Huge Demand for Apple iphone5 in India

Despite the Apple iPhone 5 not being officially available in India, there are reports that online retailers and the grey market are seeing a lot of demand for the new smartphone from the fruity giant, despite the hefty premium being levied.

One of these retailers, Bhaap.com, will start selling the iPhone 5 in India from Friday, September 28. The site will make the smartphone available to customers for Rs 71,995. The deal on the website opens at 10:00 am and will only be available for 24-hours or until the very limited stocks last!

The price of Rs. 71,995 is for the 16GB version. No pricing details about the 32GB or the 64GB variant of the smartphones are known for Bhaap.com.

At eBay.in, the price of the iPhone 5 16GB is Rs. 79,900 and the 32GB is selling for Rs. 90,750. You can take a look at the eBay listing of the iPhone 5 here.

Apple hasn’t announced the iPhone 5 officially in India but speculations on the Internet suggest that it will be available towards the end of October or early November.

If you are one who can’t wait for Apple to officially launch the iPhone in India, you can pick one up from the grey market today. The first iPhone 5 was sold in Khan Market, New Delhi for a whopping 1.35 lakhs a few days ago. In the grey market in India, the prices of the three variants of the iPhone 5 is as follows:

• 16GB: Rs. 76,000
• 32GB: Rs. 85,000
• 64GB: RS. 1,00,000

(Prices are approximate)

Apple’s 6th generation iPhone has a 4-inch Retina Display and runs on the all-new iOS 6. Under the hood, the A6 chipset powers it. You can read details about Apple’s latest beauty here. 

Courtesy : http://www.thinkdigit.com

Original post : http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/Apple-iPhone-5-sees-heavy-demand-in_10889.html

Use of smartphones – A survey report by British Network company O2

People are using smartphones more to surf the Web, check social networks or play games, and making fewer phone calls with the devices, a British survey found.

Research by British mobile network O2 found making phone calls was only the fifth-most popular use for smartphones.

The average smartphone owner spends spend 25 minutes daily using the phone to browse the Web, 17 minutes on social networking, 13 minutes playing games and 16 minutes listening to music.

Phone calls account for just 12 minutes of use, the survey found.

“Smartphones are now being used like a digital ‘Swiss Army Knife,’ replacing possessions like watches, cameras, books and even laptops,” David Johnson, general manager of devices for O2 in the UK, told The Daily Telegraph. “While we’re seeing no let-up in the number of calls customers make or the amount of time they spend speaking on their phones, their phone now plays a far greater role in all aspects of their lives.”

Fifty-four percent of the survey respondents said they use their smartphone instead of an alarm clock, while almost half said their phone has replaced their watch.

To know more, go to: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2012/06/29/Use-of-smartphones-for-phone-calls-falling/UPI-80081341010810/#ixzz27eP7PRjq

How to Get Better Battery Life for Your cellphone

Turn the phone off. This will probably be the most effective and simple way of conserving your battery’s power. Why? This will help conserve energy and also charge your phone. If you don’t plan on answering the phone while you’re sleeping or after business hours, just turn it off. Do the same if you are in an area with no reception (such as a subway or remote area, since constantly searching for service depletes the battery fairly quickly.) Some phones have an automatic power save feature, but it takes about 30 minutes with no service to kick in. By then, much battery power has been used. If you don’t need to receive or make calls but are using a smartphone as a PDA, disable the phone functionality (flight mode).
Stop searching for a signal
Switch the vibrate function off on your phone, using just the ring tone.
Turn off your phone’s back light.
Avoid using unnecessary features.
Keep calls short
Turn off Bluetooth
Same goes for WIFI, GPS, and infrared capabilities, if your phone has these features built in. Keep them off except when you need them.
Turn the brightness of the display to the lowest setting possible.
Use GSM rather than 3G – Using your phone in 3G / Dual Mode will drain the battery quicker than if you just use GSM mode – have a look at your phones spec and you’ll see it will quote two different battery life times – normally 50% more for pure GSM use.
With a smartphone, avoid using moving or animated pictures or videos for your background.
Use a black background whenever possible.

