Google Play Store has got more than 1.5 million unique apps to download. While majority of the apps are available for free, the success to Google Play Store is apparently tied with Gaming apps and Freemium model. While freemium apps contributed 90% of total app revenue to Google, Gaming apps accounted for 91% of Google Play revenue in Q1 2014. The astounding growth and contribution of gaming apps is recorded due to hundreds of thousand of gaming apps available on Play Store now. Google has ensured to offer a variety of gaming apps suiting the need of every gaming freak.
But this has also created a challenge for first-time gaming app enthusiasts, who hit to Play Store hunting for the best gaming apps. With tons of options available on Play Store, such users end up downloading a gaming app that has a number of downloads or higher ranking. This practice affects the new gaming apps that may be less in download numbers, but provide a better interface and gaming experience.
Therefore, today we have brought a list of top five free gaming apps available on Play Store. The list is composed after the close screening of multiple parameters of hundreds of gaming apps.
FIFA 15 Ultimate Team
In this game, the players, the teams and leagues are all real. FIFA 15 Ultimate Team by EA Sports includes over ten thousand players, five-hundred-eighty-three teams, thirty-three leagues, and thirty-four actual stadiums. You can create an all-star squad of FIFA soccer players and see how they fan out. Some of the more popular leagues include the English Premier League, La Liga, the German Bundesliga and many more. FIFA 15 Ultimate Team allows you to take the adrenaline rush of soccer with you wherever you go with the most real-life soccer game in Google Play.
Slotomania
This free mobile slots app is a ton of fun with clear vivid graphics and all sorts of crazy themed games including Elvis, Gorilla Gems, and many more. Be careful, Slotomania can get addictive with lots of opportunities to win big, bonus rounds, and free gifts for you and your friends.
Spider-Man Unlimited
With Spider man Unlimited, you can swing from building to building in an action-packed arcade like adventure game/thrill ride that feels like you’re living inside a Marvel comics book. Players can recruit any hero in the Spider-Verse to face off against the ultimate threat. You can also build an army of Spider-Men to fend off the new Sinister Six, who have established a multi-dimensional portal in New York City to duplicate endless versions of themselves. The Sinister Six are transporting from one dimension to the next, eliminating everyone in their way. This game is your chance to fight for survival.
Subway Surfers
Subway Surfers has kind of a crazy but creative concept that involves, dodging oncoming trains, a spray-paint powered jet pack, and olympic like acrobatics. This game is a bundle of fun as you can assist the protagonist, Jake, a tricky mischievous punk evade capture from the grumpy Inspector and his determined canine companion.
Candy Crush Saga
I realize this one is predictable, but we did promise you the best. In this user favorite, Tiffi and Mr. Toffee set off on their sweet journey through the Candy Kingdom. If you pass level fifty, you can open Dreamworld and exile reality with some owl named Odus. This game allows users to both switch and match their way through over a hundred levels in this tasty puzzle experience. Candy Crush Saga– definitely the sweetest game to make our list.
A large chunk of Samsung Electronics’ (KRX:005930) revenue comes from its mobile devices business. But since past few quarters, profits from its mobile device business are declining. According to latest numbers from IDC, Samsung’s worldwide smartphone market share declined from 32.5 percent in Q3 2013 to just 23.8 percent in Q3 2014. This is a huge decline of nearly 30 percent within a matter of 1 year, but what are the reasons behind this decline?
Consumers continue to be dissatisfied with Samsung’s offerings
Over the course of past 2-3 years, consumers have become bored of Samsung’s products, especially when it comes to product design and software performance. Smartphones are not only a tool to getting the job done, they are a part of consumers’ lifestyle. People like to show off their devices to their friends and the crowd. The one area where competitors like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and HTC Corp (TPE:2498) have managed to defeat Samsung is the product design. Now, the design aspect is very subjective to everyone but it is a general market-sense the Samsung hasn’t been able to innovate when it comes to design. While Apple and HTC have been churning out beautiful metal-clad smartphones, Samsung continued with bland white or black plastic designs with fake chrome strip running around the body. There is little change in Samsung’s smartphone design in the past 2-3 years. Even newer companies like Xiaomi and OnePlus have vowed to offer refreshing new designs with use of materials such as bamboo, denim, and, marble. Samsung clearly needs to overhaul their product design theme.
The other major area where consumers have been dissatisfied with Samsung’s smartphones is its software. Granted, Samsung inspired many of the features which come with native Android these days, but it needs to understand that most of the features now come built into the operating system. Samsung not only unnecessarily try to bend Android in its own way, it also bundles many features and applications which duplicate Google’s own services, thereby consuming storage space and processing resources. Duplicity of services does no good to the end consumer. It only leads to unnecessary strain on system resources and increased confusion among consumers.
Samsung’s mid-range and low-end devices seldom get bigger software updates. On the other hand, brands like Motorola (OTCMKTS:LNVGY), ASUSTEK (TPE:2357), and smartphone startup Xiaomi update their devices regularly, despite working on margins to offer real affordable smartphones. While these brands have promised Android 5.0 Lollipop for their complete product portfolio in all the emerging markets likes of India, Samsung has not sent out an official word even to its mid-range.
Samsung failed to understand that emerging markets have moved to a low-price high-spec high-volume business model
Apart from its device related issues, Samsung has failed to understand an important development in the emerging markets like India and China. Since the entry of Chinese brands, such as Xiaomi and Oppo, the market has moved in favour of low-priced devices with relatively high-spec devices. While Samsung tries to stuff as advanced components and software features as possible in its high-end devices, its offerings in the low-end and the mid-range price segments are one of the lowest equipped ones. Let along competing with devices from Xiaomi, Samsung smartphones can’t even compete with the ones from brands like Motorola and Xiaomi, or even devices from local smartphone vendors. Due to poor display of Samsung in entry-level price segment, Motorola has managed to break into the top five smartphone brands in India in Q3 2o14.
According to the latest numbers, Xiaomi has established itself as the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the world, thanks to its low-price high-spec high-volume business model. These numbers are only when they are present in limited markets around the world, unlike Samsung which is present throughout the world. One can only image the market share of Xiaomi once it launches itself in European, American, and African countries.
As per the CounterPoint Research’s report, Samsung recorded 0% growth in the Indian smartphone market, even though the market grew by a staggering 64 percent in Q3 2014. On top of its unimpressive smartphone lineup in the entry-level and mid-range price segment, Samsung’s portfolio of smartphones and tablets is so hazy and bloated, even the technology enthusiasts have hard time remembering the differences between them.
Samsung is trying to improve but not at the pace which it needs to
Samsung understands some of the problems and is trying to improve upon them, but not at a pace at which it needs to. Starting with the Galaxy Alpha, Samsung started improvising its design problems. The Galaxy Alpha was the first smartphone from Samsung to use a metal frame with chamfered edges, something similar to that of the Apple iPhone 5S. Its new design received praise from various technology experts and enthusiasts, after which Samsung took over the design in its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy Note 4.
It has announced new mid-range smartphones, the Galaxy A3 and the Galaxy A5, which are Samsung’s first smartphones with a full-metal design. Apparently, they are not without their flaws, according to a new report, they are experiencing signal strength issues. This problem is something which brands like Apple and HTC were stuck back in 2011, which clearly means that Samsung is not at the pace of improvement that it needs.
Today, Samsung has announced a strategic partnership with BlackBerry to bring the newly released BES12 end-to-end security solution to Galaxy devices. Apparently, Samsung is working on the upcoming Galaxy S6 (Project Zero), which will be announced at MWC 2015, from the ground up. According to reliable sources of SamMobile, it will be based on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and is expected to feature a 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED display, 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor, Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage, and a microSD card slot. It might be equipped with a 16-megapixel or a 20-megapixel camera with phase-detection autofocus, optical image stabilisation, and 4K video recording.
Samsung is working on the issues, but it needs to pace up if it wants to compete with fast-moving competitors. It needs to work a lot on the software speed, bloat-down, and provide faster software updates. A lot of things will be stabilised when Samsung releases better low-end and mid-range smartphones at slightly lower costs.
Only 12% of the Indian population has ever bought a commodity or availed of a service through an online transaction. That is tiny as compared to our neighbours- the Chinese. More than half of their huge population has had some online buying experience.
Now while that does sound depressing, the good news is that the Indian eCommerce industry which grew by 33% last year and saw goods and services worth $3.5 billion exchanging hands is poised for tremendous growth and is all set to touch new highs. Gartner predicts a 70% growth rate for the sector and expects $6 billion worth of business in 2015.
