mobility issue june

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mobility monthly magazine June 2014 issue 01 volume 11 www.mobilityindia.com

Beyond Technology, Beyond Lifestyle

Micromax appoints Taneja as CEO

Q&A with Amit Boni, GM, Motorola

Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, APAC BU India

Mr. Tom Lu, CEO, OPPO Mobiles India

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mobility June 2014 www.mobilityindia.com4

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ContentMobility News

8-9 Latest industry news

Mobility Launchpad

10-11 Latest mobile lauches of the month

Mobility Special Report

12-14 Communic Asia 2014

Mobility Channel Focus

15 Vivian Singh , President, CEO, Strontium Technology

Mobility Guest Column

16-17 Improving Facebook on Android

Mobility Review

18 & 20 OPPO N1 Moto E

Mobility Personality

19 Mr. Tom Lu, CEO, OPPO Mobiles India

Mobility Q & A

21 Q & A with Amit Boni

Mobility Buying Guide

22 Choose The Right Tablet for You

Mobility Cover Story

23-28 Budget Teblets Galore in Indian Market

Tech Story

29 TV in your Smartphone, a reality todayt

Trend Setter

30-31 We will be one of the top 5 Smartphone suppliers to India by 2014

Mobility Events

32-34 Computex 2014: What’s hot this year?

Editor : Swapan RoyChief Editor : Manoj JhaAssociate Editor (Tech,) : Jayanta GhoshAsst. Editor : E.J. Jawahardatham

Design DeskArt Director : Anit Kumar

Acct. & FinanceFinance : Sandip Sarkar

Marketing & SalesMarketing Manager : Tridip DeyMarketing Executives : Sujit Goswami Pratap Biswas S. Dutt Raj KumarCirculation Manager : P. BiswasProduction : Ashish Ghosh Ashok PaulSystem Manager : Ajay Biswas

H.O.: Delhi / Editorial O� ceRoy Mediative A-23, 1st Floor, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110020 (INDIA) Mob: 09810380882, 09811346846Ph: 91-11-41602841, 65683896, 40536384-87Redg.O� .: 38-B / 56 Block, C. R. Park, New Delhi-110019 (India).Branch O� ce:Mumbai: E-mail: roy@ mobilityindia.comKolkata: 105/12B, Dum Dum Road, Sil Colony, Kolkata-74Contact: 09330922965; 09903392620E-mail : roy@ mobilityindia.comOrissa: Krushna Nagar, 5th Lane, Lalji Palli, Berhampur-760008 (Orissa) (India)Contact : Raj Kumar-09338410809 Email : [email protected] [email protected] monthly News Paper, Printed, Published & Owned by Swapan Roy at 38-B / 56 Block, C. R. Park, New Delhi-110019 (India). Printed at Pushpak Printer, C-96, Okhla Industrial Area-I, New Delhi-20. Retail selling price of News Paper Rs. 20/-. Annual subscription Rs. 240.

Editor : [email protected] roy@ mobilityindia.com Marketing : [email protected] [email protected] Info : [email protected] : subscription@ mobilityindia.com

Web : www.mobilityindia.com

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Taiwan’s fl agship event Computex has always got bigger and better year after year—this year was not diff erent. This year the event was all about going mobile - gadgets, accessories, demos and concepts that are set to drive mobility ahead.

Some, like the 3D printers, point to an exciting new future while others, such as tablets and smartphones, aren’t completely new but are defi nitely improved.

Asus always makes a splash, and this year’s topper was the Transformer Book V, a mashup of the company’s existing Padfone and Transformer Book products.

The company is no stranger to hybrid combination products, but this seems like taking the concept to a whole new extreme - we’ve got a phone which is also a tablet which is also a laptop. It’s unclear what the benefi ts of this device are over the three independent ones, but you’ll defi nitely turn heads when you snap the various parts of it together.

Another company was showing off various 3D printers with prices starting as low as $499. That’s a mere fraction of what similar devices cost, and could lead to an explosion of 3D printing amongst hobbyists, students and designers. In addition to the printers, we saw multiple companies with 3D-printed samples of upcoming products.

HUAWEI Ascend P7

The highly anticipated HUAWEI Ascend

P7 has been launched in Singapore at

CommunicAsia 2014. HUAWEI Ascend

P7 is the new 4G LTE-enabled smartphone that

redefi nes excellence with top-notch features, ultra-

fast connectivity and easier navigation in a beautifully

crafted design. With a 5-inch full high-defi nition

display, industry-leading 8MP front-facing and 13MP

rear-facing cameras and the latest intuitive Emotion

UI 2.3, HUAWEI Ascend P7 will make it possible for

people to express excellence with edge, anytime,

anywhere.The 6.5 mm Huawei Ascend P7 is one of

the best looking and thinnest smartphones on the

market.

For people seeking unlimited media viewing

with ultra-fast 4G LTE speed, HUAWEI Ascend P7

has a unique dual antenna design to improve

signal reception as well as a robust 2500 mAh

lithium polymer battery. Also, the power-saving

management function can stretch the remaining 10

percent of battery power to last 24 hours on standby.

The P7 off ers a 5-inch 1080p display, 13MP/8MP front/

rear camera combo, and 2GB of RAM to go with its

home-brewed quad-core 1.8GHz Kirin 910T chipset.

We were really impressed by the build quality of the

P7, but not so much by its performance in our full

review.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

On the other hand, CommunicAsia2014, EnterpriseIT2014 and BroadcastAsia2014 Asia’s most established ICT, broadcast and digital multimedia trade events took attendees on a revolutionary journey with the most hi-tech technologies that will power the future in a smarter and more connected living environment, while also providing a glimpse into the latest state-of-the-art solutions in digital entertainment.

More than 50,000 attendees at the four-day event at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, set the stage for meaningful interaction with the world’s leading ICT and broadcasting companies as well as technology upstarts.

They also experienced the newest technology launches and heard the latest business announcements from nearly 2000 exhibitors from more than 50 countries/regions across the world. The shows’ three conferences drew more than 1300 attendees, with industry luminaries sharing their views on hot and trending topics with delegates.

Swapan [email protected]

Computex and CommunicAsia 2014 Focus on Devices and Connectivity


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Champion to Start Manufacturing of Mobile Devices in Himachal Pradesh, India

M o b i l i t y N e w s

The company targets manufacturing 1lakh units per month starting from June. The company will initially start manufacturing mobile phones and

subsequently will concentrate on Tablet PCs. Champion entered a strategic alliance with BSNL last year to introduce series of new mobile computing devices including smart phones, tablets, data cards and wireless networking products. The company has sold over 1 lakh devices. Commenting on the new development, Mr. Kapil Wadhwa, Champion Computers Pvt. Ltd. Said “With the growing demands and constantly evolving market, commencing of our own facility will assist us to have an edge over the competitors. Post our association with BSNL this would be another step ahead to establish ourselves further in the country. Our facility will be operational from June end and we expect to manufacture 1lakh units per month in the initial phase. We are targeting to triple it by the end of the year.”

The company has an established network of about 3,000 dealers across country and has a nationwide distribution network of 14 branch offices and 400 service centers. Champion Computers plan to launch 3 to 4 devices every month after the commencement

of the manufacturing unit.The recently launched DM6513phablet with 6.5-inch display and Android 4.2 is priced at Rs. 6,999 only. The range would also include Champion Wtab-704 Calling Tablet and

Champion Wconnect – HSUPA-Wireless Data Card-3.5Gwith a download speed of 7.2mbps. The company is also very aggressive with their channel expansion to ascertain their all-round reach and development.

Tata Docomo and NDMC Present Wi-Fi zone at Connaught Place

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) and Tata Docomo have joined forces to offer Wi-Fi services in Delhi, with the hotspot network

planned to be set up in the Connaught Place area which is now known as Rajiv Chowk and covers a wide area of

4 kilometers.According to the Tata Docomo, Wi-Fi services will be available in the inner and outer circles of the location and usage will be free, but for the first 20 minutes

only. Once the free time period has been consumed, users will be able to select one of many plans. They can either purchase them online or buy a top-up through a retail outlet. Where prices are concerned, 40 minutes of usage will cost just Rs 20, while 60 minutes and 100 minutes will set users back by Rs 30 and Rs 50, respectively.The Wi-Fi hotspot services are being aimed at both visitors and business users. And the main goal here is to provide services at par with international standards. The carrier notes that it will provide high speed connectivity, but has made no mention of how much bandwidth will be delivered. Docomo is currently supplying similar services in various other locations such as the Feroz Shah Kotla Cricket Stadium and Delhi Domestic and T3 International Airport amongst others.

400 million 3G connections in India by 2020: Ericsson reportA new Ericsson study suggests that the mobile

broadband user base in India will grow four times in the next six years. The mobile

subscriber base is expected to grow to 1145 million by 2020, from 795 million in 2013. The study also points out

that smartphone penetration driven by data usage would increase to 520 million devices from 90 million devices in 2013.Currently, an average user consumes 155MB of data, which could increase to 390MB by 2017 and 620MB by 2020, suggests the report. The growth in mobile data usage would help existing telecom players reach newer levels, while some regional players may also surface. The growth could be triggered by primary uses such as social networking, web browsing and instant messaging via popular apps like WhatsApp and WeChat.

Ajay Gupta, head of strategy & marketing, Ericsson India said that the Internet access through mobile was earlier limited to ‘some-time’ of the day, but times have changed and this access has now changed to ‘real-time’. “Today there is certain level of penetration of 3G services but going forward, by 2020, we will have mobile broadband subscribers, which are about half a billion, which means about 400 million will still be 3G and 100 million will be 4G,” he added. This means it expects 3G


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VineetTaneja was the Country Head for IT & Mobile businesses of Samsung India till recently. With over 25 years of

experience, Vineet worked with leading consumer brands like Hindustan Lever, Nokia and Bharti Airtel, prior to Samsung. From performing Sales & Marketing roles at HLL & Nokia to general management responsibilities at Bharti Airtel and Samsung, Vineet has evolved as a respected leader of the telecom industry. Vineet will focus on consolidating Micromax’s strong presence in the market, driving global partnerships and strategic alliances while strengthening the organizational capabilities within Micromax.

Commenting on Vineet’s appointment, Rahul Sharma, Co-founder, Micromax said, “Vineet will be an asset in our

New Indian Govt.to Speed Up AuctionsThe new Indian government has been called

upon to speed up the auction of additional radio spectrum so that mobile networks can

support growing demand for faster internet speeds. India’s ASSOCHAM released an open letter calling for a range of measures to improve the telecoms industry, by reducing regulatory costs, auctioning available spectrum, extending benefits of infrastructure status and providing an impetus to domestic manufacturing.

“Thus, all available spectrum must be auctioned immediately, ideally in a big-bang auction or in a short timeframe by delivering benefits to society and revenues for government.”

Next time you take a train ride to Mumbai be prepared to witness Vodafone Gujarat’s latest innovation in branding on the popular rail lifeline, the Shatabdi Express connecting

Gujarat with Mumbai. Vodafone Gujarat in collaboration with Indian Railways has for the first time in India done a complete train wrap of all 14 coaches of the Ahmedabad – Mumbai Shatabdi Express. The newly Vodafone branded Shatabdi Express was formally unveiled today by a Vodafone ZooZoo in the presence of BrajeshBajpai, Business Head – Gujarat, Vodafone India, at Ahmedabad Railway Station.This branding initiative aims to promote Vodafone’s high speed 3G data network, fastest 3G Dongle that provides data transfer speed up to 21.1Mbps and 3G mobile internet capabilities which include free data roaming for Vodafone Gujarat customers travelling to any part of India. Through this initiative, Vodafone seeks to get closer to and engage with commuters through the entire route between Ahmedabad and Mumbai Central. Vodafone is the first brand in the state to come up with such an innovative concept linking branding and customer engagement at a popular public outpost.

