Entertainment
Life comes full circle with ‘Theri’ for Sunaina
Chennai: Actress Sunaina, who plays an important role in forthcoming Tamil actioner “Theri”, says life has come full circle with the opportunity to share screen space with superstar Vijay, who had launched the audio of her debut Tamil film.
“I play a fun role in ‘Theri’, but I don’t like to talk about it much. It was nice working with Vijay sir, and it was special because he launched the audio of my first Tamil film ‘Kadhalil Vizhunthen’, so it felt like completing a cycle,” Sunaina told IANS.
About the experience of working with Vijay, she said: “He’s very humble and friendly. It was on the sets of ‘Theri’ that I spoke to him for the first time. He told me that he knows that I’m a good dancer, and it felt good coming from a star.”
Sunaina also has Tamil romantic-comedy “Kavalai Vendam” in her kitty, besides a Telugu project.
“Nearly 60 percent of ‘Kavali Vendam’ is done. I’m paired with Jiiva, and I play a girl madly in love with him. The film is about different phases people in relationship go through. It’s a story everybody can easily relate to,” she said.
Although Sunaina started her cinematic career in Telugu filmdom, she couldn’t capitalise on the start.
“Since I got busy with Tamil films, I couldn’t pursue a career in Telugu industry. So it’s not like I’m making a comeback with this new Telugu project, because I never left. I just had to prioritise my career as I had my hands full in Tamil,” she said.
Having earned some reputation with films such as “Maasilamani” and “Neerparvai”, Sunaina has successfully clocked a decade in the industry.
“I started quite young, and I was clueless and scared. Even though I had a lot of theatre experience, things were a lot of different in cinema. I wasn’t comfortable for the first few years and it was only after my first Kannada project, I started liking what I was doing,” she said, adding that she has learnt to not impress anybody.
“I’ve learnt to be myself. In this industry, people waste so much of time trying to make others like them. I absolutely find that silly, because as an actor you’re always living someone else’s life on screen, so what’s the point of trying to me someone else in real life, too,” she asked.
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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