Flipkart co-founder and chief executive officer Sachin Bansal hopes Indian e-Commerce sales to be approximately $50-70 billion by 2020 on the back of a fast growing internet-connected population and improvement in related infrastructure like payment and delivery systems. However, a report from ASSOCHAM also estimates india eCommerce market worth $56 billion by 2023.
A truly epoch making period in the history of online retail in the country.
In the wake of huge interest generated by buyers in online shopping, eRetailers want to know what goes inside the mind of an average online buyer. What eggs him/her on to go ahead with a purchase and what acts as the biggest deterrent?
Since online retail constitutes only 1-3% of the total retail sales in India, a larger percentage of online buyers being young are a huge pointer to the fact that eretailers need to focus on this young-and-restless group to get the best returns from their sites.
The ecommerce market in India being primarily discount driven, most of the respondents also said that if the online price is no lesser than the market rate, they would prefer to buy it from a brick and mortar store.
The Most Happening, The Most Promising And The Most Ignored Segments
DTMI found out that though some segments like electronics, travel and tickets are ‘hot selling’, there are certain products where consumers are still wary of making online purchases- that is where they prefer to touch and feel the product before they finally make up their mind to buy or ignore it.
Few categories of products which are not popular among Indian online buyers are furniture, jewellery, international food items and groceries.
One of the fastest growing segments on the Indian eCommerce scene in the next two years will be online jewellery retail. It is expected to be an $8 billion industry over the next two years.
Even online grocery retail is expected to touch $10 billion by 2020.
Remarketing/ Retargeting Requires Rethinking
A friend of mine once cribbed how after clicking on a pair of earrings by an online jewellery site at Facebook she saw the same pair of earrings on each and every site she logged on to. New to remarketing / retargeting, she felt so ‘haunted’ by the picture of those earrings that she just wanted to get rid of them- I helped her do that by clearing her browser history.
Not before I started wondering how this supposedly one of the most sophisticated algorithms rolled out by Google is helping e-marketers? My doubts were reaffirmed when I came across these findings by DMTI.
Though digital marketers hail remarketing as a ‘revolutionary’ concept which has given a cutting edge to digital marketers’ efforts, a study conducted by the DMTI (Digital Marketing Training Institute) proves otherwise.
The DMTI questioned 1,235 Indian respondents who had some online shopping experience and came to some conclusions which are bound to startle online marketers.
The DMTI report mentions that the customers feel that they are “being followed”, “haunted”, “a breach of privacy” and see remarketing as “useless” acts of “desperation” on the part of sellers.
Just like my friend, 43% of the people who see the same ads over and over again on every website, blog or social platform they visit, find these acts obtrusive and haunting. They feel they are being tracked everywhere over the web space.
Obviously, they do NOT like it!
Not only that, an overwhelmingly large (57%) of the respondents came down heavily against brands that force pre-roll ads on YouTube, which they HAVE to watch.
Now what online sellers need to understand that not only do the buyers get bugged by their remarketing efforts and being force-fed into watching ads, a majority of them fall in the 18-25 age group. They UNDERSTAND remarketing, unlike their older counterparts. Worse still, they know how to block ads.
So instead of bombarding the consumers with ads, they need to keep the number of their ads across various social sites acceptable and tolerable. They need to think out-of-the-box and come up with lesser but more effective ads. A clear case of the need to go for quality rather than quantity.
Spending millions of dollars mindlessly will not help, since a majority of the buyers are young, smart and tech savvy. Sellers cannot hook them on to their sites by popping their ads up on their devices and by forcing their ads down surfers’ throats.
India once perceived by the west as a land of snake charmers has emerged as one of the biggest internet and mobile phone markets in the recent times. With about 111 million smartphone shipped in India and 243 million active internet users by the end of the second quarter of this year the country presents enormous opportunities for smartphone vendors. The numbers just scratch the surface of market share which is yet to be tapped in the country.
According to the latest report from Market Monitor service for Q3 2014 (Jul-Sep), Indian smartphone market saw a significant annual growth of 64% in Q3 2014 owing to huge sales from domestic and Chinese vendors. The numbers seem a bit paled in comparison to the year-over-year growth of 84% in Q2 2014. The dominance of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. (KRX:005930) over the Indian smartphone market continued with its market share standing at 25%. Closely following on its heels were Micromax and Karbonn, both capturing 20% and 10% smartphone market share respectively. In the combined segment of smartphones and feature phones it was a neck to neck battle between Samsung and Micromax. Motorola which emerged as one of the top five brands in Q2 2014 owing to Moto G and Moto E which sold like hot cakes as the sale went live on Flipkart, retained its number four spot. But the report also adds that there will be stiff competition among rivals Karbonn, Sony, Lava-Xolo and Xiaomi and Motorola-Lenovo for outnumbering each other.
As device manufacturers look beyond the urban areas and expand to semi-urban and rural areas there is a scope for exponential growth. This is the reason homegrown players like Micromax, Spice, Lava and Chinese OEM’s like Xiaomi have jumped into the bandwagon and have flooded the market with budget smartphones starting as low as 6,000 INR (US$100). Since the starting of Q1 2014, lot of dramatic changes have been occurring in the country which has emerged as the second largest mobile phone and third largest smartphone market globally.
The pricing strategy adopted by Chinese players like Xiaomi, Huawei Motorola-Lenovo and homegrown bevy of manufacturers like Micromax, Lava, Karbonn and Xolo has significantly lowered the Average Selling Price (ASP) of smartphones. The entry level smartphones are available to the consumer for as low as 6,000 INR (US$100). For the price sensitive Indian audience which expects a value for money device is easy to lure with the devices put on offering by the OEM’s. The flattering designs and impeccable features which are bundled and presented at such low prices by these players is leading to huge sales. The big players like Samsung have realized the potential of this market segment and are coming up with low budget smartphones such as Galaxy Star. In the last quarter, Samsung led the sales of smartphone ranging 6,000-8,000 INR (which contributed to 30% of total sales) but close on its heels were Micromax, Lava, Xiaomi and Motorola.
Motorola, Sony, Lava make it to the big Million Smartphone Club
Many of the OEM’s managed to achieve significant milestones in this quarter describing their success story in the ever important Indian market. At par with the likes of Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn these brands reported shipments of more than million smartphones in a single quarter.
The Moto X, Moto G and Moto E line of products rolled out by Motorola has received a warm welcome by the audience and the company shipped more than a million smartphones for the first time in India in a single quarter Q3 2014.
Sony crosses the 1 Million mark unit shipments for its Xperia range smartphones in India for the first time in a single quarter (3Q 2014). The flagship Xperia range includes devices Xperia C, Xperia M dual and the Xperia Ultra T2.
Lava’s Iris X1 and X5 saw strong momentum during the quarter owing to which the brand joined the million smartphone club shipping 1 Million units for the first time in India in a single quarter. It is important note that the figure doesn’t include sales of Xolo smartphones.
The report predicts Xiaomi, Xolo, Gionee and Intex might join the ivy league of smartphones to ship million smartphones per quarter in the upcoming quarter.
Battle to intensify in the coming quarters:
After Xiaomi’s overwhelming debut in the third quarter of 2013 with its Mi3 model priced at $230, the chinese smartphone startup has plans to give the big guns like Samsung a run for their money. Its latest device in offering is Redmi 1S is priced at INR 6,000 (US$100) and packs in features like 4.7”HD display and 1.6 GHZ 4x processor. At this point, it would be interesting to read our earlier analysis that explains How and Why Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S could be the biggest threat to smartphone vendors in India. The only competitor for Redmi 1S can be the recently launched Huawei’s Holy 6, priced at INR 6,700 (US$115).
With Android One, Google has taken a step further and has intensified the competition among low budget smartphone vendors. In collaboration with Micromax, Karbonn and Spice, Google launched the first ever Android One devices in India. Though the initial acceptance has not been as high as anticipated but in due course of time it might springboard with new partners and strategic pricing. It will also be seen facing a tough time from the key Chinese players like Xiaomi or Huawei.
Whoever wins the battle, the ultimate winner will be the customers as the OEM’s strive to make better technology more affordable.