Speaking about this endeavourBrajeshBajpai, Business Head – Gujarat, Vodafone India said, “A continued focus on innovative and relevant products and best in class customer service are the hallmark of Vodafone’s business in Gujarat. We are extremely proud to unveil the branded Shatabdi, as one more testimony to Vodafone’s continued efforts to innovate and go beyond the ordinary to engage with our valued customers. It is a great platform to get our message across to an estimated 300,000 eye-balls each day along its route. We found great synergy between Shatabdi’s association with Speed and Vodafone’s Faster, Smarter, Better positioning for our 3G service offering. Thousands of our customers who travel to Mumbai can enjoy continued connectivity, stay informed and entertained through the duration of their journey on the super-fast Shatabdi Express, with Vodafone’s reliable, high speed and competitively priced 3G Mobile Internet packs.”

Vodafone unveils unique branding on the Shatabdi Express

Micromax appoints VineetTaneja as CEO

next phase of growth, his diverse experience will be a great addition to the Micromax leadership in India

both from organizational set-up and business growth perspective. Vineet is one of the most respected corporate leaders in the industry and has a great track record of successfully leading diverse brands across sectors.”

He further added, “I firmly believe that he will be a strong partner in our vision to be India’s first technology brand to leave an

imprint at the global level. We look forward to working closely with

Vineet and support him in this new journey.”Micromax also recently announced the induction of Sanjay Kapoor, former CEO of Bharti Airtel to the Micromax promoter group and Chairman of the board with immediate effect.

Ranjivjit Singh who was serving HP as Head, Marketing, PPS Group, has left

the company. If reports are to be believed, now he has joined Samsung India. Ranjivjit Singh joined HP India as the Chief Marketing Officer on 15th Nov. 2010. Prior to joining HP, he was the Chief Marketing Officer - Consumer & Online at Microsoft India. Before that, Ranjiv was VP-Global Services and Corporate Communication with Ericsson India Pvt Ltd.

Having over 20 years of sales and marketing experience, Ranjiv holds a MMS Degree with specialization in Marketing from Mumbai University.

Ranjivjit Singh has joined Samsung India as Chief Marketing officer


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Intex launched Aqua i5HD:Targeting the internet savvy generation, Intex launched its

next generation HD smartphone- Aqua i5HD. Another addition to sub 10k category of smartphone. .The smartphone comes with HD display, 13MP back camera with smart applications such as capturing an image by saying “Cheese’ or “Capture”, Coupled with 5MP front camera, this phone facilitates HD video calling capabilities. The smartphones operates on 4.2.2 Jelly Bean Android OS and runs a 1.3GHz quad core processor,dual-sim capabilities, the phone supports Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi, ensuring full time connectivity for the social media buffs. The phone has dedicated 1 GM RAM & 4GB of inbuilt memory that is expandable upto

32GB and is equipped with four sensors - Light Sensor, Magnetic Sensor, Proximity Sensor, G sensor. Available in two premium colors - White & Black and also with a free flip cover at a MOP of 9990 /-.

M o b i l i t y l au N c h pa d

LG G3 Officially LaunchedLG has officially launched the LG G3 at an event in London. Although

this is the official reveal, the company had already trickled out a lot of information prior to the event. The handset is powered by Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 801 chip clocked at 2.5GHz. It has 2GB of RAM rather than the rumoured 3GB, but does come with an Adreno GPU. It runs Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box with LG’s revamped UI layer on top with some interesting features, including a custom keyboard with gesture control, and intelligent notifications. There’s also LG’s Knock Code, which expands on the earlier “Knock On” feature which allowed users to wake the phone by tapping the display. With Knock Code you can create a custom knock so that only you can unlock your device by tapping in specific places in sequence.The LG G3 packs a

13-megapixel camera with 4K video capture and optical stabilisation (OIS+) with laser autofocus.

Lava to launch Iris X1 smartphone running Android KitKat

The company has announced the Iris X1 that will be priced under Rs 8,000. 4.5-inch IPS touchscreen (854×480 pixels, 217 ppi), 1.2GHz quad-core Broadcom 23550 processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal memory, microSD card up to 32GB , Dual-SIM (SIM + micro SIM), 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel front camera, WVGA video recording, 3G (only on regular SIM), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4, GPS, 1800mAh battery, Android 4.4 KitKat. Price: Rs 7,999.

Panasonic P81 a feature rich phablet

Japanese electronics giant has now launched a phablet priced at under Rs 20,000. It comes with a 5.5-inch IPS (1280x720 pixels), 1.7GHz

MediaTek octa-core processor, 1GB RAM, 8GB + microSD slot, 13 MP + 5 MP camera, dual SIM, Android 4.2, 2500mAh battery. Price: Rs 18,999

Philips enters Indian Mobile Market, Launches 4 new phones

Philips Mobile, has announced its foray into the Indian mobile market with its new range of smartphones W6610, W3500, S308 and also a feature phone E130 targeting at business professionals, technology enthusiasts and durability segment. CEC sees a huge opportunity in the Indian smartphone market and aggressively aiming to provide innovative and stylish phones to the wide segment of consumers, where patterns and preferences are constantly evolving. The products are priced between INR 1, 960 - INR 35,000.W6610 : Featuring a best-in-class 5300mAh built-in battery which promises to give an epic talk time of up to 33hours* and web browsing time of up to 16 hours. Rs. 16, 195

W3500 : This smartphone equips you with a 1.3GHz quad core processor, a 5.0” FWVGA TFT touch screen, Android 4.2 and dual mode network coverage. Rs. 20, 650S308 : Philips S Series’ phone supports dual sim options and a 5 megapixel camera and memory cards up to 32 GB. Rs. 8,290E130 : Its has a dual SIM standby feature, Philips E130 supports MicroSD cards of up to 32GB capacity*. Rs. 1,960


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Gionee Unveils Pioneer P2S in India

Available in four distinct color options, the Gionee Pioneer P2S has been released by the Chinese company here in India with its price set at an affordable Rs 6,499. Its specs sheet is highlighted by a dual core processor and a 4-inch display which features a WVGA resolution. This panel emits its visuals in an 800 x 480 pixel fashion. The Pioneer P2S is a dual SIM device, and it supports GSM networks through both its slots.This new handset grabs hold of a 5MP camera on its rear surface which can be used with its V-Gesture attribute to click selfies. There’s a front snapper present on the Pioneer P2S as well, if you’re wondering and it’s 0.3MP in capacity.

Specs: Display: 4-inch, 800 x 480 pixels - OS: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean - Processor: 1.3GHz dual core - Memory: 512MB RAM, 4GB storage (32GB expandable) - Camera: 5MP rear, 0.3MP front - Battery: 1600mAh

Lenovo Presents A7-50 7-inch Android tablet in India

Lenovo A7-50 has been launched in India officially through the company’s online store for a price of Rs 15,499. And multiple retailers are also offering the tablet with lower retail tags starting from Rs 14990. The slate comes with cellular support and has voice calling, but only a single SIM card slot. The A7-50 tablet does deliver a set of features for a rich Android experience. Speaking of which, the Jelly Bean 4.2 platform is what this Lenovo device runs on. An update to version 4.4 KitKat is also planned in the future, but there’s no schedule for the roll-out as yet. Lenovo A7-50 The A7-50 tablet is designed with a soft touch finish on the rear and is sprayed in a shade of midnight blue. It weighs 320 grams and is 9.9 millimeters thick. The front sports a 7-inch HD IPS display, while a 1.3GHz quad core processor can be found on the inside. Additionally, the slate also packs an entire gigabyte of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot that supports up to 32GB and a 3450mAh battery.

Oppo Find 7 Chinese smartphone maker Oppo has

launched its Find 7 and Find 7a smartphones in India. Find 7 has been priced at Rs 37,990, and the

Find 7a costs Rs 31,990. Oppo Find 7 is

the first smartphone in the Indian market to offer a QHD (or 2K) display panel, with a resolution of 1440x2560p, much higher than the 1080x1920p screens of most flagship smartphones available

at present. With screen size of 5.5-inch, the Find 7 has the highest pixel density in the smartphone market with 538 pixels per inch. Oppo Find 7 used the VOOC technology, which allows it to charge from zero to 75% in 30 minutes or with just 5 min of charging it gives you 2hrs of talktime. Another unique feature of Find 7 is that it can take take ‘50MP’ photos. Though the rear camera of the phone has resolution of 13MP only, it has a Super Zoom mode that merges 10 photos to create a single 50MP image.

Wammy Neo an affordable Smartphone

Wickedleak introduced Wammy Neo, an affordable OCTA Core Smartphone in the market packed with Octa Core Processor and Aqua Protect Technology. Wammy Neoboasts of a

beautiful 5-inch HD display, blazing fast performance of MediaTek Octa Core Processor, and a 13 megapixel Full HD camera and with a 2200mah Battery. Moreover, Wammy Neo comes with Dual SIM, a new AquaProtect technology, Full HD camera, and Android 4.2OS. Wammy Neo also includes 2GB RAM, 8 GB internal Memory (Expandable up

to 64GB) as security wise the face unlock feature of Android has received a boost. Priced at Rs 11,990

Alcatel re-enter the Indian market with Idol X+ at Rs. 16,999

Alcatel launched the One Touch Idol X+ in India at Rs. 16,999. The company is bundling a Boomband and JBL headphones in the box. The phone has been exclusively launched on Flipkart, and will be available on the e-commerce site from June 3. First introduced at CES 2014, the Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ was made available in China in January. The Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ runs Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out-of-the-box. The smartphone supports dual-SIM (Micro-SIM) with dual standby. It features a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels, which translates to a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch (ppi). It features a Corning Gorilla Glass 2 screen. The Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ smartphone is powered by 2GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6592 chipset with ARM Mali450 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ sports 16GB of built-in storage, a 13.1-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash, and also houses a 2-megapixel front-facing camera.


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CommunicAsia2014, EnterpriseIT2014 and BroadcastAsia2014 Asia’s most established ICT, broadcast and digital

multimedia trade events took attendees on a revolutionary journey with the most hi-tech technologies that will power the future in a smarter and more connected living environment, while also providing a glimpse into the latest

M o b i l i t y s p e c i a l r e p o rt

Communic Asia 2014, Enterprise IT 2014 & Broadcast Asia 2014 Showcased latest state-of-the-art solutions in digital entertainmentThe four-day event experienced the newest technology launches and heard the latest business announcements from nearly 2,000 exhibitors from more than 50 countries/regions across the world. The shows’ three conferences drew more than 1,300 attendees, with industry luminaries sharing with delegates their views on hot and trending topics.

state-of-the-art solutions in digital entertainment.The more than 50,000 attendees at the four-

day event at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, set the stage for meaningful interaction with the world’s leading ICT and broadcasting companies as well as technology upstarts. They also experienced the newest technology launches and heard the latest business announcements from nearly 2,000 exhibitors from more than 50 countries/regions across the world. The shows’ three conferences drew more than 1,300 attendees, with industry luminaries sharing with delegates their views on hot and trending topics.

“We are extremely pleased with the buzz this year’s shows have generated. By bringing together industry leaders in connected services and digital entertainment, we were able to off er our attendees a truly immersive experience to enable them to adopt the most relevant and eff ective technological choices for their businesses. The end-to-end spectrum at

CommunicAsia, Enterprise IT and BroadcastAsia showcased government frameworks, technological breakthroughs and commercial applications, all under one roof. This is what attracts our conference speakers and delegates,


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exhibitors, visitors and press to our shows every year,” says Stephen Tan, Chief Executive of show organiser, Singapore Exhibition Services.

Smart Technologies, Internet of Things and Mobile Services Topped CommunicAsia2014 and EnterpriseIT2014

Visitors were excited to try out the smart home security systems, smart bed, smart T-shirt and smart plates and forks that were powered by RFID, sensors and the Internet of Things. Mobile payments solutions from companies like Nexperts, Poket and Unitronic demonstrated innovations in mobile wallets payment. A wearable fitness tracker from Oaxis, a home mobile diagnostic kit from BioSenze and a remote child speech pathology solution from NICTA also made a splash, generating several business enquiries for the companies.

CommunicAs ia2014 and EnterpriseIT2014 provided a launch platform for several other exciting new products including Huawei’s thinnest flagship Ascend P7 smartphone; RugGear’s rugged smartphones, Mariner Pro RG100 and iSafe Innovation 2 for use in harsh environments; and Conax showcased its entry-level OTT Access solution and Conax Go Live solution for live streaming of TV content to mobile devices. TravelSim also showcased the solution to saves up to 85% on roaming charges with its international roaming SIM card.

