Alphabet revenue up 24% YoY in Q4 2017, Google ad, cloud business remain strong

Google's parent company, Alphabet today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2017. The company posted a record 24% increase in revenue with $32.323 billion compared to the $26.064 billion in Q4 2016. The company posted revenues of $110.9 billion in complete 2017.  Google’s core ad business remains strong pulling 27.27 billion in revenue with 24% YoY growth. TAC or traffic acquisition costs continue to grow as Google shifts its business focus to advertising and mobile search ads which resulted in nearly $6.5 billion, up 33% YoY in the Q4 which ended on December 31st, 2017. However, the company posted a net income of $3,020 billion which is a dip compared to the $5,333 billion YoY. The company currently has 80,110 employees and it reported earnings per share of $9.70 which is less compared to $9.90 which was expected. Alphabet mentioned that the one-time tax hit caused a net loss of $3.02 billion in the fourth quarter. However, the revenue grew $32.323 billion which is higher than analyst expectations of $31.86 billion. Google's cloud business, and sales of products like the Pixel smartphone and Google Home, and its Google Play app store, reported $4.69 billion in revenue. Other bets revenue reported a revenue of $409 million in Q4 2017 on operating losses of $916 ...

Apple overtakes Samsung to become top smartphone vendor in Q4 2017, Xiaomi beats OPPO: IDC

Smartphone vendors shipped a total of 403.5 million smartphones worldwide, down 6.3% year over year, and up 8.1% from the third quarter, in the fourth quarter of 2017 (4Q17), as per the latest  International Data Corporation (IDC). For the full year, 1.472 billion units were shipped, down less than 1% from 1.473 billion in 2016. "Developed markets such as China and the United States both witnessed a decline during the quarter as consumers appeared to be in no rush to upgrade to the newest generation of higher-priced flagship devices.," said IDC. Top 5 ranking did see a couple of changes from the third quarter,  but except Xiaomi other vendors saw slight decline in growth YoY. Apple has finally passed Samsung to grab the top spot with 19.2% market share and 77.3 million smartphone sales, slightly better than Samsung's 74.1 million smartphone shipments, down 4.4%, compared to 77.5 million units from last year. This is largely due to iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone X sales during the holiday quarter. Huawei continues to hold the number three position with 41 million unit shipments, down 9.7% compared to 45.4 million a year earlier. Xiaomi overtook OPPO to grab the fourth spot, doubling its share to 7% from 3.3% with 28.1 million shipments, up 96.9% from 14.3 million ...

Honor Holly 4 is still one of the best budget smartphones you can buy

The quality of the budget smartphone is improving gradually with the launch of each successive smartphones in the industry. Just like flagship smartphones, they're fast, well designed, and offer a ton of extra features as well. One of the prime examples is the Honor's latest budget smartphone dubbed as Holly 4. Honor has added yet another budget device under its portfolio, offering better battery backup and camera functionalities. The Honor Holly 4 carries impressive specs for a phone at this price point. Coming to the build quality, the Honor Holly 4 is quite impressive with a metal unibody design with the premium look and feel. The Holly 4 is sturdy, feels compact in hand, comfortable to hold and offers good grip as it has curvy back. The rear of the device features a single tone metallic finish housing rear camera with flash and fingerprint scanner. We like the design language of this device at this price point. The Honor Holly 4 sports a 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD display with no information about the Corning Gorilla Glass protection. Surprisingly, the display looks vibrant, offers good color output and viewing angles as well. The sunlight legibility is good too. However, we wish ...

Apple reports record $20.1 billion profit on $88.3 billion revenue in FY Q1 2018, 77.3 million iPhones sold

Apple has reported all-time record quarterly revenue of $88.3 billion, up 13% over last year with a all-time record net profit of $20.1 billion in their earnings for the financial year Q4 2018 that ended December 30, 2017. Apple reported quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.89, up 16% from a year ago, also an all-time record. During earnings call Tim Cook said that the growth was broad-based and a key driver was iPhone, which generated its highest revenue ever. iPhone X has been Apple's top selling phone every week since it launched. iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus rounded out the top three iPhones in the quarter. "In fact, revenue for our newly launched iPhone was the highest of any lineup in our history, driving total Apple revenue above our guidance range," said the CEO. Apple saw double digit revenue growth in all our geographic segments, an all-time quarterly record in the vast majority of markets, including the U.S., Western Europe, Japan, Canada Australia and Korea, as well as Mainland China, Latin America, The Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe, and India. Apple sold 77.3 million iPhones, the highest number ever for a 13-week quarter, compared to 78.3 million a year ago.  ...

Apple removes Telegram Messenger from App Store for ‘Inappropriate Content’

Apple has removed the popular messaging application "Telegram' from the App Store for 'Inappropriate Content.' Apple usually pulls the apps that violated Apple's developer guidelines for iOS apps.  The absence of Telegram was first noted by a Reddit user yesterday.  While the exact reasons for pulling out the app aren't clear,  Telegram founder Pavel Durov responded to a tweet on Thursday by saying that the company is alerted by Apple to "inappropriate content" flag made available to users of both apps, leading to the apps pull out. Apple's review guidelines state user safety that prohibits "upsetting or offensive content." [HTML1] On the other hand, the sub-section which covers user-generated content requires that the apps include a method to filter objectionable material from being posted to the app, auto report offensive content and timely responses to concerns and the ability to block offensive users from using the service. Since the reason for pulling out is unknown, the possible solution is to wait for the apps to come back again. We'll make sure to update the article once they do. Source