Social networking sites today are touching our lives and affecting the way we think, the way we interact and even the decisions we make. A recent survey conducted by Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) has confirmed that though the biggest of all social sites, Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) plays the most important role in influencing online shoppers behaviour, the importance of these sites is overstated. VWO conducted this online survey on 1,000 American respondents falling in the 18-55 age group, in an attempt to understand how online shoppers see social sharing and how it influences their decision-making process.
A lot more goes into shaping the final decisions and choices made by online buyers in America than what they see over networking sites, they realized.
When asked to name the network which keeps them informed about the best deals and offers for shopping online, more than half of them said it was Facebook. An overwhelming majority of the respondents said they were not likely to share the goods and/or services purchased by the over their networking sites. And though one out of every four people is likely to check out a product if it is mentioned by a friend on their social networks, low number of social shares for a product does not dissuade them from buying it online!
Social is an e-Commerce Asset, Sometimes!
The survey points out that while a presence along social networks does pay and could mean more business opportunities for online retailers, it does NOT always happen.
A little more than half of the respondents (53%) in the 18-34 age group named Facebook as THEnetwork which kept them informed about the best online deals and products.
Facebook continues to be the leading social influencing factor for those buying online. Sellers use retargeting and paid campaigns to popularize their products and to reach out to a greater buyer base.
With Facebook emerging as the clear leader, readers were asked to name their second favourite site. While the men tended to prefer the micro-blogging site Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), women were more biased towards the pinning site Pinterest. I request the male readers to stop chuckling if they think it is because women love to go much beyond 140 characters while expressing themselves! It is because visual content was found to be more popular with female buyers.
VWO also found out that almost three out of four of their respondents who had shopped online did not share their purchases on Facebook. 17% of them said that they were indifferent to sharing on social sites whereas 9% of them said that they were likely to share information about their online purchases or their experiences with the same on Facebook.
A large percentage of online buyers (42%) were not likely to check out a product shared by their friends on networking sites. Not only that, 25% of the respondents said they were indifferent to such shares on social sites.
Respondents were also asked if the reviews left behind by their friends on networking sites were likely to influence their decisions to buy or reject their online purchases to which four out of every five (or, 80%) of them ruled out that possibility. Only 7% said they might be influenced to some extent.
What Does This Imply?
The findings of this survey do not quite match with an earlier survey on 1,000 consumers carried out by Sociable Labs, a provider of social commerce solutions. Sociable Labs had concluded that 57% of online buyers were more likely to buy from sites from which their sites have purchased before.
“With high-velocity ‘frictionless sharing,’ social sharing can become one of the top drivers of both for almost any online retailer,” said Darby Williams, Marketing Vice President at Sociable Labs.
Social sites do influence buyer behavior but not to the extent it was earlier thought.
Online shopping behavior has evolved over time, and people are now more likely to look for better deals – READ: lower prices – and in some cases, better customer service than getting carried away by reviews left behind by acquaintances across social sites.
“That recognition that you are not getting the whole story on social from tracking social to e-commerce conversions is a huge finding. If you are estimating the ROI on social by looking at social to web, you are missing roughly half your social-inspired purchasing,” says Alexandra Samuel, Vice-President of Social Media at Vision Critical.
Online sellers who want results for every penny spent by them on advertising and marketing their site or product(s) want to know whether it was tweeting about the products, the pins for them or the numerous Likes across Facebook which actually converted into sales for them. Did the ultimate buyers decide to buy or reject a product on the basis of the feedback they got from their friends across social arena? And if yes, HOW much of that influence did that sharing have on their final decision?
It is difficult if not impossible for sellers to extract exact information about the effect, if any, of social sharing on the consumers’ buying decisions even with better and more highly evolved research tools.
“If you ask people how many cars they’ve pinned or tweeted before they bought their car, they would have an idea. But the instances vary so much by product category. I mean, if you asked me how many pairs of boots I’ve pinned in the past year, not only would I be ashamed to tell you the number, but I don’t really know,” Samuel went on to say.
Now, those insights into the online buyers’ minds might just help sellers start thinking afresh about their selling marketing strategy. Facebook can and does affect buyer decisions more than other networking sites – it is partly because of its humongous reach of 1.35 billion users and due to the fact that sellers can run paid campaigns across on that platform, which is capable of generating higher ROI than other online marketing channels many times.
For now, sellers need to understand that social can undoubtedly be an asset, but not all the time!!!
In the continuation of the trend as seen over the last two quarters of 2014, the Q3 2014 also witnessed an 11.5% year-over-year rise worldwide in the tablet industry. The global tablet shipments totaled at 53.8 million units in Q3, 2014 as per report from the Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker by IDC. The figure hovers close to the Q1 2014 shipment of 50.4 million units. The tablet shipments also saw a quarter-over-quarter growth of 11.2%. The positive growth of the tablet industry is being considered as a sign of revival when compared to the 1.5% quarter over quarter decline in tablet shipments in Q2 2014 when the number of units shipped reached to 49.3 million.
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) saw an annual decline of 12.8% in shipment of its iPad product line but still managed to stay at the top position with a market share of 22.3%. The total iPad units shipped in the third quarter of the 2014 were 12.3 million. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930) fared a close second with a market share of 18.3% selling a total of 9.9 million tablet devices in Q3 2014. Though the South Korean business conglomerate witnessed a growth of 5.6%, the numbers are nowhere close to its performance in Q1 of the year when it had a market share of 22.3%, it has gained some grounds in comparison to the Q2 market share of 17.2%. Though Apple is maintaining a steady revenue with its sales but its receding market share is alarming. Samsung is gaining in slowly and gradually and it might possibly overcome the Cupertino tech giant in the coming quarters.
But Apple seems unfazed by its declining market share as the IDC Senior research Analyst, Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, Jitesh Ubrani comments.
“Although the low-cost vendors are moving a lot of volume, the top vendors, like Apple, continue to rake in the dollars,” said Jitesh Ubrani, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker. “A sub-$100 tablet simply isn’t sustainable—Apple knows this—and it’s likely the reason they aren’t concerned with market share erosion.”
RCA – one of the America’s leading home entertainment product manufacturer – was a surprise entry in the top 5. The company shipped 2.6 million units of tablet in the US alone. How it fares in the future will be interesting to watch.
The ASUSTEK Computer Inc. (TPE:2357) and Lenovo Group Ltd. (ADR) (OTCMKTS:LNVGY) seem to be at a tug of war. Asus regained its third position displacing Lenovo to the 4th place. The exchange of positions between the two rivals comes as Lenovo shipped 3 million tablet units in Q3 2014 with a year-over-year growth of 30.6%, whereas Asus shipped 3.5 million units in the quarter facing an annual decline of 0.9%. The respective market share for Asus and Lenovo in the quarter remained 6.5% and 5.7%. The market shares of other players in various locations accumulated to 41.8% of total tablets shipped in Q3 2014 as compared to 37.4% in Q3 2013. The year-over-year growth in units shipped stands at 24.4% for the other players.
US prevailed as the biggest catch for tablet industry:
Though at the end of the third quarter Asia Pacific was projected as one of the largest markets for the tablet industry but the results clearly show US as the biggest market with the maximum chunk of growth occurring in the region. Compared to the world’s annual growth in tablet shipment of 11.5% the US bespoke of a year-over-year growth of 18.5%. The surprise entry of RCA into the top 5 vendors of tablets definitely had an impact on the US market and its ranking. The back-to-school program – an initiative of the Government of USA – coupled with the thanks giving season saw a surge in tablet sales in the country. The strategy adopted by Verizon, of selling connected tablets which aim at decreasing user dependency on Wi-Fi, led to accelerated sales. The tactic will much likely be adopted by other carriers not only in US, but globally. Asus and Lenovo might come up with connected laptops in the APAC region preferably China where the carrier model is more prevalent.
What is the future of Tablet Industry?
With many of the smartphone giants like Samsung killing their small screen (7-8 inches) tablets as their demand is dwindling with the increasing popularity of the phablet segment of smartphones and many other manufacturers following suit, the devices might become obsolete in the developed economies. But with many local players coming into the picture and carriers all around the world selling white label tablets we might see some interesting changes in the market worldwide.
Anything and everything that this giant networking site does makes news!
And why not- when each of its changes, policies and announcements affects 1.35 billion people or almost a fifth of the world’s population, it is bound to hit headlines for whatever it does. Yes, I am talking about Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB).
It is the Facebook messenger app which has been among the headlines since yesterday after the Google Play Store showed 500 million downloads on Android for it within a short span of three months.
