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• Smartphone Market Witnesses a Steady Growth: GFK
• Airtel, Vi Should be Happy With Rs 170 ARPU Prediction from ICRA
• Vivo V21T Major Specifications, Launch Date in India Disclosed
• Android 12 Rolling Out for Samsung Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 Series, Galaxy Z Fold 2
• What Kind of Internet Awaits Us in 2022?
• Sun Direct Introduces New Channel Packs, Discontinues Old Ones
• Vietnam Will Issue 5G Licenses in 2022, Telcos Agree to Share Infra
• BSNL Rocking Prepaid Plans in the Budget Segment
• Realme 9i Geekbench Confirms Presence of Snapdragon 680
• Reliance Jio Talking With Top Banks and MFs for Raising Funds

Smartphone Market Witnesses a Steady Growth: GFK Posted: 29 Dec 2021 05:12 AM PST Growth From Knowledge or GFK has shared trends that can be a deciding factor in the growth of Indian markets. GFK is a global leader in market and consumer intelligence for technical consumer goods, and through its market intelligence, it has revealed the overall growth in smartphone sales, the price segment of devices and the geographical penetration market from January 2021 to October 2021. The Trends in the Smartphone Market The report from GFK market intelligence informs that the overall sales of the smartphones in terms of offline retail sales have grown by 4%, whereas the online retail sales have seen a surge by 29% during YTD October 2021 in comparison with 2020. During the same time period, the online channel contribution in terms of sales unit and sales value accounted for 40% and 41% respectively in the smartphone market as compared to 35% in the year 2020. The reason behind this growth can be credited to the rise in trust of the consumers and expansion of digitization of purchase which has resulted in online retail sales contributing more to the overall smartphone sales category. Talking about the prevailing price trends, GFK Market Intelligence has informed that there has been a rise in the sales units of the handsets by 56% in the premium-smartphone category, which are devices ranging between 30k – 40k. For the smartphones priced above 40k, the sales unit has also increased by 41%. This report from GFK Market Intelligent point-of-sales data hints towards the fact that the demand for premium products is increasing in India. The Director – sales of GFK India, Kartik Vasudevan, said in a statement that as markets have moved from the "want" to the "need" norm, it is not only about the product/ device but consumer 'Lifestyle'. He informed that there had been a structural shift in buying behaviour as most of the consumers are now using tech to continue working and learning while staying at home. With work-from-home prevailing, consumers are now looking to invest in quality products that also offer longevity. The report from GFK also talked about the geographical penetration of the smartphone market. There has been an 11% growth in volume retail during YTD Oct 2021/ 2020 in overall sales for smartphones in tier 5 & above representing <50k population, whereas there has been a 7% increase in tier 3 cities.

Airtel, Vi Should be Happy With Rs 170 ARPU Prediction from ICRA Posted: 29 Dec 2021 04:36 AM PST Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have been very vocal about the need for the telecom industry average revenue per user (ARPU) figure to improve. ICRA, an independent credit rating agency, has predicted that telecom sector ARPU will reach Rs 170 levels by the end of FY23. It will improve the overall profit generation for the telcos. This, coupled with the relief measures that the Government of India (GoI) has announced for the telecom sector, would create enough headroom for the industry to reduce debt as well as invest more freely in technology and equipment upgrades for 5G. Telecom Industry Revenues Expected to Grow by 18% to 20% in FY23 Sabyasachi Majumdar, Senior Vice President and Group Head, Corporate Ratings, ICRA Limited, said the latest tariff hikes would help the telcos in increasing ARPU levels. Further, the constant upgradation of 2G subscribers to 4G would add to the ARPU of the telecom operators in the coming years, added Majumdar. Majumdar also said that the telecom industry revenues are expected to grow by 10% to 20% in FY23, followed by a growth of 10% to 12% in FY24. According to ICRA calculations, the moratorium on statutory payments provided to the telecom operators would provide an annual breather of about Rs 40,000 crore to the industry by 2025. On top of this, the bank guarantees (BGs) have been slashed significantly, and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) even returned thousands of crores worth of BGs to the telcos recently. But the government has still been able to earn its budgetary revenue from the telecom sector as both Jio, and Airtel pre-paid their spectrum-related dues amounting to the tune of Rs 26,300 crore. The GoI is expected to rake in about Rs 54,000 crore from the telecom sector in FY22, which is very close to its expected revenues from the sector this fiscal. Telcos would also be looking to deleverage with all the relief they have on their sleeves for the next few years. ICRA expects the industry debt to remain at Rs 4.7 lakh crore levels before the end of March 31, 2022, dropping to Rs 4.5 lakh crore as on March 31, 2023.