Smartphone Market Outlook in India

This Frost & Sullivan research service titled Smartphone Market Outlook: India provides the future strategic roadmaps of the key participants, market drivers and restraints, as well as international trends of operating systems. In this research, Frost & Sullivan’s expert analysts thoroughly examine the following application development communities: handset manufacturers {original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)}, telecom service providers, and content developers/operating system providers.
Market Overview
Smartphones Emerging as the Future Growth Engines of the Mobile Industry
As consumers increasingly seek a single converged device to support multiple functionalities on the go, the spotlight will invariably fall on smartphones. These devices cater to both individual and enterprise users due to their consumer- and productivity-centric approaches. The application development community and mobile operating systems participants are the key enablers of smartphone ecosystem, wherein users prefer a single point of access and management of content. In this scenario, product innovation and the application portfolio will be the primary market growth drivers. “With Web 2.0 (social networking, microblogging) technologies gaining traction and the youth demographic keen on adopting smartphones, applications are expected to emerge as the key differentiating factor,” says the analyst of this research. “Touch screen technologies and customized interfaces in terms of innovative product features will also propel the market ahead.”
With the urban markets having matured in terms of feature phone usage, numerous mobile users in this demographic are looking to upgrade to a smartphone. This replacement market will be predominantly populated by the younger demographic, which are early adopters of technology and avid users of Web 2.0 technologies. “The smartphone ecosystem is looking to build a distinct identity in the application community with handset manufacturers, service providers, and operating system developers having content portals that enable consumers to access a wide variety of applications,” notes the analyst. “However, over 70 percent of the population consumes only voice services, and data services have not yet gained traction, which can slow down the adoption rates of smartphones.” To compound participants’ issues, the existing data bandwidth is insufficient to support data-intensive applications. They are hoping to remedy this issue and support smartphone-based applications by deploying high-speed 3G networks.
In a highly competitive market where handset manufacturers and service providers vie for subscribers, a comprehensive value proposition is likely to be the factor that will tip the scales. Both these stakeholders will  aim to lure consumers with an end-to-end service offering, significant investment in product R&D, and attractive revenue sharing agreements with content developers. Meanwhile, with the emergence of open source operating systems, there is a paradigm shift toward a collaborative ecosystem, wherein participants leverage each other’s expertise. This has fostered an environment of strategic alliances that will help offer a one-stop shop for handsets, data plans, and the point of access for an application ecosystem. “All participants of the ecosystem will have to collaborate to develop an end-to-end value proposition that will engage consumers and thereby, increase customer loyalty and satisfaction,” observes the analyst.
Application Sectors
Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examined the following market sectors in this research:
By Application Development Communities:
- Handset manufacturers (original equipment manufacturers (OEMs))
- Telecom service providers
- Content developers/operating system providers

HISTORY OF MOBILE PHONES IN INDIA

A report of Cellular Operators Authority of India regarding the entry of cell
phones into India is listed below.  This shows the improvement in cell phone
introduction over the years.
1992 – Telecommunication sector in India was liberalized to bridge the gap through
government spending and to provide additional resources for the nation‘s
telecom target.  Private sector was allowed participation.
1993 – The telecom industry got an annual foreign investment Rs. 20.6 millions.
1994 – License for providing cell phone services was granted by the government of
India for the metropolitan cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.  Cell
phone service became duopoly (i.e. Not more than two cell phone  operators
could be licensed in each telecom circle) under a fixed license fee regime for
10 years.
1995 – 19 more telecom circles got mobile licences
1995 – (August) Kolkata became the first metro with a cell phone network.1997- TRAI was set up.
1998 – Annual foreign investment in telecom stood at Rs. 17,756.4 millions.
1999- FDI inflow into telecom sector fell by almost 90 per cent to Rs. 2126.7
millions.
1999 – Tariff rebalancing exercise got initiated.
1999 (March) – National Telecom Policy was announced.
2000 (June) – FDI inflow dropped further down to Rs. 918 millions.
2000 (Jan) – Amendment of TRAI Act.
Source:  Cellular Operators Authority of India (COAI)

15 TOP RANKING COUNTRIES WITH MAXIMUM CELLPHONE SUBSCRIBERS.

The worldwide number of cell phone users surpassed 2 billions in
2005— from 11 millions in 1990 and 750 million in 2000. China dominated the cell phone users list with nearly 400 millions as at the end of 2005—almost twice as many
as in the USA. Russia has seen tremendous growth in the last few years and is
projected to be running in third place by the year-end 2005. Rapid expansion of cell
phones in India will see a future climb in the rankings to a possible number two in
2013. Worldwide cell phone subscribers have reached more than 3.2 billions by the end
of the year 2010.

Univercell launching mobile theft insurance plan

Mobile retailer Univercell along with Oriental Insurance Company on Wednesday has launched a mobile theft and damage insurance plan for all mobile units, sold from its showrooms.
“Our insurance plan will cover reasons like theft, accidental damages, fire riot, strike, malicious damage and fortuitous circumstances”, Univercell’s V.P Ramesh Barath said in Chennai.
He said the insurance period is for 12 months from the date of purchase.
“For total loss, the liability of insurer is restricted to the sum insured or the value of the new instrument on the date of claim whichever is lower”, he said.
Ramesh told that for partial loss, the cost of repair would be paid without any depreciation on parts replaced for loss or damage.
On premium payment, he said “once our customer gets into the insurance agreement, he/she has to pay Rs 25 for every thousand rupee”, he told adding “if a customer buys a mobile for Rs 1,000 he has to pay a premium of Rs 25 every year”.
“If a customer loses his mobile, he has to produce only four documents, which includes police complaint letter, duly acknowledged by the officials concerned, purchase invoice, acknowledgement letter of sim card deactivation and submitting insurance claim form”, he said.
Ramesh said currently, this scheme is available in 167 Univercell stores across south India and very soon the company is planning to launch the same scheme in Orissa and West Bengal.