Devices & Platforms

Indian smartphone manufacturer Lava International held negotiations with China-based Huaqin technology, to advance plans in creating a manufacturing venture in India, reported Bloomberg.

Apple was again fined for selling iPhones without chargers in Brazil, this time by the Sao Paulo state court to the tune of BRL100 million (US$19m), reported Reuters.

Smartphone shipments for Latin America declined 2.5% year-on-year to 32.2 million units in Q2 but proved to be a bright spot as the global smartphone market collectively dropped 9%.

It may not come as a major surprise, but independent analyst company Canalys has now supplied the figures to back up the expected news that smartphone sales are falling in Southeast Asia.

In its continuing drive to boost local industry, it now seems that India is taking aim at low-priced smartphones from China of the sort sold in large quantities in the country by companies like Xiaomi.

The Chinese government warned of lowered confidence in conducting business in India after smartphone maker Vivo became the latest to be hit with “frequent investigations” by Indian authorities on Chinese businesses.

Pan-African e-commerce platform Jumia has announced a partnership with Chinese smartphone manufacturer Realme. The joint aim is to roll out new devices at a time when Africa’s smartphone market is enjoying high growth; this in turn will benefit e-commerce.

Approved Apple repair centres in Russia are reportedly struggling to find legit parts to carry out repairs for devices after the nation was sanctioned by a raft of nations after beginning the invasion of Ukraine.

Global payments technology company Mastercard and Ecobank Group, a leading independent pan-African banking group, are to partner to digitize agricultural value chains in Africa.

Hayo Telecom, a Senegalese mobile network operator, has chosen Telesmart.io, a provider of global number and messaging services, to provide it with a fully API-enabled number and messaging platform.

Apple has reportedly shifted even more to production outside of its main manufacturing hub of China, as the country continues its strict lockdown measures. 

The wearable market in India recorded double-digit growth in Q1 2022 as a result of new launches, discounts and aggressive marketing by vendors.

Apple has made India the latest location for the manufacturing of its flagship iPhone 13 as the company aims to shift its manufacturing reliance away from China, reported Reuters.  

Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel is exploring the possibility of punishing vendors of grey market devices with fines up to BRL50 million (US$10.5m) per infraction.

The shipments of mobile phones to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region grew 8.3% quarter on quarter (QoQ) in Q4 2021 to a total 6.10 million units, said a report.

Asteria Aerospace, an India-based drone manufacturer and solution provider and a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd, has launched an end-to-end drone operations platform.

Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms has been referred to a tribunal by South Africa’s competition watchdog over allegations that it has exploited its market dominance.

As would-be rival Safaricom Ethiopia gets ready to start operations, Ethiopian incumbent operator Ethio Telecom is expanding the scope of its mobile money service telebirr. According to the Ethiopian Herald news service the latest offering is a drivers' traffic penalty payment platform.

Chinese consumer electronics and mobile communications company Oppo has set up what it calls a Power and Performance Lab at at its Hyderabad R&D centre in India as part of what are described as plans to building an entire product development ecosystem from India.

Beijing 2022’s Winter Olympic Games experience was improved with the use of Prevail’s cutting-edge digitalized ticketing. Spectators were able to access the stadiums in 1.5 seconds, with the digital ticketing system using Prevail’s PDA to verify ticket QR codes.

STL an integrator of digital networks with a strong presence in India, Italy, the UK, the US, China, and Brazil, has announced the launch of Firebird, a line of O-RAN-based macro radios for dense, wide area 5G coverage at  MWC 2022.

Open source solutions provider Red Hat has announced at Mobile World Congress 2022 that Turkish integrated telecommunications operator Turk Telekom has deployed Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s leading Kubernetes platform, for use across its business to develop and scale cloud-native applications from core to edge for faster innovation.

Hungary’s telecommunications regulator the National Media and Communications Authority (NMHH) launched a mobile device replacement programme to encourage consumers to trade in 2G and 3G phones for 4G devices, before planned network shutdowns.

India’s true wireless stereo (TWS) market grew  74.7% YoY (year-over-year) to 20.3 million units in 2021.

Chinese technology giant ZTE Corporation and China Mobile have verified the rule/policy-based SPN intelligent fault diagnosis system on the intelligent management, control, and analysis platform ZENIC ONE (UME) and deployed it across Liaoning province in China.

As 5G flourishes across Asia-Pacific, a new report revealed that Huawei is defying bans on its technology to claim leadership for the third year in a row in 5G radio access networks.

Chinese technology giant ZTE Corporation and China United Network Communications Group (China Unicom) have implemented a commercial trial of Radio Composer in Heze Tianhua E-commerce Industrial Park, one of China’s national e-commerce demonstration bases, in China’s Shandong province.

Is the Indian government hoping to bring a new mobile phone operating system to its home market? That appears to be the implication of a number of recent reports in the Indian press.

Indian telecom operator Vodafone Idea (Vi) has revamped its national backbone network with US-based telecom equipment maker Ciena, to prepare for fifth-generation or 5G network rollout.