Vivo V21T Major Specifications, Launch Date in India Disclosed Posted: 29 Dec 2021 03:15 AM PST The Chinese technology company Vivo is all set to launch its next smartphone Vivo Y21T which will be the latest addition to the Y series of the company. According to a report from 91mobiles, the new handset is going to launch in India on January 3, 2022. Furthermore, key specifications of the upcoming device from Vivo have also been revealed suggesting that the smartphone is more likely to be a mid-range affordable device. As far as the design part of the Vivo Y21T is considered, not much has been revealed by the makers but it is being rumoured that it will have a waterdrop notch, a rectangular camera module on the back, and an IPS LCD panel. Specification Details for Vivo Y21T As mentioned above the Vivo Y21T will be launched in India on January 3 and a few specification details of the handset has emerged. The storage specs of the device will include a 4GB RAM paired up with 128GB of internal storage that will also be further expandable via a microSD card. For the battery backup of the device, Vivo Y21T is going to be backed by a 5,000mAh battery and will support 18W fast charge technology. The upcoming smartphone is going to feature Qualcomm's Snapdragon 680 chipset under the hood. As far as the camera module of the smartphone is considered, Vivo Y21T is going to feature a triple rear camera setup and will have 50MP sensors and it is being speculated that the module will be rectangular in shape. These are the only confirmed details available as of now and with the launch being just around the corner, we can expect more information on Vivo Y21T pretty soon. The launch of the new Vivo Y21T will be trailed by the most anticipated series from Vivo – the Vivo V23 Series which is all set to be released by the company. The series will feature two handsets- Vivo V23 and Vivo V23 Pro in India the devices could feature a dual-front camera setup with a 50MP primary sensor. Moreover, the Vivo V23 series will feature a triple rear camera setup with a 64MP primary camera and it is expected that it will be powered by MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset along with 8GB of RAM.

Android 12 Rolling Out for Samsung Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20 Series, Galaxy Z Fold 2 Posted: 29 Dec 2021 02:31 AM PST The stable version of the Android 12 update is now being rolled out for the Samsung Galaxy S20 series including the Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy Note 20 series, and the Galaxy Z Fold 2 smartphones. The new Android 12 update comes with the latest custom skin by Samsung – One UI 4.0. The South Korean tech giant has started rolling out the new stable version on its older just a week after it fixed the bugs that were being found. The update is being rolled out for Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and the Galaxy S21 series as well. The New Android 12 Update with One UI 4.0 A SamMobile report suggests that the One UI 4.0 version based on Android 12 is currently being rolled out in Switzerland for the Samsung Galaxy S20 series including the Galaxy S20 FE along with the Galaxy Note 20 series. It is also being speculated that the list of handsets that are going to receive the update can include the base model of the Galaxy S20 series along with Galaxy S20+ and Galaxy S20 Ultra. Galaxy Note 20, and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra — alongside the Galaxy S20 FE and Galaxy S20 FE 5G could also witness the update. The report also suggests that apart from the Samsung Galaxy S20 series and Galaxy Note 20 series, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 is also getting the One UI 4.0 stable update in some parts of Europe. The new update that is being rolled out for Samsung smartphones comes with a December 2021 Android security patch and brings firmware version F916BXXS2FULE. It is also very likely that Samsung will roll out the new Android 12 update for its Galaxy S20 series and Galaxy Note 20 series along with Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 to other parts of the world as well. It will depend on the success rate of the update that is currently being rolled out. It is to be noted that earlier this week, Samsung began to roll out the stable version of the Android 12 update with One UI 4.0 on top for the devices such as Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and the Galaxy S21 series. The new update brings in a lot of features of Android 12 as well as new updates under One UI 4.0. Users can also check for the latest Android 12 update on their smartphones manually.