“This is an exciting milestone but with a half billion people relying on Messenger to communicate and connect, it is also a reminder that there is so much left for us to do,” Peter Martinazzi, Director of Product Management at Facebook, wrote in a blog post.
That means a little less than half of Facebook users have adopted the app in spite of their initial reluctance to do so. And though that is a staggeringly huge number, David Marcus, Head of Facebook Messenger, says that his team is “going for a billion” users. As of July 2014, no app has been downloaded a billion times over the Android Play Store.
When Facebook had announced its decision to split its messaging service in April, the users were dismayed and outraged. The download became mandatory for users in Europe in the month of April and for everyone else across the globe by the month of August. The networking giant began forcing their users to download the messenger app to be able to chat, share videos and make free calls with their Facebook friends using the network.
As the users tried sending personal messages to contacts on their lists using the messenger app, they were told that the messages have been migrated to the Messenger app which they would be required to download to chat to friends over their phones.
The app came under flak from users and critics alike over both- the forced download and the privacy concerns. While some stopped using Facebook chat over their handheld devices altogether, others reluctantly complied in spite of the concerns. Interestingly, in a recent Q&A session Mark Zuckerberg explained why Facebook forced users to download a separate messaging app.
The huge whiplash it got from its wide user base was understandable- users usually complain when big changes are made to a popular platform. But in this case the site owners were forced to offer an explanation for its move.
Analyst Brian Blau, research director of Consumer Technology and Markets at Gartner had said: “As with most changes that Facebook makes, users are typically not happy in the beginning and they don’t understand the motivations as to why the changes are being made. And, as with most changes we see from Facebook users will accept the change and just move on. This issue probably won’t impact Facebook over the long term.”
The long list of permissions it asks for included but are not limited to:
Find accounts on the device.
Read your own contact card.
Read your contacts.
Your approximate and precise location.
Edit, receive and read your text messages.
Directly call phone numbers.
Read call log.
Test access to protected storage.
Modify or delete the contents of your USB storage.
Take pictures and videos.
Record audio.
View Wi-Fi connections.
Read phone status and identity.
Receive data from internet.
Download files without notification.
Run at startup.
Prevent device from sleeping.
View network connections.
Install shortcuts.
Change your audio settings.
Read Google service configuration.
Draw over other apps.
Full network access.
Read sync settings.
Control vibration.
Some who had installed the app went on to say that the app uses your camera to take pictures or record phone conversations of users. Facebook had to clarify that the app does not turn on the camera of microphone when the user is not using the app actively, to put malicious rumours about it to rest.
There were also rumours about the app reading users’ call log and sharing this data. The paranoid ones went on to say that the app might send out SMS messages without confirmation incurring unexpected charges.
“Almost all apps need certain permissions to run on Android, and we use these permissions to run features in the app. Keep in mind that Android controls the way the permissions are named, and the way they’re named doesn’t necessarily reflect the way the Messenger app and other apps use them,” the site had said.
Though those clarifications did not help alleviate safety concerns, users continued to download the app. Some went ahead because they did not quite understand what granting all those permissions meant. The others who did know the possible ramifications of such a broad range of permissions bit the bullet because they simply could not stay off the messenger app on their phones.
The fact that the app got only a one star rating on iOS for some time came as no surprise. Though it went on to become the most popular free app on the iOS within a short span of time, its popularity did not stop the detractors from posting negative reviews even after hitting the top spot. Android users aren’t too happy either- the app has only 3.9 stars on the Play Store after 500 million downloads.
“In order to best serve people, you need to build multiple standalone different apps. So we’re seeing that with Facebook and Messenger and the work that we did to kind of split out Messenger from the Facebook app to give a dedicated experience or an app that we think is a better experience,” said Zuckerberg recently in an interview.
He went on to add that though asking existing users to download a separate messaging app was, “a short-term, painful thing,” the site owners are continuously working to make messaging more fun and useful for users so as “ to hook the majority of people using SMS.”
The news that it has been downloaded by 500 million times by Android users alone over the last three months means that Zuckerberg owned network now has four social products with more than a million users: Facebook (1.35 billion users), WhatsApp (600 million users), Facebook Messenger (500 million users) and Instagram (200 million users). However, it would be interesting to figure out how many unique users are actually under Mark Zuckerberg’s radar.
With 10 billion messages being exchanged over various apps every day, it is obvious that someone who owns four HUGE platforms like the ones mentioned above will decide how people interact with each other on social platforms.
Facebook had already started working on its standalone messenger app way back in 2011, realizing that it could be the key to the company’s fortunes in the future. Not the one to rest on its laurels or to go complacent, the site owners update the app every two weeks- introducing new stickers to make messaging more fun for users and to improve the speed and reliability of the site. That goes to prove how much importance the site attaches to its messaging app and how vital they know it is for them to maintain their supremacy on this front to stay ahead of rivals in the social sphere.
The news of getting 500 million downloads over the Play Store has undoubtedly placed the app under spotlight once again, barely three months after it was almost written off. The move to hire David Marcus, an experienced strategist from PayPal, to take charge of the messaging app has not gone unnoticed by experts either. With Marcus at the helm of affairs, we will not be surprised if the networking site goes on to allow users to perform financial transactions as well.
Zuckerberg obviously has huge expectations from his messenger app in the future and while we might not be aware of it, the mastermind has probably chalked out a plan to milk its four best cash cows by shaping the future of messaging and dominating the scene.
The troubles don’t seem to end for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS 8. The OS version had a flurry of bugs, which forced Apple to come out with an updated iOS 8.0.1. within a week of its release. After the first week of the launch iOS 8 managed to achieve the adoption rate of only 36% as compared to 58% adoption rate for iOS 7 in the same duration since its launch. Despite a slow start, the smashing sales of recently launched iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have boosted the iOS 8 adoption rate to 52%. But concerns still lurks as the secure ecosystem of Apple is being repeatedly attacked by malwares. Recent news of WireLurker condemning the iOS and Mac devices in the Chinese region raised a lot of questions over the security. Now a similar breach being reported in iOS devices by the FireEye mobile security researchers, which is posing a serious threat for the Apple AppStore users.
What is Masque Attack?
The malware has been named “Masque Attack” as it is replacing the legit and verified apps with a duplicate app. The app, infected with the malware, downloaded from enterprise or ad-hoc provisioning is capable of replacing the original app which has the same bundle identifiers (a unique string used by the system for identifying an app. It lets the OS identify the updates to the app) with the duplicate one. The app generally has a fancy name intended to lure users into downloading it. But the malware seems to be ineffective for iOS pre-installed apps like Mobile Safari, iTunes, iWork etc. The vulnerability identified for iOS 7 and iOS 8 versions exists because Apple has no provision for matching certificates for apps having same bundle identifiers. Similar to the Wire Lurker, Masque Attack can affect devices both jailbroken and otherwise and a device can be infected through a USB or wireless networks.
The level of threat posed by Masque Attack is quite higher than the Wire Lurker, because Masque can be used to steal sensitive information like banking credentials or important emails, by replacing banking or email apps on a device. On installation, the malware can even access the local data of the original app like cached emails log in tokens. These can be used to directly log into the user’s account.
The malware can be used in various ways to incriminate naïve users. The malware can utilize a copied UI of the original app. This can be used to steal user’s identity or valuable credentials used for internet banking. Attackers can access this information sitting at a remote server. Masque Attacks can be used to outflank the app sandbox which is used as a barrier against malicious software.
The MDM or Mobile device Manager in Apple devices fails to identify the imposter as currently there is no such API to obtain the certification for each app. Also, the apps provisioned under the enterprise profiles do not come under the purview of Apple’s review process, mentions the reports. FireEye also conducted an experiment to demonstrate the working of the malware, with an app having a bundle identifier similar to the Gmail app on the phone. In the course of the experiment, Masque Attack replaced the original Gmail app on the device.
Where does Masque Attack hits Apple the most:
When Google Android apps were reportedly hit by malware, much hue and cry was raised by Apple stating free apps were the main reason of the attacks and that Android was gullible to such threats. But in the light of recent incidents the once invincible fort of security which guarded the Apple devices seems to have become impregnable. Apps constitute a major chunk of revenue for Apple and it could be a fatal blow to their economy if the malwares are not checked from flooding the apps. The malware is reportedly affecting the iOS version 8.1.1. which is slated for public release in the near future.
