Entertainment
Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper vie for top box-office spot
Los Angeles: “Our Brand is Crisis” and “Burnt”, two new movies with Sandra Bullock starring in one and Bradley Cooper in the other, premiere in the US this weekend, though showbiz pundits predict that “The Martian” and “Goosebumps” will be the big box-office draws for another week.
“Our Brand is Crisis”, directed by David Gordon Green, is a political satire in which Bullock plays a consultant charged with rolling out a media campaign for a presidential candidate in Bolivia.
The film is based on the like-named documentary about the application of American political campaign strategies in the Bolivia of 2002, when Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada beat Evo Morales and was re-elected president.
“Burnt”, by John Wells, tells how a chef (Cooper) whose career was wrecked by drug addiction and his in-your-face attitude, decides to turn his life around and completely redeem himself as head chef of one of London’s finest restaurants.
The film brings Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller back together on the big screen a year after their big hit “American Sniper”.
Also making their debut are the terror comedies “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” and “Freaks of Nature”.
In “Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse” by Christopher Landon, three young explorers discover the true meaning of friendship when they try to save their own town from a zombie menace.
In the cast are Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan.
“Freaks of Nature” by Robbie Pickering shows humans, vampires and zombies living together peacefully in a town called Dillford, until some extraterrestrials arrive and plan to exterminate every last one of them.
Nicholas Braun, Mackenzie Davis, Josh Fadem and Denis Leary star.
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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