What Kind of Internet Awaits Us in 2022? Posted: 29 Dec 2021 01:28 AM PST By Dr. Badri Gomatam, CTO, STL When Matrix was released in theatres two decades ago, the Internet was still in its infancy. But the movie predicted how the super-intelligent Internet could gain human qualities and become almost unsurmountable. Humanity's fear of super-intelligent technology hasn't become a total reality so far, but the Internet is definitely dictating our lives. In the last couple of years, the Internet went from being a borderline necessity to a means of existence. More than 2 million people explored the Internet for the first time every day. This also led to a change in how the Internet was provided. The networks that were traditionally ruled by proprietary technologies made way for open technologies. Satellite emerged as a strong contender to beam the Internet at a great speed. Many technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of Things, 5G matured. 2022 will see the Internet evolving and making more transformational changes in our lives (if that is possible). Here's the kind of Internet that awaits us in 2022: It's Going to Be More Pervasive Since its existence, Internet has been kind to the people living in cities. The urban coverage is twice that of rural coverage. The last 18 months changed that. Internet connectivity in villages gained more importance, and humongous initiatives were either introduced or driven with more rigour. US's RDOF, India's BharatNet, UK's Project Gigabit – all of these have rural connectivity in their hearts. Even in urban areas, the valiant fibre-to-the-home initiatives will ensure broader coverage. In 2020, the broadband coverage across the globe was 15%. It is surely going to increase. To give you a perspective on how the Internet will reach more and more people, it was predicted 60% of the population will be using the Internet by 2022. We have already reached close to 65%, and 2021 is not over yet. It's Going to Be Faster Internet speed has grown incrementally over the last few years. Currently, the global mobile Internet average speed is 63 Mbps, while the fixed broadband is 113 Mbps. With 5G maturing and optical fibre penetration increasing, these numbers are only going to go up. Fun fact: Scientists from the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) Japan have broken that record by scaling up the fastest internet speed record in the world to a whopping 319 TERAbits per second. It's Going to Be Converged Traditionally, Internet has largely been powered by wireless and wireline technologies. In 2022, we will see the satellite become another dominant Internet provider. All the three technologies, wireless, optical fibre and satellite, will converge to reduce the differentiation between Internet haves and have-nots. Fibre will provide high capacity and bandwidth access, wireless will provide mobility, and satellite will provide coverage in areas where it is extremely expensive and difficult to take fibre or traditional wireless coverage. It's Going to Be Dynamically Managed The traditional (or legacy) digital networks were largely powered by proprietary technologies. This required hardware for managing the traffic, and maintenance costs were high. 2022 will see greater adoption of open technologies and software-driven networks where adaptable virtual network functions replace single-function network hardware. These virtual functions allow for centralized control with decentralized storage, compute and memory. They allow the data network to dynamically transform to the needs of the end-users.