FireEye researchers suggest improving the existing standard of protection to provide powerful interfaces which can prevent attacks from Masque Attack on enterprise users. Some reports claim that such attacks are being reported only by those iPhone and iPad users, who have disabled iOS security intentionally or unintentionally. These malware attacks might just serve as the building blocks of further advanced attacks and Apple should address it as swiftly as possible.
The latest report on “smartphone OS sales share Q3 2014” by Kantar Worldpanel demonstrate Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) owned Android’s dominance across all major European markets. Android is leading the European smartphone OS market with a whopping 73.9% share. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS, or call it iPhone, retains the second-highest share with 15.4%, while Windows trails behind with 9.2% of the market. While Android successfully strengthen its presence in every country covered in the report, including the US, China, and Australia, it grew in the US – Apple’s home country – at the cost of iOS. Windows and other operating systems kept losing their markets to Android and iOS in the third quarter of the year also.
Apple iOS Gains Momentum Post launch of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus
As predicted by industry pundits, Apple’s sales and revenue have been rejuvenated after the launch of the much-anticipated devices, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The devices seem to have provided the much-needed footing to prevent the subsequent losses iOS has been facing in market share for the last two quarters. Apple iOS has seen a year-on-year rise of 1.7% in its sales in the UK, after the sale of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus commenced on September 19th. This brings the total tally of iOS market share in the UK to 31%. According to the report, about 87% of the initial sales accounted for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, were attributed to existing iPhone owners. This suggests the significant brand loyalty, the company claims among its customers. Backing the claims are figures which record a year over year growth of one percent point in the brand loyalty of Apple from 79% to 80%.
“This is not surprising as consumers who already own Apple products tend to remain loyal and are keen to get their hands on new models. Drawing in customers who are switching from competitor brands is more likely to happen once offers and promotions on the new iPhones start to kick-in.” says Dominic Sunnebo, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
With about 6% of the US smartphone population looking forward to upgrading their phones, 52% of the crowd has reported Apple as their preferred choice. Even among the 4% of feature phone owners in the country upgrading to a smartphone for the first time, 19% of them are likely to choose Apple.
Though a decline of three percentage point from 36% to 33% has been recorded for Apple in the US, between the third quarter of 2013 and 2014, the demand for iPhone 6 has been quite high. Apple has also witnessed a rise in market share and devices sold post the launch of its new handsets in EU5 countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom), China, and Australia. Among the EU5 nations the year-on-year percentage point rise in smartphone OS share post device launch, for September 2014 from September 2013, has been significant for the UK (1.7), Spain (1.5) and Germany (1.1). In these nations the iPhone 6 has outnumbered the iPhone 6 Plus by five is to one ratio. Also, the cumulative percent point rise of iOS in the EU5 nations in the tracked duration is 1.5 which is marginally ahead of Android’s 1.4 percent point.
Interestingly in Japan, which is another locus of demand for Apple devices, the trend of sales being a bit slack prior to the release of the new iPhone continued as the country saw a decrease of 15.9 percentage point (year-over-year) in the smartphone OS share by the end of the third quarter. People’s reaction to the new devices will be much clearer in the next quarter as data for an entire month of sales comes in.
Recent trends suggest smartphone gifting is quite popular in the upcoming holiday season as it represented 23% of overall sales in Q3 2014. iPhone models have been in the top two smartphones people considered for gifting for every quarter in 2013 with over 45% of Apple sales in the last quarter ending September was for gifting. The increasing preference of the Chinese audience for bigger screen phones is a good indicator for the iPhone 6 Plus which comes with a screen size of 5.5 inches. About 16% of the smartphones sold in China in the last quarter comprised of a 5.5 inch screen devices. The devices slated for release during the Chinese New Year could prove to be a Midas touch for the mobile industry giant as all the other competitors including Android is keeping a close watch over the region.
Smartphone OS Sales Share Q3 2014: Google Android remains the ultimate winner
Android maintains its death grip over the smartphone OS market in the US with a share as huge as 62%. The obvious reason for such a high reach of Android OS in the number of OEMs manufacturing Android-based phones. So for Android more than the competition with other OS, what is more interesting is the change in semantics in its OEMs. The share of big players like Samsung and HTC seemed to be declining whereas Motorola and Lenovo saw a rise of 7% and 11% in their share over the Android ecosystem in the Q3 of 2014, ending in September. The decline in the market share may be attributed to the introduction of low-priced devices like MOTO G and MOTO E (by Motorola) and the Xiaomi Redmi 1S and Redmi Note (by Xiaomi) which were targeted at the emerging markets. With so many players in the Android arena, the competition has become intense and the pricing of devices has become very crucial for the success of any device launched.
With saturation in the US smartphone market, Google’s share seems to be on the rise (4.5 percentage point increase) as it is targeting the user base which has still not upgraded to a smartphone with its lucrative low priced high on quality devices. In the EU5 market also Android powered nearly 73.9% of the total smartphones sold in the region according to the Kantar report.
Time for Microsoft to re-think its strategy for Windows OS
Unlike Apple iOS, the Windows OS has many OEMs developing handsets with their OS but still, it is unable to create a sizable impact on the OS economy. Most of its share in the developed market is being gnawed away by Apple and in the emerging markets, it is getting thwarted by Android. The share of Windows OS in the EU5 region has dropped by 0.3 percentage points. As an exception, Italy witnessed a rise of 1.5 percentage point year-on-year rise, where Microsoft’s Windows OS claims a share of 15.2%. It is a wake-up call for Microsoft as they need to focus on their game and come up with a new strategy if they are willing to stay in the race and not suffer the fate same as Blackberry. The future of the recently launched Windows 10 OS will be decided when devices powered with the OS hit the market.
If you love videos, you’ll probably love Mark Zuckerberg for having said that. If you don’t, you will probably be scratching your head (like me) wondering what he has in mind.
Wondering what he said?
“In five years, most of [Facebook] will be video,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last Thursday during the company’s first community town hall, in which he answered questions put up by his fans and detractors.
If a picture says a thousand words, a one-minute video is worth 1.8 million, say Forrester’s researchers! It is one of the most engaging ways to tell a story, as mentioned here earlier.
We could not agree more with Forrester’s researchers regarding the impact videos can have. But the question is:
Is that what we want our favourite networking site to look like- mostly video?
More importantly, are we ready to handle a predominantly video site?
Let’s figure out not by just mixing few of the great statement and individual’s opinion, it would be more valuable if you could do the justice to the questions by churning few statistics, intelligence backed by a thoughtful analysis.
Are the users ready for a video-based social site?
What makes a networking site popular?
USERS!
Who could know it better than this giant site with a user base of 1.35 billion people across the globe? No site can afford to ignore users’ interests, choices and preferences if it wants to survive.
Since Zuckerberg has only hinted at what Facebook MIGHT be like, without elaborating on it, we can only imagine certain possibilities:
Will Facebook make it mandatory for users to share ONLY videos? No status updates and no picture sharing at all?
LaughingSquid had, in an infographic, pointed out that 41,000 statuses are posted every 60 seconds on this networking site last year. Wired.com had also pointed out that individual users upload 300 million photos (i.e. more than 500TB of data) to the site every day last year. Photo traffic of this hugely popular site was put at more than 300,000 images served per second in 2008 by Facebook itself!
Video content, on the other hand, is not as popular with the users of this site. Though it can and does get shared and viewed, would YOU login to your Facebook account while searching for an online video?
I would rather try YouTube.
If Facebook does make it mandatory for users to post ONLY videos to their site, what would it imply?
It will become more cumbersome to share content over this site. Creating and sharing a video, undoubtedly, involves more effort than updating Facebook status or sharing a picture over it.
The users of the site will have to be smart and tech savvy to be able to first shoot a video and then upload it to the site.
Users will also need high-resolution phones or cameras with video recording facility to be able to do so. As of Q3 2014, Facebook has 296 million mobile-only monthly active users. Given that a large percentage of people don’t access the site from a mobile device which has video recording capability, Facebook’s user base will suffer a huge setback. Considering the growth of Facebook mobile userbase in last few quarters, the percentage of MAUs could surpass Desktop users in next five years, but not many might be willing to share personal videos over a social site as it demands more efforts, time and, off course, data traffic.
Do we have the infrastructure to handle a video based site?
Out of the total population of 7.2 billion on our planet, only 40% have access to the internet today.
The ones who do have access to the internet do not always get a good speed which is essential for watching a video online. Low speed of internet and buffering due to the same dissuades any user from watching videos over the internet, whether or not he uses Facebook.