“CommunicAsia is a fantastic place for us to meet key players in the region and show the full range of innovations that service providers and consumers expect from Technicolor. We put a strong emphasis on

middleware, Wi-Fi, smart life solutions, 4K Ultra HD, that can greatly enhance the home experience for the viewer by delivering value-added services. We also showcased new applications built on our Qeo open


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source solution for connecting a multitude of devices to the Internet of Things; a future that is unfolding for the consumer today,” said Michel Rahier, President Connected Home, Technicolor.

Steve Christian, Vice President Marketing, Verimatrix who has been exhibiting at the shows for more than five years said, “CommunicAsia is the best option as a regional hub for us to reach out to customers and partners across APAC. It enables

us to execute three of our business objectives most efficiently: customer deployments, partner relationships and new products showcase. We are very pleased with the number of meetings we had.”

Other leading companies in the CommunicAsia and EnterpriseIT showcase included Airwatch, Dell, Ericsson, GlobeCast, Huawei, Irdeto, Panasonic Toughbook, Sennheiser Electronic Asia, SingTel Satellite, ST Electronics, Tata Communications, Tektronix, Toshiba and more.

New Business Deals and Solutions in the Satellite Industry

On the back of several recent industry developments, Asia’s largest gathering of more than 160 satellite players at CommunicAsia2014 made significant announcements and led the industry discussion. NovelSat’s new NS3-based enhanced and secure satellite transmission solutions, Thaicom’s inflight Wi-Fi deal with NOK Air, and Eutelsat’s partnership with Singapore’s ST

Huawei Debuts HUAWEI Ascend P7 in Singapore at CommunicAsia 2014

Huawei launched the highly anticipated HUAWEI Ascend P7 for the first time in Singapore at CommunicAsia 2014. In addition, Huawei showcased a wide range of mobile devices and accessories, including the world’s slimmest 7-inch phablet HUAWEI MediaPad X1, and ‘talk and track’ companion HUAWEI TalkBand B1 to demonstrate the company’s commitment in bringing quality, innovative, and fashionable products within reach for more people.

HUAWEI Ascend P7 is the new 4G LTE-enabled smartphone that redefines excellence with top-notch features, ultra-fast connectivity, and easier navigation in a beautifully crafted design. With a 5-inch full high-definition display, industry-leading 8MP front-facing and 13MP rear-facing cameras, and the latest intuitive Emotion UI 2.3, HUAWEI Ascend P7 will make it Possible for people to express excellence with edge, anytime, anywhere.

For people seeking unlimited media viewing with ultra-fast 4G LTE speed, HUAWEI Ascend P7 has a unique dual antenna design to improve signal reception as well as a robust 2500 mAh lithium polymer battery. Also, the power-saving management function can stretch the remaining 10 percent of battery power to last 24 hours on standby.

The TalkBand B1 is a wearable device that lets you talk while keeping track of your active life, featuring a Bluetooth 4.1 wireless earpiece which enables up to seven hours of continuous calling with a 1.4-inch flexible OLED display. It is designed to support wireless calling on both Android 2.3+ and iOS 5.0+ compatible devices, and synchronises effortlessly via NFC. HUAWEI TalkBand B1 monitors steps taken, miles covered and calories burned to maintain fitness, and its 90 mAh battery lasts six days without the need to recharge.

Teleport’s earth station to provide a new gateway that brings faster and more scalable connections for data, maritime, media and entertainment sectors - are some of the key developments that unfolded at CommunicAsia2014.

Commenting on the show, Deepak Mathur, Senior Vice President, Commercial, Asia-Pacific &

Middle East, SES said, “We have exhibited at CommunicAsia for more than a decade, and

it has remained a fixture for SES because it brings together our customers and partners from across the region in a single location. CommunicAsia gives us the opportunity to do what we do best – that is to grow with our customers by listening to them and addressing their specific needs with the power of satellite communications.”

“CommunicAsia is a fabulous trade show that has all the products and services I need under one roof. It enables to keep up with the trending technologies and connects me with the industry,” said Henry Pang, Vice President of Information Technology, Star Cruise Pte Ltd, Singapore.

“CommunicAsia has been the top ICT trade show which I always make the effort to attend. Over the years, the show has

matured with more exhibitors and product/service categories. I have also seen more SMEs which is a very good sign as that means I will have more choices to source from. CommunicAsia is a must-attend event for me,” said Mashrique Ismail, CEO, Netshoppe Sdn Bhd, Malaysia.

Panel Discussions and Case Studies Lead Industry Discussions

The three conferences, Communic Asia 2014 Summit, Broadcast Asia2 014 International Conference and the Creative Content Production Conference highlighted the most pertinent trends and challenges faced by the ICT and digital media sectors.

With a large number of case studies and panel discussions, delegates at the conferences took away actionable insights to help them adopt the latest technologies and improve efficiencies to stay profitable as consumer demands evolve.

The Visionary Address opened to a packed

audience of delegates eager to hear the latest trends in social media from Twitter. “Asia will lead the next exciting growth phase for social media that will transform our lives, businesses and societies. CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia play key roles to drive this change by bringing leaders from the tech, mobile and broadcast industries together to embrace the power of social media, discuss breakthrough ideas and collaborate on next-generation technologies, “said Ms. Aliza Knox, Managing Director, Online Sales, Twitter Asia Pacific and visionary keynote speaker at CommunicAsia2014 Summit.

CommunicAsia2014 Summit’s tracks on Big Data Analytics, BYOD/CYOD, Mobile Banking, Payments and Wallets were a key attraction, while OTT Content Strategies, Cloud Broadcasting and Second Screen tracks saw increased attention at the BroadcastAsia2014 International Conference. The Creative Content Production Conference sessions on understanding Asian viewers’ current demands, transmedia strategies, case studies on popular film locations and recent 4K film projects received wide appreciation. CommunicAsia, EnterpriseIT and BroadcastAsia will return to Marina Bay Sands Singapore from 2 – 5 June 2015.


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At the launch of their latest product Nitro Plus he said, “Today we are in a global village, whatever product

launch in US, Singapore or Sydney comes to India without any time delay. So our products are design to meet the latest gadgets available in this market”. Last year we have announced Nitro and this year we are announcing Nitro Plus. With all the features of Nitro the Nitro Plus has some new added features like this are a UHS 1 class 3 speed, not only the read performance is 80MBPS but its write performance is also 60MBPS. These are ideal for capturing 4K2K and ultra HD video. Nito Plus cards not only will work with the high end smartphones but also with the feature phones.

The changing Retail scenario:The way we do retail in India is changing

and so as our business, if we believe the data in Wikipedia we can say that around 2,20,000, mom and pop stores across India are selling IT gadgets, today Strontium is selling through 30-35% of these shops, all across India so we are in channel of traditional moms and Pops stores, I believe business will always be there even though the big retailers or the Online shops are doing good. Though Strontium goes through both the channels and we use our distributors to service them, we have national as well as regional distributors.

Strontium products goes remotest part of the country, infact Strontium is the only company which guarantees supports for 2 gigabyte storage which is required for the feature phones most of the leading brands in the entry level products is 4 gigabytes.

Strategy for India:We need to expand our channels, increase

more and more places for retailing and selling. Increase brand awareness, by events, built consumer confidence, which is very important to help customers to buy and continuously by our product. To build our channel , we will be doubling then to 60 and 10 cities from current 4.

Our distribution structure is pretty settled, we have 2 national distributors Redington and KBC and 3 regional distributors. We just started working with Croma and Reliance. And we believe we also

have to deeply engaged with major online retailers..

How is your PC memory business is doing, are you planning to exit from memory business?

We still do lots of our task in notebooks and desktops, the only thing that has change is that instead of two of three years we are changing our PC after 5 – 6 years, so may be the PC market has gone down but the PC life cycle has gone high. So the demand is still their and as long as the PC is around we won’t quit DRAM business, and its is very important to have balance, we are one of the few memory companies which have both DRAM and Flash as many leading companies don’t have that.

And I see PC around for at least next 10 years. In the channel and upgrade market they are looking for value memory, they are price sensitive so we have to launch our second brand which is EVM, so you many see more EVM then Strontium in Indian market, but we are trying to make our comeback even with our Strontium brand and last quarter and this quarter we are more focus on our DRAM business.

How do you plan to target the India OEMs companies who are manufacturing PC’s?

The PC manufacturing in India is not that booming, the multinational companies have contracts, with tire-1 manufacturer directly, so Dell, HP, Lenovo buy directly from Samsung, that why very little role for us to play in that segment. So market available for us is the local system integrators, the white-box market and the upgrade market and focus on this channel.

Are you tie up with any

Strontium is the only company who provides hassle free door to door warranty

smartphone manufacturer for your Nitro Plus range?

From time to time yes, sometime when we have a common distributors and when they want to bundle our product with any smartphone or tablet we gave special rates to them. We are also working with few camera manufacturer like Nikon for our SD cards, internationally we are also buddle our micro SD card with some of the leading brands, like recently we get a contract with Huaweiin Singapore as they will bundle their tablets with Strontium Nitro products. And as this demand come in Indian market we will surely work that out.

How are you providing warranty to your customers?

Strontium is the only company who provides hassle free door to door warranty. If any end user

is not happy or is not working, they just have to dial our tool free

number, we have our ti-up with Bluedart and a couple of other agencies in different parts of India, they will go and pick up and will be

replace in 5-7 days without any questions depending upon

which part of the country you are.

c h a N N e l f o c u s

Vivian Singh , President, CEO for Strontium Technology shares his plans about how they are planning to expand and invest in Indian market. He also shares his thoughts about the changing dimension of retail market in India and what’s their key focus area for 2014-15.

Vivian Singh , President, CEO for Strontium Technology


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Improving Facebook on Android

In an effort to connect the next five billion, Facebook began to shift to a mobile-

first company about two years ago. We trained hundreds of employees on mobile development, restructured internal teams to build for all platforms, and moved to a fast-paced release cycle.

However, our mission extends far beyond building and delivering the best experience on high-end smartphones and LTE networks. We want Facebook to work for everyone – no matter the region, network condition, or mobile device.

To help accomplish this goal, a team of product managers and engineers traveled to Africa to examine mobile performance in developing countries. We purchased several different Android handsets to test the latest version of the Facebook app – and the testing process proved to be difficult. The combination of an intermittent, low-bandwidth network connection and a lack of memory space on the devices resulted in slow load times and constant crashes. We even burned through our monthly data plans in 40 minutes.

We returned to our offices in Seattle, London, and Menlo Park determined to enhance the Facebook experience on Android – and soon made major improvements in performance, data efficiency, networking, and application size.

PerformanceIn terms of performance, we wanted to

improve slow start times on old devices. In the

By Alex Sourov Engineering

beginning, we focused on instrumenting the startup path and understanding the bottlenecks. There was no silver bullet in this process – we needed to carefully identify and remove each potential bottleneck. For example, we found that start times were slower on single-core devices because too many features concurrently initialized themselves on application startup. We made sure to defer these initializations until after startup and, in some cases, until the features are used.

We also wanted the stories in News Feed to load faster. In order to rapidly display cached content on poor networks, we now fetch stories earlier in the process to allow more time to set up connections and download News Feed. The cold start path has been automated to ensure that we prevent further regrezssions in these areas.

These changes reduced start times by more than 50 percent in the six months following the trip to Africa.

Data efficiencyNext, we realized that data is extremely

expensive in emerging markets, and purchasing more data is often a laborious process. Thus, there needed to be a concerted effort to reduce data consumption within the Facebook app. Interacting with photos is an important part of the Facebook experience, but it takes a sizable amount of data to download them. If we could optimize the download size, we could improve

data savings and perceived app performance.First, we investigated the use of alternative

compression formats for image transmission. We built tools to evaluate the impact of several different compression formats on data sizes and eventually settled on WebP. It offered both

We will continue to innovate to

make the Facebook experience better in emerging markets,

and share tools and information that

can help developers build apps that work

well on different handsets, network environments, and operating systems.

g u e s t c o l u M N

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great compression performance and efficient support from Android. The use of WebP for transmitting Facebook images resulted in data savings of 25 to 35 percent compared with JPG, and 80 percent compared with PNG. This all happened without perceived impact on quality.

