storefront, in the hope of reaching out to a larger audience and as an attempt to revive ghazals.
He says the lack of revenues in the music world is hampering the quality, however, there’s hope due to the online platform.
“Most of the audio labels have absolutely no revenues out of any music which they produce unless it is produced by Bollywood, because Bollywood has the money to spend. Because of lack of revenue, there is no new stuff coming out.
“The only hope is a digital platform like Hungama which can take your music across to the world. So I’m really hoping that through digital sources we will bounce back,” Udhas said.
Talking about his new single, the 64-year-old singer said he liked the ghazal since he first heard it from it’s lyricist Aalok Shrivastav and recorded it within a week.
“What’s exciting for me is that this is my first ghazal single. I’ve always done albums all my life. It was during the recording of a television serial title track which I was composing that Aalok Shrivastav narrated a ghazal that he had written. And I really liked the ghazal.
“I told him let’s record it. Within a week’s time, we recorded the ghazal and decided to make it a single. We tied up with Hungama so that we have a worldwide digital presence. We also shot a video for the song so we can connect with the younger audience and reach a larger audience,” he added.
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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