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Shubhankar shines at World Golf Championships
Mexico City, March 2 (IANS) Indias Shubhankar Sharma savored a dream debut at the World Golf Championships here with an opening round of six-under 65 pushing him into tied second place and one shot behind leader Louis Oosthuizen.
The 21-year-old, playing in the last group alongside Malaysia’s Gavin Green, was beaming from ear to ear after keeping the bogeys of the card which included an eagle and four birdies at the Club Golf de Chapultepec on Thursday.
“I’m really pleased with the way I played. I was very nervous in the morning, but very happy with the way I put it all together. Even after the rain (lightning) delay that we had, just to make birdie on the last hole (on nine), absolutely fantastic,” Sharma said.
The young Indian prospect arrived in Mexico City in top form, having won co-sanctioned Asian Tour and European Tour tournaments in South Africa and Malaysia over a span of two months.
Despite missing the cut by one stroke in Oman and Qatar over the past fortnight, Sharma produced a flawless display which his caddie Gurbaaz Mann, a former Asian Tour player himself, described as “complete”.
Starting his day from the 10th tee, Sharma birdied 11 and 12 from 13 and two feet respectively before rolling in a tricky 15-footer for his third birdie on 18.
After finding the fringe at the driveable first hole, the Indian chipped home for eagle from 10 yards. He closed out his round in style by nearly holing out for eagle for an eventual tap-in birdie.
Sharma intends to keep his foot on the pedal despite being in his first WGC tournament which is featuring 45 of the world’s top-five players this week.
“To be honest, I’m actually relaxed now. I just wanted the first round to get out of the way. You’re always very happy when you start with such a low round, especially for me,” he said.
“This is such a big event, I would say this is taking some pressure off me, playing well on this course. And I proved to myself that I can roll it, so I’ll just do the same things that I’ve been doing,” he added.
Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat carded a 66 for tied fifth position while China’s Haotong Li returned a 73. Malaysia’s Gavin Green, the reigning Asian Tour No. 1, shot a 78.
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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