The next step was to work on loading images at a resolution that devices had the ability to handle. In the past, we loaded images at maximum resolution to allow for the zoom-in feature. However, on these kinds of devices this feature was used infrequently. We changed the process of loading images to only request resolutions equivalent to the size of the viewport in which the images will appear. Instead of loading a full image, the device only loads the image it needs to show (such as a thumbnail,

preview, or full image at lower resolution). Of course, if someone wants to zoom-in on an image, we then download a higher resolution image.

Finally, we looked over the process used to cache and reuse images. We tested a number of potential caching strategies, as well as sizes for our caches, and fine-tuned both to minimize the evictions for images that could be accessed again.

As was the case with performance, it was important to avoid regressing our data efficiency in the future. We built automated tests and an elaborate system that can attribute data usage to individual features. This allows Facebook features to understand their data usage in production and make adjustments if it increases unexpectedly.

The work on data efficiency resulted

in a 50 percent reduction in data use compared with earlier last year.

NetworkingWe also invested heavily in improving the

efficiency and reliability of our networking stack. It was important to implement more modern networking concepts in emerging markets because our stacks struggled to perform in regions with intermittent networks.

Facebook was an early adopter of OkHttp, a networking stack open-sourced by Square, and it’s now the stack used by the Android app. OkHttp allows us to support fast retries for intermittent network situations, take advantage of the SPDY protocol for faster concurrent network transmissions, and enable powerful instrumentation across the networking stack.

After switching to OkHttp, it became a goal to decrease the number of reports regarding failed image loads in News Feed. We fine-tuned our image pre-fetching algorithms and altered the process through which we queue images for download. The process now ensures that the images expected to be downloaded next are prioritized in the queue and that no images are stuck in the queue for too long.

In combination with better data usage for images, reports of slow or failed image loads dropped by almost 90 percent over the past year.

Application sizeThe most popular mobile devices in Africa

have little disk space available, which is a

significant barrier to installing app upgrades. This means that people in developing countries often use older versions of the app that don’t have up-to-date features or take advantage of the improvements described in this blog post.

Our colleagues in the Facebook London office focused on improving app size efficiency. They approached this problem by utilizing Google Play’s ability to upload multiple APKs for different Android OSes and screen resolutions. This allows us to exclude excess code for features or resources not supported on certain mobile devices.

As with the other areas, instrumentation and testability were important to making sure we could bring the app size down. We now have tools that calculate how each feature contributes to app size and analyze device size regressions.

In the end, the app size has been reduced by 65 percent compared with the beginning of the year.

What comes next?Our trip to Africa really

highlighted the importance of our work on mobile performance, data efficiency, networking reliability, and application size for emerging markets. We’ve made a concerted effort to improve in all these areas and achieved a significant amount of success in the past year.

The lessons learned have already impacted the development of new features. We test all major features and changes in poor networking scenarios. We have automated verification for various performance and efficiency characteristics, which allows the features team to

receive immediate feedback on the impact of their code. We also expanded our playbook to other apps, such as Messenger and Instagram.

We will continue to innovate to make the Facebook experience better in emerging markets, and share tools and information that can help developers build apps that work well on different handsets, network environments, and operating systems.

Thanks to Florian Laplantif, Josh Guilfoyle, Alexandru Petrescu, Ragavan Srinivasan, George Wang, Erbil Karaman, Nicola D’Eila, and all the engineers and product managers in the Seattle, London, and Menlo Park offices who helped improve mobile quality on Facebook for Android.


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M o b i l i t y r e v i e w

Like Gionee and few other Chinese smartphones, Oppo is also relatively unknown to Indian audiences. After

the fi rst phone with 13 MP camera and second with Full HD display, Oppo Find 5, then the very thin and light dual SIM Oppo R819, the company now outs a unique cameraphone, Oppo N1.Smartphone newcomer Oppo arrived from nowhere put a great impression on the Android enthusiasts last year, with the Oppo Find 5 off ering decent performance and selling for an impressive price. It was a good start for this unknown fi rm. Now NowOppo is planning to lauch 10 more new models in India. Oppo has their own R&D team which designs smartphones and they also develop software and manufacture the phones themselves, so they are very keen to make an impression through same exciting innovation in their products.

Build and Design:Right from the packaging the Oppo N1 looks

very premium and classy. The handset comes inside a white box casing, which is extremely stylish. Everything inside the box, like the USB cable and in-ear headphones have been nicely packaged, which makes the device look like a piece of art.

What immediately sets the N1 apart from other phones of its size is the innovative rotating camera mount.And it’s a nicely built, sturdy mount, locking into place when it’s facing backwards and automatically fl ipping the on-screen viewfi nder image when you rotate it.As for the physical size of the Oppo N1, it’s huge and fairly heavy. The N1 is plastic, but it’s a high-quality plastic similar to that of Nokia’s devices and some HTC smartphones. It’s not glossy or slippery like Samsung devices, and though my review unit has a matte white fi nish, it doesn’t pick up dirt and scuff s. An aluminium frame goes around the phone, which gives it an upscale look. The rotating camera mount means the headphone socket is placed on the bottom of the N1, where it battles for space alongside the USB connector and speaker.The left-hand edge only houses

Oppo N1:A new innovative smartphone that’s little “Heavy” for your pocket

the microSIM slot - accessed by poking a pin in to pop out the tray - while the right-hand edge has the power button a little above the middle for easy thumb access.Notice that the Oppo N1 does not have a notifi cation LED anywhere on the device which to be honest, is disappointing for obvious reasons (though the O-click accessory helps somewhat). On the back we also have a 12cm^2 touchpad which Oppo calls the O-touch.

Features:Oppo N1 has a decent set of specs, including

a pretty 5.9-inch 1080p IPS screen (with Gorilla Glass 3), a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 SoC and 2GB of RAM. The N1 edges it out with a larger 3,610mAh fi xed battery. Phones weigh a little over 210g, which will take some getting used to. Other specs on the N1 include 16GB or 32GB of built-in storage,13-megapixel f/2.0 camera, penta-band WCDMA radio,802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC. Slightly disappointed by the missing microSD slot, especially for the 16GB model -- it won’t take long before you run out of room for your music, 13MP photos and full HD videos.

Performance:Oppo N1 runs on the quad-core 1.7GHz

Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 chipset, which is technically one performance tier behind the Snapdragon 800. It’s backed by the standard 2GB of RAM other hardware makers put in their fl agship models, so multitasking works well, with apps staying alive in the memory. It has a lovely display, bright and colourful, with plenty of contrast when viewing photos and video clips.Viewing angles are great, too. Colours and contrast are consistent. Its innovative camera performs really well even in low lights. And in good light, outdoors, images look great, with vibrant colours, good contrast and - for the most part - accurate exposure. And selfy lovers can set the camera app to spring open when you rotate the lens towards you and there’s even a beautify setting that will automatically pop up on portrait shots.Android 4.2 Jelly Bean is the core behind

the Oppo N1, with the maker customising this through a skin it calls the Color OS. Oppo’s tried to make the N1 a little more user-friendly than the stock version of Android, with the phone full of lots of small software touch and gesture controls to help you get it set up the way you want it to work.For example, Oppo’s included something it calls the gesture panel. This is a way of launching apps by drawing pictures, accessed by dragging down from the left-hand side of the Notifi cations bar (you can edit where it activates in the settings).There’s also the touchpad on the back, or the O-Panel, as Oppo calls it. As with the Gesture Panel, you can associate actions with this via a custom menu, although these are limited to stuff like using it to open the camera and change tracks in the music player.Verdict: A premium smartphone packed with new technologies and innovative features but with a heavy price tag.Pros: Good Camera, Display, Battery lifeCons: Touch expensive, Size, diffi cult to use with one hand

Mobility Ratings:

Performance: Features: Value for money: Overall:

Specs: ColorOS based on Android 4.2, 1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad core,RAM - 2GB, 5.9in IPS with 1920x1080 resolution (377ppi), Gorilla Glass 3, Camera - 13MP w/ dedicated ISP, dual-mode LED, f/2.0, Storage - 16/32GB, 3610mAh, 170.7x82.6x9mm/213g

Price: 32,990/-


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M o b i l i t y p e r s o N a l i t y

How are you looking into the India smartphone market?As you are aware, India is poised to emerge as the third largest smartphone

market in the world by 2017, with a major proportion of the buyers being new users. Our range of OPPO smartphones,

that include OPPO N1 - our fl agship device, OPPO R1, OPPO Find5 Mini, OPPO Neo and our latest introduction OPPO Joy and OPPO Yoyo, are positioned to bring exclusive

value and experience to them and make more and more people enjoy the feeling of possessing a smartphone in

the true sense. For the new users, what really matters is quality and availability. Customers always come fi rst during our business operation. We are targeting for an aggressive

service network expansion this year to ensure customers of our commitment to better serve them. Our products have

a far lower repair rate as compared to the industry average.

How many mobile devices are you looking to launch this year?

OPPO currently has 6 phone models available in the Indian market since our entry in the market in

February. We are targeting a product portfolio of atleast 10 smartphones by the end of the year.

What makes you diff erent from other Chinese brands?

At OPPO, we are committed to designing beautiful technology products with an open attitude.

We aim to fuse technology and aff ection in all our products, and

therefore OPPO has been relentless in the pursuit of the latest technology, the highest hardware quality standards and to delivering

the element of positive surprise. I believe it’s this attitude that sets us apart essentially.

Other than this,we have a whole control of the complete process from design to R&D, from sourcing the best customized parts to manufacturing, from distribution to marketing them around the world. This ensures our products are of the best quality.

Besides, OPPO is never a brand to seek quick profi t. We believe it takes time to connect with customers before we could improve their lives with smart technologies and our products. We hope to have our

root in India and become a part of Indian

citizens’ daily lives. With this in mind, we are able to focus on customer satisfaction and feedback instead of a quick market success.

What is your distribution strategy for the Indian market?

As of now, OPPO Mobile currently retails in 12 major cities of India: New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru (Bangalore), Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Kolkata, Pune and Lucknow. We will be targeting a mix of multi-brand retail and channel partners, small format stores and self-branded stores for the network expansion drive.

How N1 is doing in the Indian market? Don’t you feel that the device was priced little higher?

Our fl agship device OPPO N1 has got phenomenal reviews not only in India but across the globe. The OPPO N1 sports a stunning 5.9-inch Full HD IPS Capacitive Touchscreen and is confi gured with its reputable Color OS (the fi rst version has over 2,000 improvements compared with the stock android, for this we collected over 30,000 pieces of advice from over 20,000 customers) for handling software requirements and processing daily routines way more convinient .

The cutting-edge design, like the fi rst 13MP rotating camera and the fi rst well-integrated back touch panel O-Touch in the world, as well as the cute and functional O-Click which creates tons of possibilities, also speak for themselves. In fact, since its presence in the market, N1 has won numerous awards and honours globally, for example CNET Editors’ Choice has touted the OPPO N1 as 2013’s most innovative smartphone, and believe me, innovation matters in our time.

Other than these, the elegant and highest standard crafts used for building N1 make it one of the products with the lowest repair rate in the industry. The price, keeping in mind the features and exclusive experience that N1 off ers, is completely justifi able. Today’s users are highly technology savvy and are willing to pay for something that’s worth its cost, and this has been proved by the market feedback.

We are targeting a product portfolio of at least 10 Smartphones by the end of the year.

www.mobilityindia.com

Mr. Tom Lu, CEO, OPPO Mobiles India


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After the huge success of Moto G and Moto X, Motorola introduced its youngest economy sibling of the

series, Moto E. Moto E promises to offer the full Android experience for less than 8k. This feature phone killer is Motorola’s lowest-end and to be the last Google-owned phone as Lenovo already acquired Motorola few weeks back. Company already sild more than 25 lakh Moto E in India via its online retail partner Flipkart. Lets see why this is a best smartphone in this category and will it really affects the feature phone market?

