The Indian mobile phone market is very unique. It has been on a phase of constant growth since its advent, even now, as worldwide sales of mobile phones are taking a hit. The Times of India reports that India managed to skip the global mobile slowdown and grew by 6% instead! The worldwide sales have fallen by almost 2% . The research was done by Gartner Inc. , a technology research firm. Source: coolpctips.com According to the report, the smartphone market in India climbed by 17% . This has been the reason for the increased usage of Mobile Internet . Smartphones are always connected to the Internet and have better apps , this has driven app sales , development and the increase in social media activities in the country. The majority of the cell phones in the country are feature phones  and this might be due to the comparatively low prices they sell at. Smartphones prices are also taking a downward curve since manufacturers are now bundling low cost-medium spec devices with the Android platform. The handset industry in India comprises of 226 million handsets and the number is set to grow further. Device sales are predicted to reach 231 million units in 2012 with a growth of 8.5% over last year’s figures ( 213 million ), according to Gartner. Anshul Gupta, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner said, “There is a huge amount of growth that is still to come in as far as smartphones go. From 6% of the overall market smartphone have inched up by a percentage point in a year which leave a lot of room for growth.” The weak nature of the rupee in the past months drove the phone prices higher and thus resulted in a minor slowdown in sales. The rupee hit an all time low yesterday having closed at 54.51 . We will have to wait and see how this impacts cellphone sales this month. Nilesh Gupta, Managing Partner, Vijay Sales , a Mumbai-based retailer spoke to The Times saying, “In the last four months we have seen that growth has been slightly impacted due to the price hikes. This is across consumer durable, electronics and mobile phones. The consumer in the Rs 5,000-10 ,000 has been most affected.”   Source: mobile88.com As far as device manufacturers go, the war is being fought between Samsung and Nokia in India as well as globally. Samsung finally overtook Nokia as the global leader in smartphone sales this month. The battle is very close here in India with Nokia retaining the leadership by a small margin in total number of phones sold whereas Samsung has established itself as the number one brand in terms of smartphone sales. Nokia’s once unshakable top position in India and the global markets is slowly eroding with newer players taking away all the market share. This might be because of the fact they were very late to the smartphone OS party led by iOS and Android . With their allegiances set with Microsoft’s Windows Phone OS , Nokia is working to retain the top spot again. It has also placed a lot of faith its its Asha series of phones winning the battle for them in terms of total market share. We will have to see how it works out for them even though things look bleak for them right now. What are your thoughts on the increase in mobile sale in India? Share them with us. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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The new Karbonn KT83 (also called Karbonn Silver Touch ) is a large 3.2-inch touchscreen mobile with premium glossy finish . It is a stylish mobile with metallic silver finish which looks elegant and sleek . Karbonn KT83 Silver Touch mobile key features : Stylish and Elegant finish Dual SIM GSM+GSM Resistive touchscreen display Haptic Touch Camera With

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The new Karbonn KT82 (also known as Karbonn KT82 K-Sport) is a 3.2-inch touchscreen mobile phone with dual SIM support . Karbonn KT82 K-Sport key features : Dual SIM GSM Large resistive touchscreen Long battery backup Multi format Audio and Video Player Karbonn KT82 K-Sport mobile specifications : Network : GSM/EDGE/GPRS 900/1800 MHz Display : 3.2-inch

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Anonymous, the worldwide initiative by hackers to defend free speech and file sharing, has now targeted Indian Government websites. A blog called TheDNetworks , was the first to break the story. Anonymous claims this is retaliation for the Government’s directive to ISPs to block video and torrent websites.     MT Operation #India : BREAKING: Tango Downs: supremecourtofindia.nic.in & aicc.org.in | Reason: Internet #Censorship via @ opindia_revenge — Anonymous Operations (@Anon_Central) May 17, 2012   BREAKING : supremecourtofindia.nic.in is down, aicc.org.in is down and dot.gov.in is back up!But it will be down soon — opindia (@opindia_revenge) May 17, 2012   The hacktivists at Anonymous have taken down the Supreme Court and All India Congress  websites. The sites are still down at the time of writing. Anonymous is calling this “MT Operation India” . Earlier today, Medianama ran an article detailing t he websites that have been blocked as result of a court order from the Madras High Court. This was due to a complaint by Copyright Labs, Chennai which wanted to prevent the piracy of its films,  Dammu and 3. Although only Airtel and Reliance seem to have blocked these sites, access is possible via other ISPs. The attack seems to be  a DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attack which makes it impossible to track the perpetrators easily. This kind of attack has already happened  last year when Anonymous defaced the NIC website to protest against corruption in the country.  