The global average connection speed went up by 21% during Q3 2014 and touched 4.6 Mbps with South Korea continuing to be on the top of the table with the highest connection speed as reported by Akamai.
Though more and more people are getting connected to the internet with every passing day and there has been a dramatic increase in the number of smartphone users (vital for the growth of this site because a large number of them access it only through their mobile devices), it would be safe to assume that the percentage and the number of internet users will add rapidly over the next five years. With the cost of internet also going down due to mobile data carriers cutting down on their tariff in a bid to capture the ever expanding markets, that internet penetration will also improve. But merely providing internet might not be enough, unless the users get it at a good speed which makes watching online videos enjoyable. Mark’s Internet.Org initiative to bring next 5 billion people on Internet could also pave the way for Facebook hitting the mark of 2 billion in next years.
How many of these internet users will have access to smartphones which can shoot cameras and upload them to the site is debatable!
Though a greater chunk (nearly 50%) of Facebook’s profits comes from its so-called ‘home markets’- USA and Canada together with Europe, we cannot afford to ignore that the site is registering a faster growth rate from countries in Asia and Africa. These countries will, obviously, be vital for Facebook profitability in five years’ time. Will their internet speed be fast enough to allow for continuous streaming of video content?
In Q2, 2014, the average internet speed in India, Brazil, Indonesia and Phillippines – the major countries Facebook’s userbase growth is coming from – had touched to 2Mbps, 2.9 Mbps, 2.5 Mbps and 2.5 Mbps, respectively. In the last one year, the average speed in these four emerging countries has only been doubled but is still much slower than those countries where the consumption of mobile internet and mobile video is commendable.
Will a predominantly/completely video based Facebook be able to sustain its profitability?
Facebook has, over the years, been trying its best to make it easier for users to share video content on to their site. Users, for example, are not required to upload a video to YouTube anymore. Plus the videos start playing automatically as a user scrolls down the page- a feature which has been a huge hit with advertisers and marketers. That has them all flocking to this networking giant for getting more views.
Though this has certainly affected the popularity of Google owned online video sharing site, YouTube, the proposition of a video based Facebook does not quite sound too appealing to its users.
We love Facebook for the way it is- we can share our feelings, our moods, spit venom on friends and foes alike if we wish to, mollycoddle loved ones on their special days and compliment them for their achievements. We love to brag and flaunt here. I’m not sure of that can go on with a video based site.
The astute businessman that Zuckerberg is (being the youngest of all the powerful people on Forbes’ list at the age of 30 is no mean achievement after all), he is known to come up with brilliant ideas which ultimately deliver. Users had pointed out to the slowing down of the site due to many pictures being shared thereon in the same meeting where Zuckerberg had made these remarks, to which he had said that the data centers have been equipped to deal with the overload, and that the “real challenge is improving the infrastructure to allow for more rich media like video in people’s feeds.”
If he is suggesting a video based site, he might have something up his sleeve which we, lesser mortals, cannot see at the moment. Till the time he pulls out the rabbit from his hat and tells us how he plans to sustain the site’s popularity and profitability from a video based site, we can only shoot in the dark.
Really, it’s quite difficult to find a decisive vote on the subject, let’s us know what do you think about Mark Zuckerberg’s statement on Facebook becoming nearly video in next five year by vote or by commenting below.
Managing to defend its throne as the world’s best global brand, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) gave the other contenders namely International Business Machine Corp (NASDAQ:IBM), Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) a run for their money. Despite tremendous increase in their brand valuation, none of the OEMs could match up to the reigning mogul. Over the years, Apple has become a brand people recognize with and it has become synonymous with sophistication and security.
Recent studies by comScore reflect the stronghold of Apple in US compared to other OEMs and the trend continues as the latest figures on Top Smartphone OEMs in US Q3 2014 and Top Smartphone Platforms in US Q3 2014 bring not much change. Apple ranked at the top in the smartphone manufacturers. Google Android clinched the title against iOS as the most prevalent platforms used in smartphones in US, reported comScore. And Facebook maintained its number one spot amongst the most popular apps according to the report.
Apple and Samsung battling head to head, others still grapple to retain foothold:
Compared to the previous quarter ending in the month of June when the last report was published by comScore, the smartphone penetration has gone up by 1% in the successive quarter ending in September. This brings the smartphone adoption tally to a total of 72% in the US. And Apple occupies a lion share of 41.7% as the top smartphone manufacturer in Q3 2014. Among the other OEMs, only Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930) managed to nail a significant share of the market. LG Electronics Inc. (KRX:066570) witnessed a gain of 0.5 percentage points in the concerned duration, which seems in tune with its revived performance in the global market. The Korean electronics giant shipped a record of 16.8 million smartphones in Q3 2014 registering a 39% year-on-year growth. Motorola and HTC seemed to be struggling in retaining their grip as both the OEMs suffered losses of 0.5 and 0.4 percentage points respectively.
Apple and Samsung to be taking each other by the horns, as the former lost a share of 0.4 percent point to the later, probably owing to the success of their flagship device Galaxy S5. But more startling figures might come into view when the sales figures for iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 are accounted in the months to come.
Android once again shines through in the smartphone platform race:
Android remains the unbeaten champion among the smartphone platforms with a share of 52.1%. Though the combined surge of Microsoft (0.2% point rise, net market share standing at 3.6%) and Android market seems to be nibbling at Apple, the magnanimity of Apple in US can’t be denied as iOS follows Android close on heels with a market fragment of 41.7%. Blackberry continues to take the downfall as it suffers a decrease of 0.1 percent point in its market share, bringing the overall tally for the company at 2.3%. The seemingly obsolete Symbian OS witnessed a surge of 0.1 percent point.
Once again, it’s Apple and Samsung fighting for their pride on the US soil. But the picture might change drastically as both the companies have tightened the belts and geared up to the floor that audiences with world class devices. With iPhone 6 Plus while Apple aims to attract the large screen lovers, Samsung has come up with Galaxy Note 4 to steal the limelight. Both the giants have packed performance under the hood and how well the devices fare against each other is still to be seen.
Facebook retains top spot Google Plus totters down:
The mobile app zone also seems to be dominated by Facebook yet again in the US, though its market share reduced by 0.4 percent points from the previous quarter, occupying 72% of the total app audience. Google apps turn out to be most popular among the various audiences with as many as 6 Google apps featuring among the top 15 apps. But all the apps have taken a downfall in the audience reach. Comparing the previous figures with latest ones one can get a clear picture.
Though the rankings essentially remain the same, except for Google + which tumbled down to 15th position from 13th, but the audience reach seems to be dwindling for YouTube (51.5% from 54.95), Google Play (51.1% from 51.2%), Google Maps (44.1% from 46.2%)and Gmail(42.0% to 40.4%). Only for Google Search an increase in popularity has been accounted which surged from 47.2% to 47.3% in the concerned duration.
Just last week, we had learnt that mobile messaging app leader WhatsApp achieved the milestone of 70 million active users in India – a country that has a little over than 250 million mobile internet users and has emerged as the most promising market for mobile and internet ventures. While many global giants, including WeChat and Line are keeping a close eye on their userbase growth in the country, homegrown Hike messaging app is trying to capture the largest chunk of the local mobile messaging market, after crossing over 35 million active users mark recently.
Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO – Hike Messaging app, feels that India mobile messaging market is at a very nascent stage and as more than billion people in India are yet to come on the Internet, the industry poses as a big opportunity vis-a-vis challenge.
Quite recently, we managed to get a time on Kevin’s calendar for an exclusive video interview and asked few tough questions about Hike’s growth, challenges, competition and his take on the growth of mobile messaging in India. While the complete video interview is embedded, here are few excerpts of the interview:
Kavin: The number of unique people using internet recurring basis and even lower that. And for our best case, there are less than 100 million unique mobile internet user in the country. A lot of whom are still experimenting with internet. So, it’s definitely a challenge, but market is going very fast. Also, we are growing with the market. In India, it is very early, and I think our first idea is how to cover first 100 million people, and then go from there. So that‘s the path we are on right now.
Dazeinfo: That’s interesting, I recently read on your interview which said your goal is to reach 100 million users pretty soon in next 2 year if I am not mistaken.
Kavin: yes, I think within 18 months.
Dazeinfo: Considering that WhatsApp, which is your best competitor right now, already has 50 million users in India, and that projection says there are going to be only about 150 million people using messaging platform. How do you think that achieving that target would be much easy?