Build and Design:The Moto E has a similar curved design as the

Moto G.It feels solidly built but a bit bulky at 142g, but its small size and curved back ensure it fits comfortably in the hand. Moto E is plastic but not look cheap though. Under the cover you’ll find the micro SIM slot and a microSD card slot for cards of up to 32GB. There isn’t much in the way of buttons or sensors to be found on the Moto E. The right edge is home to the power button and volume rocker, with a metallic look . The top edge has the headphone jack, while the bottom has a micro USB charging port. On the front you’ll find a speaker below the 4.3-inch IPS screen.You might have noticed that I haven’t mentioned a front-facing camera and that’s because there isn’t one. The 5MP snapper on the back is all you get. Overall Moto E is a decent looking device with its solid build, scratch resistant screen, replaceable covers and has the added bonus of being water resistant, is prove pretty durable.

Features:The reason this device is selling like hot cakes

is because this smartphone gives you quality with affordability. Moto E is indeed a feature rich phone that offers best specs and performance compared to other smartphones in this range. It has a 4.3-inch (960 x 540 pixels) IPS display at 256 ppi pixel density with scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection and a water-resistant splash guard. Moto E is powered with Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 with 1.2GHz dual-

Moto E:

core A7 CPU Adreno 302 400MHz single-core GPU and 1GB RAM. It has a decent 4GB internal memory which supports MicroSD slot up to 32GB expandable memory. Moto E runs Android 4.4, KitKat, the latest version of mobile platform with a guaranteed upgrade. This smartphone is packed with a long-lasting 1980 mAh battery and an interchangeable back covers. All in all they put all possible best features in this smartphone

Performance:The Moto G’s display was one of the best in the

range, and the Moto E doesn’t disappoint either in its price range. It has good viewing angles and the sunlight legibility good too. Blacks are deeper on-par to the Moto G’s display. Considering the price tag, this is definitely a pretty good display on a smartphone compared to other smartphones in this range since most other OEMs offer low-resolution display with low pixel density. As with the Moto G, you’ll be able to remove the rear of the phone and swap it for a range of colourful snap-on shell cases. We are very impressed with the way how smoothly it runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat. And iIt’s very unusual to see KitKat on such a cheap handset, as most budget phones are often comes with older versions of Android that don’t require much memory. The Moto E, on the other hand, has 1GB of RAM. That’s not a lot, but is enough to make the Moto E responsive when swiping through home screens. Web browsing was a very smooth experience thanks to the Moto E’s 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor. There was a very small delay when scrolling through image-heavy web pages ,zooming and panning proved much less frustrating than that of other budget phones. The Camera is capable of taking decent pictures in adequate lighting conditions, it lacks in low light as no flash available with this device. And also you won’t get any front camera, so these are the only drawback for this device. Other then that it really performs well our daily usage test. The battery of Moto E gives you adequate back up for daily talk time, web browsing, music etc.

Moto E come with a few exclusive apps that help the phone seem smarter in everyday use. Like Moto Alert, which has three ways the app can alert others. The first is Emergency, which can send a text alert to certain contacts during an emergency, sound an alarm automatically or auto-dial your chosen emergency contact number. It works surprisingly well, and worked happily with both landline and mobile numbers. Moto Alert can also keep track of when you leave and arrive at places you visit regularly, such as school or work, and automatically alert your chosen contacts when you do so.

Another cool App is Follow Me, which sends your current location to select contacts at specified intervals so that concerned family members know where you are. It’s also handy for helping your friends track you in busy, crowded areas. Meet Me, meanwhile, can send a text to your contacts telling them where to meet you.

Moto Assist is another key app which can affect your phone’s behaviour at specific times of the day. It can automatically set your phone to be silent at night but still ring if a specified contact calls, or if someone calls twice within five minutes. It can also access your calendar and make your phone silent during meetings as well as send callers a text message saying you’re busy. It’ll also read text messages and let you know who’s calling while you’re driving.Verdict: It has everything that a daily user will ask for, also affordable and build to last.Pros: Price, Compact, Corning Gorilla Glass 3, doesn’t look or feel cheapCons: No front camera and flash.

M o b i l i t y r e v i e w

Affordable, Attractive and an Apt Smartphone

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200, 4.3in 540 x 960 qHD display, 1GB of RAM, 4GB storage, Android 4.4 “KitKat”, GHz, 5-megapixel camera, 142g weight,

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Price: Rs.6999. Available on Flipkart

Mobility Ratings: Performance: Features: Value for money: Overall:


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What is Motorola’s plan for India and global market in 2014-15? How many devices you are planning to launch this year?

India is an extremely important market for us. The introduction of Moto G, fastest Android Kitkat rollout followed by the recent launch of Moto X supports the fact we are committed to building our success in India. We recognize that we have a lot of work to do, and we’ll work closely here in India to bring our products to market. As an aff ordable smartphone that doesn’t compromise on quality, experiences or style, Moto E is another step for us in this direction. We can’t comment on future products but stayed tuned to our Twitter page for the latest announcements.

How you manage to keep the price of

Moto E so aff ordable? Is it a deliberate step to infl uence

the market?

The core idea for us is to introduce devices that are made to last and priced for all. We

are very focused on developing premium

hardware and our phones are designed to maximize hardware and simplify the mobile experience. The specs included in Moto E are the very best in their class. We will continue to build on our strong product portfolio that is off ered at extremely competitive price points.

As you are selling through online don’t you think it will aff ect your sale in tire 2-3 market in India, where not many people use online platform for shopping and preferred to buy through shops?

Choosing Flipkart as our exclusive launch partner in India for Moto G, Moto X and now the Moto E was absolutely the right decision. Flipkart, as the leading e-commerce marketplace, allows us to bring our products to a far greater number of Indian consumers than the traditional retail

The combination of our product and software skills with Lenovo’s ability to scale will make us an instant global force in the mobile device industry.

Motorola was among the fi rst vendors to take mobile phones to the masses in India back in 2004-2005 when the American brand was ruling the mobile phone world along with Nokia. Later Apple and Samsung take it to another level with its technology shift. And Motorola was almost out of the market. Then Google came into picture when they acquired Motorola Mobility in May 2012 for $12.5 billion and released some powerful Android devices such as the

Moto G. The Moto G was launched globally in November last year, when Motorola Mobility was a part of Google. E-commerce played a huge role in the success of

the Moto G in India and UK, with nearly half of all sales being made online. Recently Chinese manufacturer Lenovo buys Motorola from Google. With

Motorola Mobility in its stables, Lenovo instantly gains the #3 position in the U.S. among Android smartphone manufacturers, behind Samsung

and HTC. According to OperaMediaworks, Samsung has 58.45% of Android device marketshare, with HTC at 10.88% and Motorola at 8.7%.

model allows. The results speak for themselves – the sales have been phenomenal and the devices have received an overwhelmingly positive response from Indian consumers.

What is your key focus area for India?

For us as a business in India, we are at the start of a new journey. The fi rst step is to bring out products that off er people something diff erent. The success of Moto G and Moto X validates our understanding of India as a market, our knowledge of the smartphone buyers and our relationship with the local partners will continue to distinguish us in the segment. We are very focused on our strategy in India.

Tell us more about your Lenovo acquisition

This move will enable Google to devote their energy to driving innovation across the Android ecosystem, for the benefi t of smartphone users everywhere, and it will give us the advantage of Lenovo’s global reach and scale. We will continue to focus on a few key products that solve real consumer problems. The combination of our product and software skills with Lenovo’s ability to scale will make us an instant global force in the mobile device industry. We’re really excited about the future.

Q

Q

Q

QQ

A

A

A

A

A

Q & A with Amit Boni, GM, Motorola India

M o b i l i t y Q & a

Q


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b u y i N g g u i d e

Things to look for:

Once you shortlist your tablet models according to you budget, check these key areas for fi nalizing your best choice.

OS: Every budget tablet around today comes with Google’s Android operating system. So it is very easy to use and is improving all the time. The Google Play store has an extensive amount of apps, movies, books, magazines and songs available to download. Just make sure that you have a recent version of Android, and that your tablet off ers access to the Google Play store.

Build quality : Look for a durable metal or plastic body, with scratch and smudge resistance option. Keep away from cheap plastic and heavy metal body.

Screen : In the budget segment you will fi nd that most of them are of a 7-inch display. But apart from the screen size you have to look for the touchscreen because that will determine how enjoyable your experience will be. Capacitive touchscreen is far easier to use and also it compliments Android better

What all things you need to know before buying a budget tablet:

then the resistive touchscreens. However, the quality of touchscreen diff ers from device to device. In terms of resolution, anything below 800x480 pixels should not to be considered. Even some cheap tablets off er high-resolution 1280x800 pixel screens. In general, a resolution of 1024 x 600 or above will give a sharp display.

Processor : The faster the better. Most budget tablets come with single core processors with speeds in the range of 600 MHz-1.2 GHz. We would advise you to go with the fastest possible processor, though we have seen 800 MHz processors do a decent job

Memory size : This is especially important if you intend to store lots of large fi les like gaming apps and fi lms on your tablet, as cheaper tablets tend to have smaller memories of 8GB or less. If you have cloud storage or additional memory card slots, this is less of a problem.

Battery life : Make sure you look out for the battery life cheap tablets sometimes skimp on the battery life, but it is possible to fi nd cheap models that off er an impressive nine hours when watching video.Battery is

a very important part of all portable devices. Essentially, budget tabs being 7-inch display devices, require more battery capacity than smartphones to last a respectable amount of time before one has to charge them again. A battery capacity of 3000mAh would be able to last around 5 hours on Wi-Fi with average usage.

Things you may ignore:

Large screen sizes There are some good cheap tablets in the smaller 7-inch category. This screen size is usually fi ne for reading, surfi ng the net and typing the odd email, though 10-inch screens can be easier to work with.

Extra-large storage space. Tablets with high memory capacity of 32GB or 64GB come with premium prices. You can make a saving by going for a 16GB model, provided you don’t intend to fi ll it with videos and graphics-intensive games.

3G internet connectivity This adds an extra expense due to the on-going data plan as well as the higher cost of the tablet. A wi-fi only tablet will be fi ne for use in the house, and even out and about thanks to wi-fi hotspots.

Today we have a wide range of tablet available in the market, starting from a price-point of 3000Rs to 15000Rs which falls into this budget segment. Apart from this many high priced models are also available in the market likes of Samsungs, Sony and Ipads. In this article we try to bring all the key aspects and things you must know before you buy a budget tablet so that you can make a saving and avoid choosing a poor bargain-basement tablet with poor screens, weak batteries etc.

Choose The Right Tablet For You


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The Indian Market

The tablet market in India is zooming amazingly. There is a stiff competition with the introduction of low-priced tablets; they’re within anyone’s grasp. The wide spread acceptance and considerably advanced features and facilities has certainly proved out to be a boon for the expanding tablet market. With further additions to this technology i.e. in the form of a calling tablet (Phablet) or Tablet PC; Tablets are here to stay.

Last year, the tablet market in India has seen a massive growth in its market shares. It has emerged as one of the most dynamic segments in consumer electronics in recent times. Industries like healthcare, education, financial services, and mediaare creating major demand. Concepts like BYOD are also gaining traction amongst enterprise users.

Consumer demand patterns for computing devices have been constantly evolving with

ability to multi-task, portability, network connectivity, long battery life along with decent software and hardware being the most sought after requirements in computing devices. With rise in mobile population and increased proliferation of Wi – Fi & mobile broadband networks such as 3G and 4G, tablets slowly now have emerged as a viable option to fulfill the communication, entertainment & connectivity requirements of consumers on- the-go.

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Tablet Trends

According to Peter Chang, Regional Head of south Asia, Managing Director -Asus India, convergence of Tablets with phones i.e. phablets; with PCs i.e. Tablet PCs etc. have broadened the scope for Tablets market.

“Phablets typically have screens that measure from 5.01 to 6.9 and hence avail the best of both worlds to the consumer i.e. the functions of a smartphone and tablet. This is the era of Hybrids and converged devices offering the maximum. Hence the audience is constantly seeking for newer innovations. Both the segments, Smartphones and tablets have their defined segments and offer some unique propositions. They both are certain to co-exist. They both may have to deal with the phablet market though,” he adds on.