Sun Direct Introduces New Channel Packs, Discontinues Old Ones Posted: 29 Dec 2021 12:32 AM PST Sun Direct, a major Direct-to-Home (DTH) service provider in Southern India, has introduced multiple new channel packs and discontinued some of the old ones. All of the new plans are now available for the subscribers to recharge on the company's website and mobile app. A total of eleven (11) channel packs have been removed, while three (3) new ones have been added. Sun Direct Channel Packs Which Have Been Removed Sun Direct has removed the following channel packs: HD Tamil Gold Package HD ROI Silver Package HD Marathi Silver Package HD Malayalam Gold Package HD Kannada Gold Package HD Bengali Silver Package HD Telugu Gold Package HD Tamil Silver Package HD Malayalam Silver Package HD Kannada Silver Package HD Telugu Silver Package Sun Direct Channel Packs Which Have Been Added As mentioned above, Sun Direct has added three new channel packs. These channel packs are 'HD Tamil Smart Pack', 'HD Tamil Classic Pack', and 'HD Tamil Ultimate Pack', for Rs 220, Rs 260, and Rs 290 per month, respectively. The HD Tamil Ultimate Pack has the most number of channels and is great for people who want a large number of options when it comes to entertainment. Sun Direct Recharge Offers for Customers Sun Direct is also offering long-term recharge offers to the customers. But customers have to spend significant lump-sum amounts of money to avail the benefits out of these offers. Note that these recharge offers are only extended to customers who are making the recharges directly through Sun Direct's mobile app or its website. The company is providing cashback of up to Rs 150 to customers if they are spending or making a recharge of at least Rs 3,000 or more. There are other offers as well for customers going with lesser amounts of money which you can check out in the table below. This is an instant cashback offer from the company.

Vietnam Will Issue 5G Licenses in 2022, Telcos Agree to Share Infra Posted: 28 Dec 2021 11:32 PM PST Vietnam is preparing for the launch of commercial 5G services and will reportedly issue 5G licenses in the coming year as well. Due to the pandemic delays, the telcos in Vietnam have been unable to secure 5G licenses resulting in the late launch of next-generation connectivity services. According to a NikkeiAsia report, the 5G coverage in the country will start from Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City, in addition to other urban areas. Top Telcos in Vietnam Have Agreed to Share 5G Infrastructure The top three telecom operators in Vietnam, namely military-owned Viettel, MobiFone, and Vinaphone, have been conducting 5G trials in 16 different cities and provinces of the country. The 5G services will launch in major cities in addition to the high-demand areas such as industrial parks. Vietnam was expected to launch commercial 5G services by 2020, but due to the pandemic, there were multiple delays, and the rollout time-stretched has stretched till 2022. A thing worth noting here is that the telecom operators in Vietnam have agreed to share 5G infrastructure with each other. This will help the telcos in streamlining their capital investments related to 5G. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Enterprises, has also been asking the Indian telcos to do the same as there is a lot of duplication in investments and telecom sites in India. Viettel, the largest telecom operator in Vietnam, has also developed its own 5G equipment and network and thus might avoid partnering up with overseas companies to ensure that its networks are safe. 5G services are expected to boost Vietnam's digital economy as the government promotes a shift to high-tech manufacturing. India is also expected to launch 5G services in late 2022. Right now, the next step for India is to conclude with the 5G trials and purchase a fresh spectrum for 5G services around the May or June 2022 period.

BSNL Rocking Prepaid Plans in the Budget Segment Posted: 28 Dec 2021 10:56 PM PST Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), one of the oldest telecom operators in the market, is trying to roll out its 4G services as fast as possible. Even without the 4G presence, the telco offers prepaid plans which can't be ignored because of the value proposition they bring to the table. If you are a user who consumes services from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), we are listing some of the best prepaid plans in the budget segment for you. BSNL Prepaid Plans for Budget-Conscious Users First of all, there's a data voucher called 'STV_97', which comes for Rs 97 with a service validity of 18 days. This plan offers 2GB of daily data to the users’ post, which the speed reduces to 80 Kbps and also bundles in unlimited voice calling. However, there's no SMS benefit included with this plan. The second voucher is a voice voucher and costs only Rs 2 more than the Rs 97 plan from BSNL. The Rs 99 plan from the state-run telco offers unlimited voice calling to the users for 22 days. There are no data or SMS benefits bundled with this plan. Then we have the Rs 118 and Rs 187 plans from BSNL. With the Rs 118 prepaid plan, BSNL offers unlimited voice calling, 0.5GB of daily data post, which the internet speed reduces to 40 Kbps for 26 days. Again, this plan misses out on the SMS benefits. Moving on to the last prepaid plan on the list, with the Rs 187 plan from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, users get unlimited voice calling, 100 SMS/day, and 2GB of daily data. There is also BSNL Tunes offered to the customers. This is arguably the best 28 days prepaid plan in the industry right now because of the benefits it offers and for the cost at which it comes for the users. The only drawback is the absence of 4G networks.