Do you think this kind of attack is justified? Share your views with us. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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The Facebook IPO goes live tomorrow and there is a lot of excitement in the social media circles. Facebook’s IPO measures have already been covered obsessively but Facebook itself is concentrating more on their consumers due to the many changes they have shipped to service this week. Facebook is no longer just a social networking site as it has impacted advertising, media and the creation of jobs along with its social component. Let go deeper into how it has managed to do this. Impact on Jobs: Facebook created the ‘platform’ known today as social media along with Twitter and MySpace. Social Media is not just about social networking, it is also about advertising, outreach campaigns and general spread of information like videos, photos and ideas. Now, a lot of startups and next generation Internet companies are leveraging Facebook’s space to access the crucial 900 billion people that it has. This is a huge number and no wonder the Facebook app economy is growing so fast. According to a study conducted last year by University of Maryland, the Facebook app economy gave rise to at least 182,000 new jobs and had a total contribution of $12.19 billion in wages and benefieds to the US Economy. This is just taking into account the US market. Imagine other markets where the social media usage is growing especially India and Brazil . Facebook is probably going to be valued at $100 billion or more and has only 3500 employees and yet they have managed to drive such an impact on technology and business. Facebook has been integrated with some 20 million apps so far which include Spotify , Farmville and even Indian ones like Saavn and Dhingana . The Indian Scenario: Facebook is looking at India to be its main growth driver besides its other favorite, Brazil. Brazil has recently ditched Orkut and dived into Facebook and has surged past India to become the second biggest country on Facebook. India currently has around 57 million registered Facebook accounts compared to USA (157 million) and Brazil (59 million) according to Social Bakers . Almost one out of every two Internet user in India is currently on Facebook, according to the Economic Times . The reason why India is going to be huge for Facebook is because of the fact that the in terms of users, the social network has barely scratched the surface. There is a huge scope for more people to get onto the Internet and thus use Facebook. The Mobile Internet revolution will bring with it millions of new users. Mobile subscriptions in the country stand at 919.17 million and this will only increase every year. Google’s Rajan Anandan explicitly states that Mobile Internet is where it’s at in this country. This is exactly the same reason why Facebook wants to target India. They have made Facebook available on almost every mobile phone, thanks to their acquisition of Snaptu many months back. Already, Facebook’s revenue from Asia stands at an impressive $99 million, led by South-East Asia and India. Imagine the potential for Facebook from India a few years down the line when the Mobile Internet penetration will have advanced deeper. The IAMAI states that that the advertising budget allocated to Social Media, largely Facebook is 94 crore out of the total of 26,500 crores. This is slowly shifting as Indian brands are realizing the viral nature of Facebook and the engagement opportunity it offers. “Users in India, United States and Brazil represent key sources of our growth. We expect that user growth in the future will continue to be higher in those regions where Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)  is relatively lower, such as Asia,” Facebook said in its SEC filing. Thus, India will play a vital role in the company’s and social media marketing’s future unless the Government sticks to its ‘ objectionable content ’ card. Facebook is testing a Pages App for Mobile: Social Media Managers and executives have always cribbed about the non-existence of Facebook Page management functionality on mobile.  Now there is a reason for them to rejoice as Facebook is testing its Pages app for mobile and according to these screenshots, it is awesome! Source: 9to5Mac Source: 9to5Mac Source: The Next Web Currently it is only available to very few users on the Australian Apple App store. Facebook has released a statement saying, “We’re testing an app that helps owners of small to medium Pages more easily manage their Facebook presence.” Besides this, there is no real information on it. We hope they roll it out soon on all platforms. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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Bharti Airtel & Axis Bank  have partnered to bring simpler banking solutions to India’s  far-flung areas  with ‘ Airtel Money Super Account ’. Apparently, keeping in mind the  tie-up with a Bank , subscribers can directly access their saving account on their mobile account . How does it work? Airtel subscribers can open a ‘No-frills’ account in Axis Bank. Once the account is linked with Airtel’s m-wallet , users can easily make banking transactions. India’s regional hurdles may make online banking difficult, but the increasing mobile usage  can  propel its development. Airtel already has the largest number of subscribers in India. Hence, it can easily leverage the power of ‘ Digital Money ’ in “ furthering economic empowerment and fast-tracking India’s financial inclusion agenda ,” says Sanjay Kapoor, CEO (India & South Asia) Bharti Airtel. The service provider also has plans to introduce other banking related activities like micro recurring deposits, micro fixed deposits, small loans and micro-insurance products. Have our readers used Airtel’s m-wallet? How’s the experience? