New Delhi: Luxury mobile phone maker Vertu today opened its first boutique store in India, here, with plans to expand to other cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore. "There is a huge growth opportunity here. People in India today are well travelled, they appreciate luxury products ...We want to tap that potential," Vertu President Perry Oosting told PTI. Though he did not comment on the investments made, Oosting said the...
11:11 AM, Nov 01, 2012
Los Angeles: Internet radio company Pandora is adding more functionality to its mobile apps - showing lyrics and artist information and making it easier to share self-crafted stations with friends - as companies intensify efforts to lure mobile advertising dollars. Pandora is essentially bringing the features of its website to users of its apps for Apple and Android mobile devices. The app for iPhones is being released Monday, while an...
10:04 AM, Oct 31, 2012
New Delhi: The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India on Tuesday reported 5.41 per cent decrease in net profit at Rs 227.45 crore for the quarter ended September 30 due to lower sales, mainly of petrol models. The average discounts on the models, especially petrol run, were all-time high during the July-September quarter. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 240.45 crore in the corresponding period in...
04:48 PM, Oct 30, 2012
New Delhi: Mobile phones shipment to India during the first-half of 2012 crossed 10 crore units, registering a growth of 16.6 per cent over the same period over the previous year, according CyberMedia Research (CMR). "During January-June 2012, the total India shipment of mobile handsets was recorded at 102.43 million units (10.24 crore)," CMR said in its report. The total number of smartphones shipped during the period was 55 lakh...
01:48 PM, Oct 28, 2012
San Francisco: Facebook Inc posted a 32 per cent jump in third-quarter revenue to $1.26 billion, as the company reignited advertising growth with the help of larger-than-expected gains in mobile. The company's shares leapt 9 per cent to $21.22 in after-hours trading on Tuesday. Advertising revenue increased 36 per cent year-on-year to $1.09 billion, but revenue from its payments and other businesses increased just 13 per cent to $176 million....
02:21 AM, Oct 24, 2012
New Delhi: Yet another bizarre comment and yet another U-turn by an Indian politician. Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) leader Rajpal Saini, after claiming earlier in the day that girls did not need mobile phones, later retracted his statement saying he had been misquoted. "I saw on TV channels news being telecast in my name that I said that girls should not be given mobile phones. I have not given such...
07:10 PM, Oct 22, 2012
Muzaffarnagar: Muzaffarnagar: In his tirade against mobile phones, BSP leader Rajpal Saini stirred yet another mobile controversy and went a step too far by saying that women and children don't need mobiles. "There is no need to give phones to women and children. It distracts them and is useless. Why do women need phones? My mother, wife and sister never had mobile phones. They survived without one," said Saini. The...
09:00 AM, Oct 22, 2012
New Delhi: Telecom major Bharti Airtel is the fourth largest mobile operator in the world with over 250 million connnections globally, according to analyst firm Wireless Intelligence. China Mobile continues to be at the top spot with 683.08 million connections, followed by Vodafone Group (386.88 million) and America Movil Group (251.83 million). Bharti Airtel (250.04) and Telefonica Group (243.51) are at fourth and fifth position, respectively, Wireless Intelligence said in...
03:57 AM, Oct 22, 2012
San Francisco: Mobile may be the future for technology, but even with the worldwide proliferation of high-powered devices like smartphones and tablets, some companies are struggling to maintain consistent revenue streams. Earnings disappointments this week from Intel Corp, Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and AMD underscore how Silicon Valley, both the old guard and new, is struggling to profit from consumers' waning love affair with the stalwart PC and infatuation with...
11:36 AM, Oct 21, 2012
Mumbai: Norway's Telenor has applied to take part in the 2G spectrum auction, opting to stay in the country despite being stripped of its permits after a scandal-tainted previous sale. Telenor joins India's top three operators by revenue in eyeing the 2G radio waves, though Russian conglomerate Sistema's Indian affiliate Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd, which also lost its permits obtained in 2008, said it would not be participating. The auction...