Realme 9i Geekbench Confirms Presence of Snapdragon 680 Posted: 28 Dec 2021 09:20 PM PST Realme 9i has been spotted on Geekbench. The listing has confirmed several specifications of the smartphone, including its chipset – Qualcomm Snapdragon 680. The Snapdragon 680 is a chipset that was announced by Qualcomm this October itself, and it is aimed at affordable 4G smartphone offerings. The chipset is made on a 6nm node and uses Kryo 265 CPU cores and Adreno 610 GPU. It can support image processing from three cameras comfortably. The Geekbench listing of the device, revealed by a popular tipster who goes by the Mukul Sharma, has also revealed its single-core and multi-core scores. Realme 9i Geekbench Scores The single-core score of the device is 382, while the multi-core score is 1556. These are not very impressive numbers but something that an affordable device user can accept. The device listed on the platform had 4GB of RAM and was running on Android 11. Since the device has been listed, its launch seems nearby. Realme 9i Specifications (Expected) The Realme 9i is expected to come with a 6.6-inch LCD punch-hole display with support for 90Hz refresh rate. In the camera department, there might be a triple-sensor setup at the rear where the primary sensor is a 50MP lens paid with an 8MP ultra-wide-angle sensor and a 2MP macro lens. For selfies and videos, there might be a 16MP sensor at the front. The Realme 9i is expected to come with a 5,000mAh battery with support for 33W fast charging. The listing has already revealed that the device will carry a 4GB RAM variant and will also run on Realme UI 2.0 based on Android 11 out of the box. There are no rumours about the pricing of the smartphone, but it should be well under Rs 15,000 mark to be able to make any sort of difference. It will be a completely 4G supportive device which is something that the buyers will consider heavily before they take this device.

Reliance Jio Talking With Top Banks and MFs for Raising Funds Posted: 28 Dec 2021 08:53 PM PST Reliance Jio is reportedly looking to raise around Rs 8,000 crore through corporate bonds to clear leftover spectrum dues of 2014 and 2015 auctions. According to ET Telecom, the bonds will arrive with five, three, or two-year tenors. Reliance Jio is in talks with the top banks as well as mutual funds in the country. As per the publication's report, the Jio bonds will attract interest rates of 6.2% and 5.35%. Reliance Jio Looking to Raise Rs 8,000 Crore for Clearing Spectrum Dues The largest telco in India is in talks with banks such as the State Bank of India (SBI), Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank for raising Rs 5,000 crore for a five-year tenor. At the same time, Jio is talking with Mutual Funds to raise another Rs 3,000 crore. According to the publication, Jio will also use a part of this money to refinance some of the short-term loans which were raised earlier through the commercial papers. These loans are maturing in January, February, and June of 2022. It is worth noting that Jio has already paid around Rs 10,792 crore to clear the spectrum dues which the 2016 auctions entailed. However, the dues of the 2014 and 2015 auctions are still left. During the 2014 auctions, Reliance Jio had purchased spectrum worth Rs 11,054 core, out of which Rs 3,648 crore was paid upfront and in the 2015 auctions, the telco again purchased spectrum worth Rs 10,077 crore, out of which it paid Rs 2,695 crore upfront. The telco has already paid annual instalments on these dues, which also includes a two-year moratorium. Including interest, Jio's dues out of the 2014 and 2015 spectrum auctions are around Rs 15,000 to Rs 16,000 crore. Reliance Jio should be able to comfortably raise the money it is looking after. The cash-rich telco was the only company to deny the four-year moratorium on statutory dues that the government offered to all the private operators in the country.

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