Kavin: so we see messaging something that could do much more than text and photos. We believe that messaging could be the highway to the internet in a mobile-first country. We must realize there are billion people who would come on the internet for the first time in their life. Demand for content is a huge but there is a fundamental lack of understanding what the internet means, and we believe messaging will help to solve that. So that’s how audience and we want to go beyond sending messages and build that gateway to highway to the internet for most people from our country. And I think broadly speaking, let’s say 5 to 10 years from now, a lot of Indian will come online and the question is can hike build enough innovative features that solve the problem in the market for different part of population. We have already seen diversity in the application. We have people that do some stuff in south that is completely opposite what people will be doing in the north, and that’s very interesting. So, tackling those challenges will help us to get 100 million mark within 18 months.
Dazeinfo:Would you give a brief on what is that difference you have seen in between utility of the north versus south, as I think you are talking about India.
Kavin: Simple example is stickers. The kind of stickers work in south, and their frequency of velocity of sticker sharing is very different from north. And, that’s a very thin example. Different content works in the different part of the country. The content consumption pattern is different and so on so forth. We will see a lot more this happen as we build out hike as we go out deeper in this market going forward.
Dazeinfo:When we talk about content it’s no more just text, it is no more just images, there is video there is sound etc., all this is being shared. For a free messaging platform, that’s a lot of data to be shared and lot of disk space to share, if I may put it that way. How do you manage to incur or bear the cost keeping the messaging product free?
Kavin: The goal as we have is, in any Internet company starts with a several problems, the main mission is to how to bring it online. And if you look at the world or you look at the other company with 100 million plus users, eventually when you have that scale you buy time to figure out how to monetize. Now the business model is not new. You look to the east; a lot happening there and if you go to west there is lot happening too. And, big question is can we build a great product, which is localized to India first with a very strong network, and then look at monetizing the user base. Now, we are doing hundreds of terabyte of data that’s growing very rapidly too. And that shows us the capacity of users to consume data and content. We just hope that keeps going up and up.
Dazeinfo:That brings you to another challenge. The regulators are at this point of time say we don’t have fair playing role. Already you are eaten up our SMS now you are also eating our calls tariff. Is not that going to be deterrent to grow to a new level?
Kavin: I have spoken about this multiple times. So, I honestly believe that every couple of decades you have a technological shift, a revolution happens, that disrupts the old older business model We are seeing that in messaging quite early and in multiple parts of world with the internet. The question is, what ‘s the result of this disruption. And I believe that’s not bad because of Hike, because of Facebook, Youtube people are buying data. As a result of which, you have Telco’s that have double digit percentage top line revenue from data. That will grow. The total addressable market of people consuming data versus SMS is much larger. The ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) on data pack is much larger too. Look at a year or two years, the data growth will be monstrous, I mean very large. I think there will more than overcome any possible cannibalization that happens is on SMS. So it’s win-win. It’s Important that we look ahead a couple of years and see that coming out. In short term, we are seeing people struggling to come out. That will change. It happened in the US and china and now it’s going to happen in India.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (KRX:005930) and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) have had held the top notch positions in the smartphone market for quite a long time. Where Samsung is struggling to compete with domestic and Chinese vendors who are locking up its low-end users, Apple is facing tough time in low economy countries where product price is the prime criteria for purchase. In recent times, it has become attractive to look beyond these two giants. Canalys’ has come out with its country-level smartphone shipments data for Q3, 2014 which has seconded the same. With a Y-o-Y growth of 23% over Q3, 2013, global smartphone shipments exceeding 300 million in a quarter for the first time. A good share of this growth can be accounted to the rising market in countries like India and China.
‘The global market is becoming more competitive, with vendors beyond Samsung and Apple enjoying growing success,’ said Canalys VP and Principal Analyst, Chris Jones. ‘A year ago, in Q3 2013, Samsung and Apple together accounted for 48% of worldwide smart phone shipments. While still impressive, in Q3 2014 this had slipped to 38%. This trend is likely to continue. It is down to the strong value proposition and increasing quality of products offered across all price points by competing vendors, most notably Chinese companies. In fact, six of the top 10 global vendors in Q3 are based in China.’
Samsung has retained its dominance in the smartphone market with 25% share in Q3, 2014, though its slice of the industry slipped by 9% point from 34% in Q3, 2013. Apple stood second with 13% share in the review period. Where on one hand the number showed Samsung losing grounds, Apple’s figure were comparatively higher than its performance during the year-ago quarter. Both the arch rivals, though, together account for 38% of the global smartphone shipments,down from 48% from the same time last year, they have witnessed dip in their share in developed markets, like US, to the emerging yet strong ones like China and India. Xiaomi continues to grow and expand standing right behind Samsung and Apple. Vendors like Lenovo, Motorola and Karbonn, are also competing fiercely to grab the market. Interesting is the fact that more than Samsung and Apple, it is the rise and the fall of share of these brands that are being most watched after.
Xiaomi Becoming A Nightmare, Lenovo and Micromax Follow Closely
According to the report, Xiaomi -, widely called as Apple of China – grabbed the third position, standing strong right behind Samsung and Apple with a market share of 6%. Market researchers have come to agree that Xiaomi has been a key factor in changing the market equations. With a mere four years of existence, it has already brought nightmares in boardrooms of the high profile companies, which have been in the field for almost a decade.
A by-word for the low-cost phones in the India, Micromax has time and again come up with enough reasons to buy it. Rolling out a “MAd App“, apparently the first ever phone that paid its consumers to watch ads), a pre-loaded MUnlock app on the Canvas 4 were a big hit. Wolverine endorsement gave it new heights taking it beyond India however it failed to leverage on this tie-up. With its captivating marketing strategies, this 5-year-old manufacturer has undercut and outsold its way creating a niche in the Indian market and is planning well to grow beyond the homeland.
China’s Home Market Advantage Drive The Sales Of Xiaomi And Lenovo
Mainland China witnessed the highest growth and account for 34% of global smartphone shipments in Q3 2014. Xiaomi took the maximum advantage of this and closed the quarter with the shipments of 17 million smartphone units in the quarter. This emerging brand, primarily having the advantage of the home market, dethroned Samsung, which long dominated the low-range smartphones.
Meanwhile, Lenovo’s rise in share in China was not a surprise keeping track of its recent launches of innovative products. With the shipment of more than 10 million units in Q3, 2014, this $39 billion global Fortune 500 company may soon surpass Samsung if improvement is consistent with the time. However, it will remain in tough competition with another home-grown giant “Xiaomi” which is speeding up at a faster pace.
“Mobile and Enterprise are now our new growth engines, and over time, like PCs, they will become our profit pool as well,” said chairman Yang Yuanqing in a statement.
China Driving Major Smartphone Sales, US And India Account For One-Forth Of The Shipments
US was once the hub of worldwide smartphone market. However, it took only few years for China to take over Uncle Sam’s share and become the Big Daddy in the sector. China alone accounted for 34% of smartphone shipment in Q3, 2014. US followed with 13%, way far from China. India that is touted as one of the largest market for 3G growth in smartphones and 2G feature phones, boasted of its 6% share in the global smartphone market.
‘A key similarity to the Chinese market has emerged in India with respect to the substantial contribution made by domestic vendors,’ said Canalys Research Analyst, Rushabh Doshi. ‘Three of the top five vendors there – Micromax, Lava and Karbonn – are Indian companies, achieving promising growth in their home market, but with aspirations and potential, in time, to be disruptive on the global stage. As market leader Samsung has faltered, with its share down 6% from Q2, it has faced stiff competition from local players with aggressive pricing strategies. With local partners, including Intex, Karbonn and Micromax, Android One is making steady progress at the low end and volumes will grow as more partners come on board, adding further pressure. Growing demand from the large, youthful middle class; the rising popularity of online channels, such as Flipkart; and the increasing availability of better quality, aggressively priced smart phones and affordable mobile data tariffs are all driving the smart phone market in India forward.’
However Well Positioned, Big Guns Have A Reason To Worry
If the dip in shares of the likes of Samsung and Apple continue to happen,they, no wonder, have a reason to worry from native vendors. With squeezed earnings and both high-end and low-end market being locked up by emerging vendors, the rapidity in the decline is expected. It will be interesting to see how arch rivals Apple and Samsung continue to compete with others and these new vendors. Not only the vendors, the emerging markets too will be looked after with high hopes. Where countries are investing in building wireless networks, companies are making best efforts to beat their competitors with the delivery of well-designed low-cost equipment.
