King of the mobile browser, Opera Mini has been in the space for feature phones. But now, that space has been acquired by UCbrowser from UCWeb. According to the reports UCBrowser registered close to 33 per cent more downloads than Opera Mini Browser. There is another surprising entry in the list of most popular browsers i.e. QQ Browser from the Tencent Group. iBrowser version of QQ Browser is at third place after OperaMini. It is the faster browser which customized content within the browser for Indian users. UC Browser has approx 20 percent market share in India and over 300 million users in more than 150 countries. But still subscriber base of Opera Mini is still much higher as feature phones coming with Opera Mini browser built in so there is no need to download Opera Mini. Opera has many tie-ups with the companies like MediaTek to pre install the browser in feature phones. Till last year Opera mini was at top position in terms of downloads and now UC Browser is challenging its market share.

Source : Themobileindian

According to the Gartner, Mobile phone manufacturers could cut handset prices this year to increase their sales. Last quarter there was decline in the handsets sales which is bad news for handset vendors but can be good news for consumers as vendors start to lower prices to clear unsold inventory.  There was a sale of 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012, 2 per cent decline from the first quarter of 2011. There was decline due to slowdown in demand from the Asia/Pacific region. For Asia, first quarter is the strongest one which is driven by Chinese New Year but they saw lack of new product launched from leading manufacturers, and users delayed upgrades in the hope of better Smartphone deals arriving later in the year.
Now vendors are left with unsold inventory, which they will clear by lowering prices during the next couple of quarters. However, the volatile situation of the Rupee against the Dollar could mean that some of the benefits of lowering this price might not reach Indian consumers. In the last quarter prices in India rose due to weakening of the Rupee against the Dollar in the range of 3 to 3.5 per cent. According to the analysts Rupee won't fall below this level and that therefore the price benefit might reach Indian.

Source : Themobileindian

After BSNL slashed its prices by about 75 per cent, Bharti Airtel also reduced 3G mobile data tariff plans to entice the users. They are offering same 3G data tariff plans in all its circles in India. The tariff plans are the identical for both prepaid and postpaid users except for few special schemes. For Airtel prepaid users 30 minutes of internet surfing for just Rs 10, with one day validity followed by 150 MB of data for seven days for Rs 45. Likewise, Rs 100 will now fetch you 300 MB of data with 30 days of validity. 2 GB of data that you can enjoy over 30 days is just of Rs 450. For postpaid users Airtel has also introduced additional data usage packs, called Smartbytes. This will help customers to continue enjoying uninterrupted access to high speed browsing on their mobile devices even after exhausting their monthly data limits. This pack will be available Rs 80, Rs 175 and Rs 300 with which you can have 200 MB, 500 MB or 1024 MB of data usage.

Source : Themobileindian

Nokia which was world’s top selling phone brand has now been taken over Samsung. Nokia was at no. 1 position since 1998, as told by Gartner.If we look at company’s statistics Samsung have sold 86.6 million units till now and has recorded a raise of 25.9 percent as compared from last year. Even the handset survey based on customer interest has shown that Samsung phones are getting maximum user interest.
Samsung Inc. has recaptured the number one position in Smartphone category leaving behind Apple by selling 38 million Smartphones worldwide. Samsung is the only company whose Android-based Smartphone sales are more than 40 percent of total Android-based Smartphone sales worldwide. Interestingly, no other vendor has more than 10 per cent share of the market.ZTE and Huawei, two major Chinese brands also managed to almost double their market share and now account for 4.2 and 2.6 per cent of the total handsets sold in the world holding 4th and 6th place respectively.
Other market players like BlackBerry, Motorola and HTC also lost their market share and hold 2.4 percent, 2.0 percent and 1.8 percent respectively. Sony managed to hold its market share at 1.9 percent.Both Android and iOS grew at the cost of Symbian with Android having 56.1 per cent while Symbian dropped from 27.7 per cent and now just retains 8.6 per cent of market.

Source : Themobileindian

Consumers’ Handbook on Telecommunications has been released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). It will facilitate the consumer about their rights when opting in for a new connection and also lays down some rules that the service provider has to offer. In the handbook it is mentioned that the service provider is not allowed to increase the tariff of the consumer for a minimum period of six months from the date of enrolment. But it is also stated that the service provider will be permitted to reduce the tariff as per its will but there would not be any increase in the tariff offered to the consumer.
Even the subscriber can change his/her tariff plan even within the six months of opting in for the service, thus making the experience very user friendly. All the requests of plan shall be received and implemented immediately. The main problem with users is while using the service from the provider is when they are not able to file a complaint against an issue with the company easily.
They have to circulate the following information in leading newspapers in Hindi or English and a local language once in every six months and also make the same available on their web site:

• Customer Care Number 
• General Information Number 
• Contact details of the Appellate Authority 
• Procedure for monitoring of complaints on the web based complaint monitoring system. 

For complaint you can call at ‘Consumer Care Number’, which is toll free and should be open at least from 8 A.M. to 12 A.M. Now this handbook will give you detail about your Rights are and how liable the service provider is of providing the above mentioned services to you.

Source : Mobigyaan