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Vice President to visit Serbia, Malta, Romania
New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu will go on a week-long tour of Serbia, Malta and Romania from September 14, an official announced on Thursday.
He will be accompanied by Union Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla, Rajya Sabha Members Prasanna Acharya, Vijila Satyanand and Saroj Pandey, Lok Sabha Member Raghav Lakhanpal and a business delegation spearheaded by industry body CII.
Briefing the media here, Anju Kumar, Joint Secretary (Central Europe) in the External Affairs Ministry, said that the visit is being undertaken given the importance of the geo-strategic location of all the three countries.
Malta and Romania are members of the European Union (EU) and facilitate India’s access to the European market.
While Serbia’s annual growth rate is over 3 per cent, the growth rates of both Malta and Romania are over 5 per cent.
“India has strong traditional and historical linkages with all the three countries,” Kumar said.
Giving details, Kumar said that the Vice President will reach Serbia on September 14 afternoon and address members of the Indian community there, numbering less than 100.
The next day, he will hold meetings with the Serbian President, Prime Minister and the Speaker of the National Assembly and address a Parliament session.
This will be the first high-level visit from India to Serbia since that country became an independent republic in 2006 following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Serbia gives visa-free access to Indians and India-Serbia bilateral trade stands at around $200 million.
After Serbia, Naidu will visit Malta from September 16 to 18.
He will hold meetings with the Maltese President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the House of Representatives, besides addressing members of the Indian community there that is only 700-strong.
The Vice President will also attend a business event.
The Mediterranean Sea archipelago nation is considered a transhipment hub as it is at the crossroads of North Africa and Europe.
Though India established diplomatic ties with Malta in 1965, it established a permanent High Commission only last year.
Malta extended cooperation to India’s evacuation operation from war-torn Libya in 2011 and again in 2014.
India-Malta bilateral trade stands at around $210 million and Indian IT companies have good opportunities there, according to Kumar.
An Indian pharmaceutical company has also established a large presence in that country.
From Malta, Naidu will visit Romania from September 18 to 20 on the the third and last leg of his tour, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two and the centenary year of that country’s formation.
The Vice President will hold meetings with the Romanian President, Prime Minister and President of the Senate and address the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament.
He will also participate in a business event and address members of the small Indian community there that numbers around 200.
India has bilateral trade worth around $810 million with Romania, which is rich in natural resources like bauxite, aluminum, oil and gas.
“Several Indian companies have invested in Romania and vice versa,” Kumar said.
She added that there will be deliverables in areas like agriculture and tourism among others in all the three countries.
–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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