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers have put in a total of US$ 6.5 Million in Drawbridge (a one-year old startup). The company aims to cover the gap between desktop & mobile advertising with a single solution. What’s it about? Drawbridge is a cross-device ad network. That means it will work across multiple devices & channels . This flexibility of displaying ads without any hardware restrictions will surely appeal to advertisers. Till date, companies have had to design separate advertisement campaigns for the desktop & the mobile screens. How does it work? Given the vast difference in screen real estate it will be interesting to see how the ads will be optimized. It is not immediately clear if the company has some sort of ‘on the fly’ ad customization tool depending on where it is being flashed. The company has only stated that they are working on the two most important aspects of mobile advertising – Targeting and Tracking. With a proprietary self-learning mechanism built into the platform, the company aims to provide desktop level processing & targeting to mobile advertising . What’s the advantage for advertisers? Having to develop a singular campaign that will work without alterations, on all platforms will help cut down costs. Besides, with enough consumer data & tracking capabilities, precision targeting will be possible. All this will simply translate to advertising that will give the best Return Of Investment (ROI). Additionally, the mobile devices of today are crammed with so many features like GPS & Geo-location. This makes offering the customers deals in their vicinity, a real possibility. Thankfully for the company, the technical difference between the two separate platforms is coming down swiftly. Quite recently mobile chip maker Qualcomm confirmed that mobiles will have processing power of desktops . Additionally, since the advent of tablets & smartphones, the number of screens where advertisers can beam messages has  increased many-fold . Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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Bitly , the company well known for offering URL shortening services has grabbed  US$ 20 Million in funding . It is notified that the company will extend its services beyond shortening of URLs which allowed ease of sharing & tracking. The Chelsea based company also proclaim to be working on a ‘ Viral Search Engine ’ which is slightly modified version of search which features ‘ Trending’ searches. For example, a tourist could search for a restaurant & be directed towards the highest online buzz & nearby his/her location. This might be too early to decide but seems Bitly’s ‘ Viral Search Engine ’ could prove useful as a mobile app .  Not to forget some time back, Bitly did face a major hurdle when Twitter abandoned the service for its own URL shortening platform. How does Bitly prosper? Unlike common conception Bitly’s main business is its Enterprise Dashboard , which allows companies to track the performance of their links across web. Companies can use it to optimize their social sharing and monitor their reputation online. And Bitly does all this in real-time. Interestingly it does this even before Google has a chance to index the item in its page rank! How do our readers perceive the URL shortening service? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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It is observed that when it comes to the business, people are reluctant to trust Facebook which have a  very wide spread appeal . A recent survey has revealed that though users readily interact on the website, when it comes to clicking on the ads or even buying the virtual goods, many are unwilling to do so. This lack of trust on the displayed ads is a serious threat to Facebook as advertisements are its largest revenue generators . Recently, after rolling out advertisements on its mobile platform it was discovered ad-interaction was not not increasing at all. Undoubtedly, Facebook has been facing problems with ads for quite some time now. If this scenario continues, it’s ad inventory might take a hit . How? Advertisers always want to target messages to people who will most likely respond. If 83% of respondents confirmed that they “ hardly ever” or “ never ” click on the ads Facebook serves up, why will ad managers put up ads? There is still some good news, people who did click on the ads generated US$ 4.34 per user compare to last year’s  US$ 3.07 . As the company is very close to its IPO  such news will affect its image as a location for advertising. What do you think? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

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The new Asus N56VM is a powerful 15.6-inch display laptop powered by the latest Intel 3rd Generation quad core core i7 processor . Asus N56VM laptop key features : Performance powerhouse : Ivy Bridge Core i7 and Nvidia graphics Full HD display Bang & Olufsen Stereo Speakers Bullky Asus N56VM laptop specifications : Processor :

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