People love it, hate it but they just can’t ignore Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB). This has been proved once again after the recent statistics on Social Login Trend Q3 2014 is out. Despite all privacy concerns and reports on young internet users abandoning Facebook, Facebook once again emerged as the most favorite social login provider among internet users in the third quarter of this year.
Janrain – a leader in social tools industry – has just released its social login trend report for the third quarter of this year. Earlier in 2013, the company has carried out a comprehensive research as a part of their effort to consumer attitudes and to know whether social login is a valuable tool that supports personalized digital interactions. They had surveyed nearly 600 U.S. consumers and came to the conclusion that social logins are now a preferred option for consumers to sign in to their most loved websites. More than 50% consumers now use the social login option.
Though there have been privacy and security concerns from businesses and consumers about signing into websites through their social networks, most experts feel such fears are unfounded and misplaced.
Social login for businesses has always been a tool for making it easier for the consumer to sign in to their websites. “Neither the results of that consumer experience nor any additional consumer data collected by the brand are shared with identity providers like Facebook or Google. In fact, doing so would violate the terms and conditions of many brands,” points out Jamie Beckland.
The average consumer these days is wary about sharing too much information about himself with anyone over the internet and most of them do think about HOW their data will be used by various sites when they give too many permissions to any app or website. In doing so, they only want to make sure that their personal information will not be used by anyone or share anywhere without their permission. However, Janrain has found out that 77% of the consumers prefer to login to websites through their social sites rather than opting for the traditional registration process.
An overwhelming majority of consumers (64%) who often leave websites due to forgotten email address associated with it, their password or other login information, etc say that social login should be offered as a solution. Not only that, 9 out of every 10 consumers who sign in to sites using their social networks they are satisfied with their experience and have little to complain, if at all.
In the wake of these findings, it is imperative for businesses and brands to stay in sync with the social login trends across the web space.
Social Login Share of Various Sites for Q3 2014
Janrain analyzed the social logins for Q3 2014 and saw put the share of various leading networks as:
Facebook, the king of networking sites, continues to account for the maximum social logins- to the tune of 46%. Nearly half the social logins to various sites were through this most popular site. With a 1.35 billion monthly active user base, that should not come as a surprise.
The only other network which accounted for a respectable share when it comes to social logins was Google Plus, with as many as 34% of the logins being affected through the network owned by the search engine giant.
Twitter Inc. (NYSE:TWTR), the number three site that accounts for social logins, continued to account for a single digit share- managing to get only 7% of the web users to sign in to other sites through their network.
Amazon, PayPal and Instagram together accounted for 5% of the social logins for Q3 2014.
Yahoo accounted for a very negligible and forgettable 4% share.
Q-O-Q Comparison of Social Logins
Comparing the Q3 social logins with those of the previous quarter, the following changes and trends were observed:
As we compare the Q-O-Q social login share, the following becomes evident:
Not only is Facebook already colossal, it continues to grow in terms of size as well as in terms of importance to businesses and website owners. The social login share of the site has risen by 2% over the last three months. That means a second consecutive quarter of growth for this site. It had earlier suffered setbacks towards the beginning of the year.
Google Plus share of social logins has fallen by 3%- it was only 34% for Q3 as compared to 37% for Q2 2014.
The gap between the two leading sites has widened. The gap which was only 7% in Q2 is now as wide as 12%.
Twitter has recorded a minor growth of 1%, though it is still far behind the two leading sites. And continues to languish in single digits.
The performance of other smaller sites like LinkedIn, Yahoo, etc can be seen in detail in the following graph:
Social Logins across Vertical Sites for Q3 2014
Facebook performance: The most popular site has had a mixed fortune across vertical sites. While its share has fallen over media and B2B related sites, it has registered sharp increases over the music and entertainment fronts. This increase has come largely at the expense of Twitter and Yahoo. Analysts believe that this growth comes from increased Facebook logins to music sites like Pandora, Spotify and Beats Music.
Google Plus: Though Google Plus share of social logins to media related, consumer brands have increased steadily, its share has improved sharply over consumer brands and B2B segments. Lesser percentage of people, however, are now accessing music, gaming and entertainment related sites through this network.
Twitter: This microblogging site has also accounted for an increase in the percentage of share of social logins for B2B segment and consumer brands vertical.
Besides these, Michael Olson from Janrain has some more important observations to make. He says, “PayPal and Amazon also perform well on niche websites. On select retail, banking and financial services sites with sensitive transaction-related use cases, PayPal’s share of preference can exceed 60%, while Amazon can command 25-35% share of logins on e-Commerce sites that partner with the retail giant. Consumer preference also varies widely across the world. VK is one of Russia’s most popular social networks, and on some Russian sites, commands as much as 70% of all social logins. In China, networks such as Sina Weibo, Renren, Tencent Weibo and QQ are popular. In Japan, many choose Mixi.”
With such details, marketers can now know better which sites they need to focus in for getting the best results along various verticals.
The detailed analysis above also makes one thing very clear- that in spite of being written off more than once by critics and rivals, Facebook is one site which no business can afford to ignore if it wants to give its people the option to log into its site through a social network.
After recurring failures during previous demonstrations of Project Ara prototype Smartphone – quite an ambitious project from Google Inc. (NADAQ:GOOGL) – the latest prototype seems to have created quite a buzz in the industry. While the first prototype reportedly couldn’t boot because of a broken screen the second though managed to boot, froze seconds later. The fully functional final version of Spiral1 prototype was recently showcased at Engadget’s New York event and a video of the working prototype was also released by Phonebloks. The video showcased the device running the popular game Angry Birds and played the Disney Animation movie Beauty and the Beast. But the most interesting thing was the various modules on the device were being swapped in and out without the need to meddle with the battery. The device was live all the while modules were being swapped, because it comes with an app which allows users to turn off the magnet for the desired module so that they can be removed or inserted.
Another interesting dimension of Project Ara devices is that they can not only incorporate standard chips for processor, battery, camera or communications but as demonstrated in the Engadget event it is even possible to replace a module with a heartbeat scanner. In another display at the same event, Paul Eremenko, head of Google’s Project Ara, displayed the module being replaced by a Pulse Oximeter (a device used to measure oxygen content in the blood). This opens up a huge avenue for modernizing the future of health services. With real-time monitoring of essential health parameters, many adversities can be averted if Project Ara is a success. Things have been set in motion for Project Ara with the latest prototype and to continue with the momentum, Google is organizing the second lap of Project Ara Developers Conferences. Indicating that Google wants to join hands with developers worldwide, the conference is being rolled out in two phases. The first one will be a conference in Mountain View on January 14 2015, followed by second in Singapore on January 21. With satellite sites in NYC, Buenos Aires, and London, and in Bangalore, Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai developers can get together in Google’s offices to participate in the conferences.
Success of Google Project Ara: Will it Pave the Path For A New Era in the Technological World?
A lot of speculation is on as to what the success of Project Ara means for the industry. How is it going to impact the moguls of the mobile industry and is it going to initiate a radical change forcing the industry to morph into something entirely different from how we know it now? One thing which is absolutely inevitable if Ara succeeds; is the big players will need to come out of their comfort zones and get their feet in the mud to ward of the strong competition? Google is aiming at including more and more startups in Project Ara and this will be a fair deal for both the parties. As startups won’t have to bear the added expense of getting new phones or software for testing their products and the ingenuity of the proposed ideas will act as a power house for Project Ara. As the entire approach is modular, Google can develop various kinds of modules to fit within the devices with the help of startups. So the key players like Samsung, HTC, Lenovo might look forward to acquire some of the smaller fishes in the market and take a plunge into the modular game. While players like Xiaomi might shift their focus towards manufacturing of modules instead of entire handsets. It is also to be seen if Google comes up with a newer version of Android for Project Ara devices or will the devices run on an entirely different OS. Some players have already anticipated the situation and there are indications of a probable rival for Project Ara in the market.
It is also to be seen if Google comes up with a newer version of Android for Project Ara devices or will the devices run on an entirely different OS. Some players have already anticipated the situation and there are indications of a probable rival for Project Ara in the market. Vsenn, apparently a new kid on the block, has plans to come up with a device which will not be entirely customizable or modular but shall have swappable modules for camera, battery and processor (RAM). The scenario might change very drastically and swiftly in the given years but everything rides on the success of Project Ara. Well, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed.