InFocus A2 with 5-inch HD display, 4G VoLTE launched in India for Rs. 5199

InFocus has launched A2, the company's latest budget smartphone with 4G VoLTE support. It packs a 5-inch HD 2.5D curved glass screen, is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor, runs on Android 7.0 (Nougat), has a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with face beauty, camera filters and pro mode.  [HTML1] InFocus A2 specifications 5-inch (1280 x 720 pixels) HD IPS 2.5D curved glass display 1.3 GHz Quad-core Spreadtrum SC9832 processor with Mali-400 GPU 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, expandable memory up to 32GB with microSD Android 7.0 (Nougat) Dual SIM 5MP rear camera with LED Flash 5MP front-facing camera 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio Dimensions: 71.1 x 143.9 x 8.9mm 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS 2400mAh battery The InFocus A2 comes in Champagne Gold and Black colors, is priced at Rs. 5,199 (MOP) and is available from offline stores. It also comes with Rs. 300 MobiKwik SuperCash and 30GB additional 4G data for Reliance Jio users. Wonder who would choose this over Redmi 5A.

ZAKK Twins Bluetooth Water resistant headphones launched for Rs. 2999

ZAKK today has launched the Twins wireless Bluetooth headphones in India. The headphones come with anti-drop ear hooks and water resistance. These come with true wireless Bluetooth technology along with a microphone for taking calls.  The ZAKK Twins come with Bluetooth Airoha of V4.1+EDR, a frequency range of 2.4-2.48GHz. It has Input DC of 5V/0.2-1.5A. The headphones come with 3.7v polymer Li-ion battery and the company is promising up to 6 hours of talk time, 4.5 hours of music time and 120 hours of standby time. It has a Bluetooth connectivity of up to 10 meters. The ZAKK Twins wireless Bluetooth headphones are currently available through Amazon.in priced at Rs. 2,999. Commenting on the launch Anuj Chokra, Founder & Business Director, ZAKK said: We are extremely elated with the consumer response in India and are constantly in the effort of surprising our customers with something fresh and new. The new ZAKK Twins are one of its kind device which is a perfect blend of true technology and upbeat design for the millennials.

Google Assistant Go for Android 8.1 phones with low RAM released

Android Go (Oreo Edition) is an Android operating system based on Oreo 8.1 designed for phones with low-RAM. The company started rolling Go edition apps one after the other. It recently rolled out the Gboard Go, YouTube Go, and Maps Go. Today is has released the Assistant Go app on the Google Play Store.  The Assistant Go will come pre-installed on Android (Go edition) devices. It is also supposed to do the same things that a regular Assistant does but will use lesser resources. However, talking about the things that it can't do which include setting up reminders, controls for smart home devices, Actions on Google, and Device Actions. For now, the Assistant Go will only support French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai, but the company promises to bring more languages soon. With Google Assistant Go you can find local info like weather, restaurants, business hours, navigations, make calls, send SMS, alarms, timers, calendar, play media, etc. The App is already available on the Play Store, since it is aimed at low-cost Android phones running on Android 8.1 Oreo, it isn't available for higher-specced phones. You can get the Google Assistant Go from Play Store here for supported phones. Source

Nokia 8 and Nokia 5 3GB RAM version get a cut in India, now available for Rs. 28999 and Rs. 12499

HMD Global launched its flagship Nokia 8 smartphone in India back in September last year for Rs. 36,999. Now the phone has received a Rs. 8000 price cut and is available for Rs. 28,999. The Nokia 5 3GB RAM version that was launched for Rs. 13,499 has received a Rs. 1000 price cut and is available for Rs. 12,499, but some offline retailers are selling it for as low as Rs. 11,299. After the price cut, the Nokia 8 will be one of the best smartphones in the range. It packs a 5.3-inch Quad HD display with sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection, is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with 4GB RAM, has 13-megapixel dual rear cameras, one with a color sensor and the other with a monochrome sensor for low light and dedicated black and white photography. It also has ZEISS optics, OIS and also Splashproof with IP54 ratings. The Nokia 8 got Android 8.0 (Oreo) update  back in November last year, and even got the Android 8.1 (Oreo) beta update recently.  Android Oreo update for the Nokia 5 smartphone started rolling out earlier this week. Nokia 8. Amazon has started selling the Nokia 8 the new rate, and Flipkart is expected to start selling the Nokia 5 at ...

Nintendo announces Mario Kart Tour game is coming to smartphones

After the successful Super Mario Run game that was released back in 2016, Nintendo has announced that it will release a new Mario Kart Tour game for smartphones. The company said that the game is already in development and said that it will be released sometime before 2019. [HTML1] Mario Kart is one of the popular go-kart-style racing video games that was first released back in 1992 as Super Mario Kart on Super NES Console. The game evolved over the year, and the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is the latest game that was released for Nintendo Switch last year, which is an enhanced version of Mario Kart 8 that was released back in 2014 on Wii U. Similar to the Super Mario Run, this is expected to be a free to play game so that users can try elements of the game for free and later purchase the game to unlock the remaining levels. The company usually releases the game on iOS devices first. It tied up with Apple to release the Super Mario Run on iOS devices at the end of 2016, while the Android version was released in March 2017. We still don't know any other details about the game, but we expect some details as there is progress in game development.