According to spokesperson from Samsung,

the company has received a fantastic response from consumers for its set of tablets, which contribute significantly to its market share.

“We foresee incredible opportunity in the growing Indian Tablet market and Tablets will continue to remain a key focus area for Samsung. Now consumers view Tablets not just as a business productivity enhancement device but as an indispensable personal device which is an extension of individual personality and empowers them to consume and create content, utilize apps and experience innovative technologies, making their lives easier. Samsung offers differentiated products to meet the disparate requirements of consumers. There is a proliferation of phablets and tablets as distinct categories, with the intent of providing the “best” experience at the “right” screen size. The tablet market is expected to become more dynamic with differentiation being driven basis user experience and bundled services.We are confident of maintaining our strong growth momentum and consolidating our market position,”

the spokesperson from Samsung adds on.As per the views of RohitMidha, Director,

Tablet Business Unit, Lenovo India, “We can expect to see ‘innovation’ lead growth. With Service Providers increasingly investing in wired and wireless broadband networks (3G / LTE) the computing needs of Indian consumers are bound to grow. Tablets will significantly gain from this. Innovation would also mean organizations / industry verticals would adapt tablets, with customized applications and software, to enhance organization efficiency and employee productivity,” he adds on.

“Phablets are definitely gaining momentum in the country. As for Tablets, both from a price and value for moneypoint of view, it has a dedicated target audience. Again as the computing needs increase, one will start to see the phablet and tablet co-exist with the same consumer,” Rohit adds on.

According to Shripal Gandhi, Founder & CEO of Swipe Telecom, the year 2013 was a great year for the Tablet PC market. Tablet sales in India grew 56.4 per cent to 4.14 million units against 2.66 million units in 2012, according to industry estimates. The trend has continued through 2014 as well.

“With the increasing affordability of tablet PCs, there are many first time buyers in tier 2 and tier 3 cities who are increasingly choosing to buy tablet PCs rather than traditional computers, and this segment of people is going to be the primary driver for tablet adoption in the near

future.Looking at the rise of internet penetration and increasing demand for tablets in India, we are

extremely bullish about the growth of the overall Smart device market in 2014-15,” he adds on.

Speaking about the tablet market in India, KapilWadhwa, Managing Director, Champion Computers said that, the tablet market in India is growing tremendously. The kind of innovative tablets that are being launched have the latest specifications and are yet very affordable. With the growth of low priced tablet there is neck to neck competition in the market. The tablets have already starting transforming into phablets or tablet pc. Tablets are here to stay with considerable innovations leading to many hybrid series.

“The preference of the consumer is changing rapidly with the change in technology. Buying a phone with 5-7 inch previously was not even considered an option but now it has become the latest trend. Rather than buying phone of the same size, people prefer a phablet as they give the experience of a tablet and a phone. The smartphone market and phablet market co-exist and they will keep on growing on the same platform,” he added.

Putting his opinion on the tablet trends in India, Amul Mittal – Co Founder, Zync Global, says that the Indian tablet Market as whole is in fact eating up the business of the laptop market and according to the Business Insider Intelligence’s latest report on the tablet market says that the market grew

Mr. Peter Chang, Regional Head of South Asia, Managing Director - ASUS India

A combination of affordability, user experience, aspiration and utility will make tablets a strong proposition for Indian Consumers including their variants like Phablets etc.

Mr. Rohit Midha, Director, Tablet Business Unit, Lenovo India

Indian consumers look for ‘value for money, ‘and a budget tablet facilitates a generic Indian consumer’s tablet appetite.

Samsung SpokespersonNow consumers view Tablets not just

as a business productivity enhancement device but as an indispensable personal device which is an extension of individual personality and empowers them to consume and create content, utilize apps and experience innovative technologies, making their lives easier.


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about 74% in 2013 to 226 million shipments. “While the PC shipments dropped over

8% in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to the same quarter the previous year. Moreover they also forecast close to 500 million tablets shipments in 2016 which is absolutely a stunning figure. The advent of low-cost tablets has fuelled this growth.The tablet market has caught the frenzy of the masses and has taken the world by storm. We expect growth to be broad-based, with contribution from all geographies, verticals and service lines. The quarter went by saw a rise in sales, aided by a weak rupee.The growth in the tablet market is being propelled by the launch of low end, cost-competitive devices by international and local vendors which are narrowing the price gaps that exist between smartphones and tablets. The corporates are also incorporating the usage of tablets in their organization to increase efficiency. We have lined up of few budget models to be introduced within this year; higher specification that is from 512 MB RAM to 1GB RAM and from 4GB memory, we have expanded the internal memory to 8GB. This will provide our customer will better speed and more storage. With the rise in competition, we have styled up our gadgets by giving it various colour

body options, colourful key panel along with much sharper resolution. We have focused more on the quality, service and the ordinary consumer

segment this year. We are expecting a good number this year and hope to achieve that in the next quarter,” he explains.

According to AdityMehta ,Spokesprerson, Wickedleak, “We at Wickedleak are bullish on the tablet space and see strong demand in the 2014-2-15. They main deterrent to demand was lack of WiFi and 3G connectivity .However with renewed focus and a strong government. We expect tablet pc demand to go up by more than 300% as infrastructure , awareness grow , strengthening of rupee will drive down manufacturing costs,” Adity adds on.

Providing information about India’s tablet market, VikramYadav (Vice President – Tablets) LAVA International says that India’s Tablet market has emerged as one of the most dynamic segment in consumer electronics in recent times. Last year, tablet sales in India grew 56.4 per cent to 4.14 million units against 2.66 million units in 2012, according to industry estimates.

“According to Canalys, tablets will contribute 50% to the overall PC market (desktops, notebooks and tablets) globally. The trend will be visible in Indian Tablet market too. India is already observing a transition from desktop PC to Tablet PC, as more and more people are seeking to adopt the mobility offered by Tablets. The young Indian consumers’ increasing preference for Tablets and the younger demographics’ desire to use mobile Web technologies will see the Tablet PC’S markets revenues soar. In the next two years, there will be a strong adoption of tablets in India particularly in the Enterprise and Education sector. Ease of use, long battery life, mobility, ability to multi-task, instant on/off and substantial breadth of available applications will contribute to this rapid growth in demand in sectors like education, auto, healthcare, retail, BFSI etc. And with value for money tablets being easily available, popularity of the device amongst budget-sensitive

consumers is increasing multifold,” he ads on.

Budget Tablets

Diversity in India gives the tablet manufacturers huge opportunity. The target audience comprises defined sects i.e. low cost range, middle range and elite high end range. These segments co-exist and different OEMs continue to target their defined set of audience.

“Budget segment in India has immense potential as any product which is for masses is witnessing wide acceptance. The point to look out for users is that if they are getting quality offerings or not,” Peter Chang from Asus adds on.

As per the views of Shripal Gandhi from Swipe, “It is a misconception that Phablets (Smartphones with display sizes over 5”) are a threat to tablets. In fact, Phablets are an entirely different category of Smart Devices, and the phablet market is growing at an exponential rate. The people who opt for a Phablet are primarily those people who want a larger Smartphone.

Mr. VikramYadav (Vice President – Tablets, Lava International)

One of the major challenges in the tablet industry currently is the lack of fast connectivity. 3G penetration is still not high in India, thereby underutilizing the true potential of tablets in India.

According to Indrajit Sabharwal, MD of Simmtronics Semiconductors Ltd. the big idea is first to create a brand identity in the tablet category by providing affordable yet feature rich experience to the customers. post sales comes first with Simmtronics. “India has huge potential towards creating large demand for tablets. According to various studies, more than 60% is the entry level segment tablets. Our focus is to quickly get into that slot with our distribution. Also we are planning to get into the higher segment which is dominated by big brands, then again our aim is of affordability and features in that segment and quickly create the big differentiation for our brand,” he adds on.


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They do not look at Phablets as a substitute for tablets. If anything, the competition for Tablet PCs are traditional computers, and as tablet specifications get beefier, it may be a war they will eventually win. As technology progresses, hardware is becoming more affordable. For example, our MTV Slash 4X is a Quad Core HD tablet PC, available for under Rs 10,000. From the users’ perspective, if they are getting top notch hardware with premium branding at a bargain, why would they spend Rs 35,000 on an expensive tablet? So yes, Budget segment tablets are indeed doing better than more expensive models, and it is this very segment which will drive growth in developing markets like India,” he explains.

According to Kapil from Champion, the choice of tablets depends on the particular lifestyle of the consumer. Some people prefer low end tablets, some prefer from middle level to high level. The basic requirement is providing the quality product and which is available for the masses.

“Champion has always believed in manufacturing product for masses and will continue doing the same. We have always wanted champion to be the house hold name and after years of hard work we have seen the change. We have introduced Champion Phablet DM6513 which is targeted towards the masses with cost of just Rs. 6999 with all the features. We have never compromised our quality with the affordability. We have made sure that affordability comes with the quality,” he adds on.

According to Amul Mittal – Co Founder, Zync Global, everyone wants to own a portable device which helps them shed their work load without bleeding their pockets. In recent times, India has widely accepted the tablets and from a trend it has become a requirement, a necessity. The untapped non-metro markets are also eager to buy tablets for educational and entertainment purposes. Both budget tablet and big expensive model buyers are different.

“Our target market is primary the younger generation and people who want to own a gadget at an affordable cost with superior technology. These people are early adopters are always in sync with the latest information and multimedia usage on the go. A lot of corporate organizations too are realizing the need and usage of such devices for communicating with peers and the industry at large. The tablet value proposition for the Indian consumer is dependent on a combination of affordability, user experience, aspiration and utility. India is a huge market with a good mix of both type of buyers; it depends on one’s spending power, requirement and preference. For eg a customer who trusts in Apple will buy an Apple tablet than a budget tablet looking at the brand, quality and features while on the other hand few others would prefer to attain features in a budget price and would go for a budget tablet, considering the cost, warrantee, guarantee, after sales service and features being provided at a lower cost,” he explains.

Speaking about emergence of budget tablets, VikramYadav (Vice President – Tablets)LAVA International said that the budget segment tablet market will continue to perform better than expensive models as the consumers are consistently looking for a value-for-money product that acts as a one-stop device to meet their entertainment, content consumption and on-the-go connectivity needs.

“Tablets in the 5000- 7000 price bracket mostly offer Wi-fi only and there is a huge demand for such products in education sector as they provide personalized learning to students through videos, apps and customized content. On the other hand, enterprises prefer to equip their team with a portable device catering to computing and voice-cum-data connectivity needs at an affordable price; thereby bringing products with 2G/3G capability into the picture,” he explains.

As per the views of Adity Mehta, Spokesprerson, Wickedleak, the company has witnessed a convergence between the two. However another factor which is obstructing

the growth of the tablet market is lack of wifi infrastructure as primarilty tablets are wifi devices.

“The customer so far has been forced to use a tablet with 3G sim which makes the tablet compete with a 5 inch phone while a purchase decision is being made.The Demand is surely in the Budget Space as a major consumer for tablet pc is the 10-15 year olds and hardcore gamers (18-35). The parents (decision-makers) tend to prefer low cost tabs. The expensive tabs are mainly used by executives which are less in numbers for sure. This will change in coming years as more and more people get use to the idea of owning a tablet,” Adity explains.

The India Strategy

Speaking about the India specific strategy spokesperson from Samsung says that India is a diverse market with different consumer requirements and device preferences.

“Samsung offers a diverse and compelling product portfolio across categories and price points, which appeals to a broad section of consumers. In the Tablet category, Samsung has Tablets ranging from INR. 12,000 to INR. 60,000, catering to broad demand from various target audience and age groups. Samsung is committed to introduce best products powered by innovative

Mr. Kapil Wadhwa, Director, Champion Computers

Tablet market is set to gain constant traction with its different variants and form factors.

Aditya Mehta, Founder, Wickedleak The Demand is surely in the Budget

Space as a major consumer for tablet pc is the 10-15 year olds and hardcore gamers (18-35).


