Total number of mobile users in India reaches 652.42 million,17 mn mobile users added in July month: TRAI

Telecom operators in the country added 17 million subscribers in July this year, taking the total number of mobile users in the country to 652.42 million, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said today.

According to data released by the telecom regulator, the wireless subscriber base increased from 635.51 million in June to 652.42 million by the end of July, 2010, registering a growth of 2.66 per cent.

However, the total number of telephone subscribers (both mobile and landline) in India increased to 688.38 million by the end of July from 671.69 million in June.

With this, the overall teledensity (telephones per 100 people) in India touched 58.17 per cent.

The growth in the wireless category was led by Bharti Airtel, which added 2.6 million users to take its subscriber base to 139.2 million users. Airtel was followed by Reliance Communications, which added 2.5 million new subscribers in July, taking its subscriber base to 113.3 million.

Vodafone added 2.4 million subscribers in July, 2010, taking its user base to 111.4 million. Idea Cellular and Aircel added 1.8 million and 1.6 million new users, respectively. Tata Teleservices added 2.3 million users in July, 2010.

State-run telcos BSNL and MTNL added 1.08 million and 44,909 new users, respectively, during the month.

The wireline subscriber base declined from 36.18 million in June to 35.96 million by July-end, it said. State-run firms BSNL and MTNL enjoy an 84 per cent share of the wireline market.

The total broadband subscriber base in India increased by 3.39 per cent from 9.45 million in June to 9.77 million in July, 2010, the data showed.

Source: TRAI

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Mobile Gaming Market Tops $800 Million in 2010

Ad support will drive 12.3% of mobile gaming revenues by 2014. Casual gaming on the mobile platform has driven adoption of mobile games to more than a quarter of mobile subscribers and more than one in five members of the US population, eMarketer estimates.

This year, 64 million people will play mobile games at least monthly, a number that will rise to 94.9 million by 2014. eMarketer’s estimates exclude mobile users who play preinstalled games, which offer publishers decent brand exposure but little in the way of monetization opportunities.

While games are currently popular on both smartphones and feature phones, the composition of the mobile gaming audience will shift further toward smartphones as they increase in penetration across the population. According to comScore, smartphone gamers now account for 42% of the total. Still, both groups of gamers tend to prefer traditional casual games like Scrabble and Sudoku, though heavier gamers enjoy advanced offerings that are beginning to converge with console games.

eMarketer expects revenues from mobile gaming to reach nearly $850 million this year, with the vast majority coming from paid downloads. By 2014, mobile gaming revenues will top $1.5 billion.

Over the same period, ad support will nearly double in importance, accounting for 6.5% of revenues in 2010 and 12.3% of the total in 2014.

That makes for a sizeable mobile gaming market, but mobile still makes up only a small amount of all gaming revenues. According to TNS and Newzoo, just 4% of US video game revenues came from mobile.

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Apple has published its App Store Review Guidelines

Apple has relaxed its infamous restrictions  on what development tools can be used to create iOS apps: it has also published its App Store Review Guidelines for the first time.

In a statement, the company said that “we are publishing the App Store Review Guidelines to help developers understand how we review submitted apps. We hope it will make us more transparent and help our developers create even more successful apps for the App Store.”

The document has been made available on Apple’s online developer website, but quickly made its way onto the wider web.

The document gives guidelines on content, user interface and other matters that may get apps rejected from the App Store. It also has some zingy one-liners.

App Store Guidelines

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NOKIA C SERIES COMING SOON

We have been hearing about Nokia's C-Series for quite some time now. It was first heard of back in July when Nokia was caught trying to patent its X and C-Series brands. While we are aware of what the X-Series would be like, little was known about the C-Series.

On February 3, a leaked image of what is thought to be one of the first C-Series devices to be launched by Nokia started doing the rounds of the Interweb. The phone in the pictures is known as the C5. The C5 looks like a very compact candy bar phone running Series 60. What is confusing is the need fro the C-Series naming scheme. We wonder what the C-Series stands for. The E-Series and the N-Series for example stand for "Enterprise" and "Entertainment" respectively (The "En" from Entertainment was replaced by an "N" in case of the latter). From what we have seen from the leaked photos, the phone seems to be very compact. So, is the C-Series a new line-up of compact devices? Well, we're just guessing!
 

As for the C5, the phone seems to be decently spec-ed. It features a not so large 2.2 -inch QVGA display, a 3.2 megapixel camera (more than enough, if it's a good one!), HSPA and FM Radio. Also included are a 3.5mm jack and support for microSD cards to increase the 50MB internal memory. This one might just be released in the months to come. Nokia has scheduled its own press event as an alternative to the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona in which is it not participating. Hopefully, the C-Series would be officially announced there.

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