12:46 PM, Oct 20, 2012
New Delhi: Long-established mobile phone operators that were not affected by the scandal-hit sale of airwaves that hurt their newer counterparts should pay a retrospective fee for part of their airwave holdings, a ministerial panel recommended. This is in addition to another surcharge totalling at least $5 billion recommended by the same panel earlier this month, and will put extra burden on carriers including Bharti Airtel (BRTI.NS) and Vodafone's (VOD.L)...
10:30 PM, Oct 18, 2012
New Delhi: The Telecom Commission has recommended that mobile phone carriers give up all their airwave holding in the superior 900 mega hertz band at the time of their permit renewals, a widely opposed move by the industry that says it will cost about $24 billion more in capital outlay. The Telecom Commission's recommendations will have to be approved by a ministerial panel before they are implemented, telecoms secretary R...
01:57 PM, Oct 17, 2012
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government, in association with Airtel, has developed a service that would allow customers to make electricity bill payments through their mobile phones. The new service would be launched on Monday by the state's Minister for Communication and Information Technology Ponnala Lakshmaiah, K Gopinatha, the director, Electronic Delivery System (EDS) and Meeseva of state's IT Department, told PTI. Giving details of the new service, Gopinatha said Airtel...
11:20 AM, Oct 15, 2012
London: About one billion people across the world still do not own a mobile phone, and a third of the world's population is unable to access the internet, a study has found. The report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) showed that six billion people - six out of seven of the world's population - had a subscription to a mobile phone by the end of 2011, the Daily Mail...
01:06 PM, Oct 13, 2012
Geneva: The world now has nearly as many mobile phone subscriptions as inhabitants. The UN telecom agency says there were about 6 billion subscriptions by the end of 2011 - roughly one for 86 of every 100 people. In a report Thursday, the International Telecommunication Union said China alone accounted for 1 billion subscriptions, and India is expected to hit the 1-billion mark this year. The Geneva-based agency says 2.3...
01:00 PM, Oct 12, 2012
Mumbai: Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank on Thursday announced a cut in their home loan and automobile loan rates. While home loan rates have been cut by one percentage point, the rates on auto loan have been slashed by 0.75 percentage point. But the bad news is that the new rates will be applicable only for two months. In this festival scheme, the bank is offering a home...
06:19 PM, Oct 11, 2012
New Delhi: Google has extended its free SMS chat service to Indian users. The Gmail SMS feature is now accessible to Indian users along with 51 other countries in Asia, Africa and North America. Google had first made this feature available to its users in some African countries in 2011. Using the free Gmail SMS service users can send text messages to mobile phones via Gmail Chat. Responses to the...
06:57 AM, Oct 11, 2012
New Delhi: Domestic car sales declined by 5.36 per cent to 1,57,536 units in September 2012 compared to 1,66,464 units in September 2011. According to the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), motorcycle sales last month fell by 18.85 per cent to 7,53,693 units, from 9,28,716 units in September 2011. Total two-wheeler sales in September 2012 decreased by 12.92 per cent to 10,69,069 units from 12,27,662...
11:07 AM, Oct 10, 2012
New Delhi: Vodafone Essar Mobile Services Ltd has been directed by a consumer forum to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation to a subscriber for starting 'hello' tune service on his cell and charging him for it without his consent. Hello (or caller) tunes are songs or music that a person hears on calling a number on which this service has been activated. While also directing Vodafone to refund Rs 50...
03:32 PM, Oct 09, 2012
London: New research has found mobile phones can damage personal relationships merely with their presence no matter they are being used or not. According to psychologists who conducted the experiments at Essex University, mobile phones automatically trigger thoughts about wider social networks, reducing the level of empathy and understanding in face-to-face conversations, Daily Mail reported. The two studies found if a mobile was visible during a conversation it caused people...
11:07 AM, Oct 07, 2012