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technologies to deliver superior user experience. Samsung spends 6% of its sales earnings in Research and Development to ensure that we offer products that meet customers’ requirements and take their experience to next level. We are focused on our customers’ needs and our products are a reflection of what our consumer’s demand due to which our market share continues to grow in India,” the spokesperson adds on.

“In India, it’s both value and price that work for the customer at large. Hence you need a different strategy from the global markets.ASUS has always believed in innovation and efficiency and we deliver products with excellent quality, reliability and performance. Our prime strategy for tablets is to offer product line that excels in security, responsiveness and other exciting features that give a user the most complete and satisfying computing experience. Though the tablets we offer are available at different price points, we do not compromise on the quality.

In the tablet segment, we have products at different price points with best in class features and hybrid designs with a solid output. Our product focus has been on providing a better computing experience to the user and we have been delivering on our In Search of Incredible brand promise,”Peter Chang from Asus explains.

ASUS presently have Fonepad, Transformer Pad, Nexus 7, MeMO Pad,

Fonepad 7, PadFone, Vivo Tab RT, additionally, recently launched phabletFonepad 7 Dual SIM has also been widely accepted.

Explaining about the India strategy, Rohit from Lenovo says that Indian consumers look for ‘value for money, ‘and a budget tablet facilitates a generic Indian consumer’s tablet appetite. “Mainstream tablets (<15K) is where the market is going to see robust growth. Our strategy has been portfolio play based on the back bone of innovation; providing the right product at the right price for every segment. The international award winning Yoga would continue to lead the Premium segment,” he adds on.

Shripal Gandhi, Founder & CEO of Swipe Telecom says that a good technology company focuses on both – Innovation and affordability. In a market like India with tremendous competition, a company cannot succeed by only offering innovative products at a premium, or offer affordable products for the masses with legitimate specifications. It has to be a mix of both.

“Swipe Telecom has always believed that technology should be accessible to all. We have introduced several firsts in the Indian market. For example, we launched India’s First 3D tablet PC – the Swipe 3D life, or India’s first co-branded 6” Fablet – The Swipe MTV Volt. Most of our products have features that have been introduced for the first time in India. The real achievement, however, is that we have managed to offer these products at an extremely cost effective price,” he adds on.

Amul Mittal – Co Founder, Zync Global says that given that a bulk (78%) of the phone market in India still consists of feature phones, 2014 is likely to witness an explosive growth in smartphone adoption. People have now advanced from usage of feature phones to smart phones.

“When we compare the tablet and the smartphone markets, then we realize the demographics are very different of both the categories to start with. Any smartphone above 6 inches in length is not a smart phone but a phablet and tablets start from a minimum of 7

Amul Mittal- Co-founder, Zync GlobalThe growth in the tablet market is

being propelled by the launch of low end, cost-competitive devices by international and local vendors which are narrowing the price gaps that exist between smartphones and tablets.

inches in size. The growth of any device is defined by its consumption pattern, which is ambiguous at present. Looking at the purchasing trend in India, keeping in mind that our consumers are price sensitive, we feel that smartphones will only impact the sales of the 7 inch tablets in the category but not the overall sales of the other sized tablets in the industry. Both smartphone and tablet have very different usage,” he adds on.

As VikramYadav (Vice President – Tablets)LAVA International puts it, though affordability will be a common thread among the products from Lava, continuous innovation will happen in form of customized solutions for enterprises to meet their business needs. “For instance, we are in process of developing applications for SMEs that cater to their accounting needs. Similarly we are coming up with custom built solution for the healthcare sector as well. This year, we will launch tablets on Windows platform apart

from Android as the enterprise segment has shown affinity towards Windows based devices due to a better user interface,” he explains.

According to Adity Mehta, Spokesprerson, Wickedleak,” We will surely be focused more

Tablet sales will beat desktops this year:

Today people are looking for devices which offers them good features and can be used on the move. And these days not only the Indian brand but all the big brands likes of Samsung, Lenovo, ASUS are also launching good quality devices in the low cost segment, which gives consumers a good option to opt for tablets that comes in half of the price of a desktop.

So this makes a great impact in the market and smartphones and tablet are the most demanding devices in the market today. In India we saw a huge drop in the desktop PCs that fell around 26% in 2013-14 and set to see a 16% dip in volumes this year. Whereas tablets are rising about 27% to finish the year with sales of 4.3 million units, according to data compiled by IMRB.


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The Next Big Thing

A combination of affordability, user experience, aspiration and utility will make tablets a strong proposition for Indian Consumers including their variants like Phablets etc.

“Industry has witnessed tablets unveiling by various existing and well established brands as well as by lower tier vendors at entry level. As varied are the offerings by different vendors, the segment that they are targeting are equally divergent. Moving forward, we expect to see more of low cost tablets with ultimate features entering the market and shaping up the market forces,” adds on from Asus.

Rohit from Lenovo says that, “You can definitely watch out for:

• Higher resolution displays enhancingcustomer viewing experience

• InnovativeUIand features toexpandtabletusability - entertainment and professional use, including vertical specific applications

• WindowOStabletsataffordablepricesthoughAndroid would still be 80% of the total market

• Devices will become powerful yetremain ultra-portable,” he explains.

Shripal from Swipe Telecom says that Tablet- Laptop hybrids are devices that combine computers and tablet functionality in a single device with an option to dual boot. “We feel that hybrids may just be the next big thing in tablet market, and are conducting extensive R & D in that area,” he explains.

VikramYadav (Vice President – Tablets)LAVA International says that one of the major challenges in the tablet industry currently is the lack of fast connectivity. 3G penetration is still not high in India, thereby underutilizing the true potential of tablets in India.

“There will be a huge surge in demand for tablets once 4G network starts penetrating in India. The device manufacturers have already started working on creating 4G capable devices. Manufacturers and network operators have to collaborate to take 3G &4G to the masses to create a win-win strategy for all stakeholders. Such tablets will be a huge hit amongst the enterprises as it can easily take care of their high speed computing requirements which the current network infrastructure & penetration are not able to meet adequately,” he adds on.

As per the views of Kapil from Champion, the

Tablet market is set to gain constant traction with its different variants and form factors. “We believe that technology should be available at affordable prices, especially in Indian context. We will be introducing numerous ranges smart phones with top-end features, phablets, tablets and data cards at very affordable rates. We will work on the design and performance of our products to make them feature rich, eye-catching and at the same time easy to use. We have already introduced some of them in Q1, 2014,” he explains.

Amul Mittal – Co Founder, Zync Global says that the company’s research and development is not only restricted to technological advancement but it is also focus a lot at understanding the market needs and demands of the consumer.

“We are well entrenched with the latest technological developments, thus providing a better consumer experience at affordable prices. We are currently maintaining 7-8 products in our line-up and continually evolving with the changing tastes and preferences of people. We are looking at increasing RAM and ROM, resolution of the screen, the look of the tablet. We will also concentrate on pocket friendly products going forward! The consumers in India will mostly look at more advanced specifications. The technical features offered by the upcoming gadgets will now look at higher RAM and ROM, more compact in size, wearable technology and Ultra HD Screen. Moving from the basic processor, all the new tablets will be of quad core processor,” he adds on.

Mr. Shripal Gandhi, Founder _ CEO of Swipe Telecom

Budget segment tablets are indeed doing better than more expensive models, and it is this very segment which will drive growth in developing markets like India.

on affordability as it is key. However we already have plans to extend our AquaProtect – Waterproofing technology to the Tablet Offering and Launch Water resistant tabs soon. As more than 47% Devices are damaged due to water. We hope to shake up the market with this and also offer great value in terms of utility to customer especially in a Country like India which has heavy rainfall each year.”

Star products under 15k category

Asus:Asus Fonepad 7: Rs. 14,999/-Asus Fonepad 7(Dual Sim): 12,999/-Nexus 7 2012 16 GB: 15,999 /-

Champion:Champion DM6513: Rs 6,999Champion Trendy 531: Rs 13,999

Lava:QPAD e704: Rs 9999IvoryS: 8499Velo+: 5000

Samsung:Tab 3 Neo – INR.12,740Lenovo Idea Tab A3000: 14,999

Swipe:MTV SlateMTV Slash 4XHalo Fone

Wickedleak:Wammy Ethos Tablet PC: Rs. 10,990/-

Zync:Zync Quad 8: 12200/-Z605: Rs. 7,999

Simmtronics XPad :Mini quad core: 9,999XPAD Freedom: 12999


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Over the past two years, the mobile TV landscape has changed dramatically. Today with smartphone revolution

gripping all kind of customer segments, TV is largely seen as a big application on which consumer affection can be taken forward. And, as a result mobiles or smartphones and increasingly acquiring TV functionalities and delivering unique experiences to the user community.

More so it is being pushed by a lot of global events such as the world cup football being organised in Brazil. These global events such as the FIFA world cup or the Olympics are making sure that such technology is available on the smartphone devices and increase their event’s reach to various platforms and geographies.

It may be recalled that in the aftermath of the global economic downturn, these reservations crystallised in most cases into an outright rejection of the dedicated broadcast network. By the end of 2009 - more than four and a half years after the first service was launched – just 3.2 million users worldwide were paying for mobile TV services delivered via dedicated mobile broadcast TV networks: well under 0.1% of the global subscriber base.

Even though MediaFLO achieved carriage deals with Verizon and AT&T, the two largest networks in the US, its subscriber base stood at no more than 200,000 at the end of 2010. Furthermore, this global pay TV base is barely sufficient to sustain a single medium-sized national network.

Given these factors, given the comparative failures of those pay ventures, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that pay TV services delivered over dedicated networks are unlikely to generate substantial revenues in the future; that few such networks will be commissioned and deployed in the future; that those networks which are in active service will increasingly struggle in the face of competing technologies.

Where mobile broadcast TV has taken off, it is largely the result either of digital terrestrial networks configured at no extra cost to enable

free-to-air mobile reception of signals (e.g. ISDB-T in Japan) or with handsets fitted with chipsets which can receive free-to-air analogue TV signals (e.g. in parts of Asia and Africa).

However, while they will not in themselves provide any additional service revenues, this is not to say that they do not provide the opportunity for vendors, operators and service providers to generate additional revenues, ranging from the perceived enhanced value of a handset that is in some way mobile TV-enabled, to associated, paid-for value-added interactive services.

At the same time that the star of broadcast mobile TV has waned, that of streamed services has waxed to an appreciable extent. In areas of good reception, 3G/3.5G networks can enable high-quality coverage of streamed TV, in many cases of 24fps and above; at the same time, many streamed TV applications now offer as an alternative (or default) the option of WiFi coverage which – when available – offers even greater audio and video reception.

Given that 3G network coverage has improved significantly in the past two years, and given that free WiFi is becoming far more widely available, it therefore appears increasingly probable that the bulk of end-user revenues from TV services will come from streamed, rather than broadcast, mechanisms.

With a number of quadcore and multicore chipset vendors now offering receivers which can pick up analogue and digital terrestrial TV at a relatively low level of power consumption, previous assumptions about the viability of dedicated mobile broadcast TV networks must now be called into question.

And as power consumption of such chipsets continues to decline in the medium term, then the pay TV mobile networks will only survive by offering content which is not available on the terrestrial networks and additionally, content created specifically for the mobile. Whether the networks and their service providers will be able to do that is another matter.

Enter WiFi Increasingly, developers are offering

applications which augment delivery via cellular networks with WiFi access. At the same time, many hotels, public houses, fast food outlets, libraries and cafes are now providing their customers with free WiFi access: such brands include McDonald’s, Coffee Republic, Leon Restaurants, Radisson Hotels. Indeed, many cities now include several hundred such establishments and the lists are growing daily. Furthermore, as more outlets offer free WiFi, the model creates its own impetus and thus more

and more consumer-facing businesses will feel obliged to roll out free WiFi in order to compete.

Consumer Change in Viewing HabitsThere has been a marked shift in consumer

viewing habits in developed markets recent years, facilitated by DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) and online applications such as the BBC’s iPlayer, which enables UK-based Internet users to view any TV or Radio programme broadcast on the BBC’s channels over the previous seven days.

The implications of this are that a network which relies primary on linear broadcasting for its revenues will not be as attractive now as it was several years ago: there are fewer and fewer programmes which consumers feel obliged to watch at the time of broadcast: even live news broadcasts have become less imperative in an age whereby up-to-date news stories can be accessed instantaneously via Internet sites.

TV in your Smartphone, a reality today

t e c h s t o ry


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Tell us about your brand:The Alcatel brand is owned by TCL Communication, an international multicul¬tural

company which designs, develops, and markets globally a growing range of mobile and Internet devices. One of the fastest growing of the world’s top ten mobile phone manufacturers, TCL Communication makes access to mobile technology simple, design¬ing their products around individu¬al’s lifestyles, enabling the end users to do more.

What is your expectation and overall scenario from the smartphone market in India this year 2014-15?

The Indian market has reached a reasonable maturity in terms of mobile telephony. Customers are not biased towards a particular brand and are ready to experiment with new brands and technologies. And of course, Indians are really smart in terms of getting the latest technology with innovation at the best price. This is why we have introduced the IDOL series phones which are uniquely designed. They are slim, light, have narrow bezels and their screens are loaded with features and come at a reasonable price. Simultaneously, we also have an entry level smart and feature phones. We are also targeting to become one of the top 5 smart¬phone suppliers to India by 2014.

Are you planning to sell you products only via online retail in India? At pres¬ent we have three major regional distributors and we are present in 2,000

retail counters. And we are very much in process to increase our reach via retail counters. This year we are planning to reach more than 5,000 retail counters by end of this year. On the other hand we are also want to leverage the online market and we have also been getting overwhelming response from the e-commerce segment and are very upbeat on it.

What kind of promotional activities are you planning to do in India?Iron Man 3 was our fi rst attempt to have a comprehensive association with a Hollywood movie,

and it has given a real boost to Alcatel Mobile. We will be happy to associate with such types of opportunities in India as well, which is in sync with our brand, we will defi nitely like to consider it.

As many of your competitors are already providing good after sales servicing to their customers what are your plans to counter it?

After sales service is a major issue in India. We have more than 400 service centers across India, and a dedicated after sales team and we can proudly say that at present we are among the few brands that have service footprints across the country. However, there is always scope to improve, and we think that our quality and strong after sales service network will play a crucial role in our endeavour to succeed in the smartphone market.

What will be next big thing from Alcatel? We are among top three vendors in the 3G data card segment in India and

our volumes are growing rapidly in the smartphone segment as well. In 2014 we will be launching a lifestyle and value for money seg¬ment of tablets in India.

t r e N d s e t t e r

We will be one of the top 5 Smartphone suppliers to India by 2014

Idol X+ is our

fi rst e-commerce

initiative and we

very excited to

launch this phone

in partnership

with Flipkart.

com. Flipkart is

our primary and

exclusive online

retail partner and

this is our fi rst Exclusive

smart phone activity

with the online giant.“

Praveen Valecha, Regional Director, APAC BU India

“


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The “0” bezel and borderless, 2.4 mm edge to edge design, Capacitive touch screen, Multi-touch 5 points, and OGS with Full lamination

IDOL X+ - PHONE SPECIFICATIONS

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Octa Core 2 GHz processor

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Size:140.4 x 69.1 x 8.1mm

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Weight:125g

•Specs: 1.2 GHz dual-core Qualcomm 5 Colours: Spin Black, Spin White

Your BoomBand can: Recognize walking actions. Standby time in this mode will be 3 to 5 days, Count the calories burned, Count the distance walked.10, View sports graphs for Today/ 7 days/ 31 days.

Display: 5” Full HD IPS 1080 x 1920 pixels, 16M color display, Black Crystal touch panel, Corning Gorilla glass 2,NEG glass,

t r e N d s e t t e r

This is the second time we are tying up with a global mobile phone brand to be the exclusive destination for their products in India. We recently witnessed massive success with another brand launch on our platform – and this has reinforced our position as the platform of choice for brands hoping to connect with customers across the length and breadth of India.

“

Alcatel One Touch Idol X+ : A power- packed mid range smartphone

Michael Adnani, VP – Retail & Head of Brand Relations, Flipkart

“


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What’s hot this year?

Like every year this year also lots of new products launched and awarded at Computex 2014. Mobility India

travelled to Taipei to witnessed this big event. For fi ve incredible days, COMPUTEX TAIPEI 2014 showed its clout in shaping the future. This year the show focus on breaking ground, introducing new technologies, and ushering in big industry changes. These changes range from updates to storage interfaces to innovation in the case and cooling world. For that reason, the Best of Computex awards are a little diff erent this year. There were over 45 new product announcements held during the show and hundreds and thousands of “ideas” and innovations showcased.

The highly coveted award: the COMPUTEX d&i gold award was presented to 5 companies: GP Acoustics (UK) Ltd. for its X300A Wireless digital Hi-Fi speaker system; Philips for Philips Two-in-One Design, dual 19-inch display; HTC for the HTC Dot View case; Taer Innovation Co., Ltd. for Cylinder, cell phone car holder and Thermaltake Technology Co., Ltd. for Level 10 M Hybrid mouse.

A total of 75 winning products were chosen for the awards from 288 product entries. With the growing popularity of the Awards, more than 21,000 visitors enjoyed the COMPUTEX d&i awards pavilions at NANGANG Exhibition Hall during the show. These are few awarded products of Computex this year.

HTC Dot View :

The HTC Dot View case is designed to interact with the phone without fl ipping the cover open. The back of the case features curved back to fi t the smartphone, and the use of polycarbonate keeps the case thin and lightweight, while still adding protection.

The front silicone fl ip cover with embedded magnet wakes up the phone when it is open, and a grid of precisely-moulded tiny holes not only add to its aesthetic value, but also trigger a visual eff ect for the time, notifi cations and weather that you can see through the cover when close. One swipe up or down on the arrow allows you to answer or decline the calls without opening up the cover.

X300A Wireless :

X300A Wireless is a compact, premium quality sound system that allows you to enjoy true high fi delity sound when you’re streaming music via Airplay® or DLNA from your computer, smartphone, or mobile device. Featuring KEF’s unique Uni-Q drivers, four dedicated amplifi ers (two per speaker), two discrete high-quality DACs and a high resolution 96kHz/24-bit distortion-free digital USB connection in wired mode, X300A Wireless has everything you need to turn an uncompromising digital desktop into a true audiophile environment. Available in Gunmetal and Linear White fi nishes, X300A Wireless will blend beautifully with any interior space.

M o b i l i t y e v e N t s


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Philips Two-in-One Design :

Increase your productivity and reclaim your workspace with the Philips Two-in-One, Dual 19-inch Display. The light, open footprint provides a clutter-free design that clears up space on your desktop versus a traditional two stand setup. The ultra-thin bezel minimizes distractions, and the two displays can be combined almost seamlessly to give the feeling of having one large display.

ZenFone 6 :

ZenFone 6 has a 6-inch display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and direct bonding, as well as a fast 2.0GHz Intel Atom Z2580 processor with HyperThreading technology for up to four threads. Its 13-megapixel f/2.0 camera supports PixelMaster technology for incredible low light photography. Oh, and there’s also a 2MP front-facing ‘selfie’ camera.

HTC One(M8) :

The new HTC One (M8) is embedded in a metal uni-body, which seems to flow right up to the 5-inch full HD screen. With a precision-crafted finish, the entire surface is virtually wrapped up in aluminium that oozes luxury, aesthetics and solid quality. The brushed metal finishing combined with the iconic balanced form makes it stand out from the crowd with style, while the tapered edges curve smoothly to nest comfortably in your hand. The latest HTC Sense 6 UI has incorporated the Duo Camera technology and BoomSound to revolutionize the creative imaging and smartphone audio experiences. The new One is set to deliver an unparalleled smartphone experience for 2014.

Acer Aspire U5-620 :

The Aspire U5-620 delivers the most lifelike communication via its advanced video and voice features. The 23”, anti-fingerprint-treated Full HD IPS touch screen rests above a metal mesh that covers the speakers, presenting a classic, clean appearance. Meanwhile, a clever hinge allows you to adjust the angle anywhere from 10º off perpendicular to flat, using just one finger. The slim 35 mm thin chassis wrapped in a silver frame gives it a contemporary elegant feel, while the innovative angle-cut aluminium alloy stand with thickened corners makes a slender impression that belies its strength.

Acer Aspire V 13 :

The Acer Aspire V 13 is an impressive combination of stylish design, lightness and computing power. Its slenderness and long battery life make it highly portable, while its great hardware and Windows software make it your efficient companion for getting work done on the road, in style.m Stylish design / ID with nano-imprint

patterning aluminium top coverm 7 hours of battery life for full workday usabilitym Flexible configurations allowing for up to

16GB memory, large HDD or fast SSD storagem 2x2 Wi-Fi antenna and module for MIMO and dual bandsm Digital microphone for improved Skype / Hangout VoIP calls

QualcommToq Smartwatch:With the revolutionary

Qualcomm MirasolTM display technology, the Qualcomm ToqTM smartwatch delivers greater visibility to the information that is important to you. Clearly visible even in direct sunlight and so power efficient that you can go multiple days between charges, Toq was designed to be as functional as it is stylish. It acts as a second screen to your smartphone and seamlessly delivers messages, alerts and updates directly to your wrist. The Toq is the next logical step to achieving an even more connected world where you always have the information you need to know, exactly when you need to know it.

Zenfone View Flip Cover: The ViewFlip cover offers numerous

improvements; it gives this accessory incomparable functions for enhanced interaction with your device. Just by closing the case and with a new viewing window, the most important information will always be reachable with the flick of a finger. 5 main pages accessible with infinite loop, the viewing window lets you check the time, the weather and more.



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PW100 Wireless Charging:

With the ASUS PW100 wireless charging stand featuring the WPC QI technology, no cable is needed when charging your tablet. Unlike other flat-lying designs in the market, PW100 not only takes care of your charging needs, but also your viewing needs. Based on the design of the Pyramid, the black stand boasts an elegant and classic texture that perfectly matches its transparent base. The vertical design provides a 60 degree lying angle, delivering the most comfortable and wide viewing angle. It offers a totally different tablet charging experience.

Elite CE700:

An adjustable wireless charger that is the first of its kind. The Elite CE700 is a revolutionary new way to charge mobile phones, eliminating the need for cables and bulky transformers. By simply placing a QI supported phone on the charging pad, power is wirelessly transferred to the device for charging. Housed in an elegant folding stand with a stylish metal back cover, the CE700 features a textured rubber base that prevents slipping. The flexible design allows for use with a variety of mobile phone types, with wireless charging possible in both flat and upright modes. The CE700 is WPC QI certified, and enabled with Foreign Object Detection.

Voombox-travel:

The ultra-portable, rechargeable, splash-resistant Bluetooth speaker Voombox-Travel can be used in any environment, indoors or out. It is equipped with the latest Bluetooth 4.0 technology that enables it to connect to smartphones, tablets or any other Bluetooth device for up to 33 feet, and also features a rechargeable battery providing up to 6 hours of talk/playback time. To ensure the ultimate in sound quality, the Divoom Voombox -Travel features a 2’’ driver and a 2” passive radiator for impressive bass regardless of its size. In addition, a built-in microphone lets users make and receive calls wirelessly on their own or in a group.

Abee Full HD Car Recorder:

Abee C3G GPS Full HD car recorder is the answer to your need of having someone to keep an eye on the road for you at all times! In addition to the common safety functions, Abee adopts a DSP with built-in WDR and 3DNR technology for clearer, sharper images. Meanwhile, a duo satellite receiving GPS module is incorporated into the overall design for faster, more accurate positioning. Best of all, this high-tech electronics not only functions excellently but also looks stylish thanks to the silver cap and its streamline form to tone up the overall blackness of the device body. For users’ safety, all parts and devices are CE/FCC certified.



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R.N.I. No. DELENG/2004/14198Postal Reg. No.: DL(S)-01/3442/2013-15

Date of Pub: 22 June 2014 | Postal Dt.: 27th & 28th of same Month/ Posted at NDPSO

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