Top Five Smartphone Vendors Achieved Growth in the Third Quarter of 2017: Gartner

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 383 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a 3 percent increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple, which achieved a 5.7 percent increase.

"Despite market weakness in China, sales of smartphones rose in the third quarter of 2017 (see Table 1)," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “Emerging Asia/Pacific (15 percent increase) and North America (11.2 percent increase) drove the smartphone growth in the quarter.”

"In emerging Asia Pacific, both Samsung and Huawei saw healthy demand as along with Xiaomi and Vivo, which were able to grow their footprint outside their home markets," added Gupta. "In North America, Samsung was the driving force in the quarter due to its new flagship products."

Samsung’s smartphone sales recorded a double-digit increase (19.3 percent) in the third quarter of 2017."Renewed pushes of the newly designed Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 smartphones have brought back growing demand for Samsung smartphones, which helped it compete against Chinese manufacturers and deliver a solid performance in the quarter," said Gupta. "“The last time Samsung achieved a double-digit growth was in the fourth quarter of 2015."

Apple's sales grew 5.7 percent year over year. Apple returned to growth in China and also saw strong sales in many of the emerging markets, including India. This is due to the continued sales of legacy iPhones, including the iPhone 5S which retails at around $240 street price in most markets.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)

Vendor	3Q17 Units	3Q17 Market Share (%)	3Q16 Units	3Q16 Market Share (%)
Samsung	85,605.3	22.3	71,733.5	19.3
Apple	45,441.9	11.9	43,000.7	11.6
Huawei	36,501.8	9.5	32,489.5	8.7
OPPO	29,449.2	7.7	24,590.8	6.6
Xiaomi	26,853.2	7.0	14,926.1	4.0
Others	159,552.1	41.6	185,501.5	49.8
Total	383,403.5	100.0	372,242.0	100.0

Xiaomi achieved the strongest growth, exhibiting an 80 percent increase in the third quarter of 2017. Xiaomi's growth came more from international markets than from China, where it faces strong competition from Huawei, Oppo and Vivo. India continues to be the biggest and highest-growth market for Xiaomi outside China, but growing sales from Latin America and Russia are also boosting its sales.

Greater China exhibited a decline of 11 percent in the third quarter due to consolidation around local and lesser-known brands (see Table 2). Buyers are preferring known and high-priced smartphones, which is cannibalizing demand of budget smartphones from local brands. In Western Europe and North America, demand for premium smartphones from top brands led to smartphone sales growth in the third quarter.

Top-Five Regions for Smartphone Sales to End Users in 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)

Vendor	3Q17 Units	3Q17 Market Share (%)	3Q16 Units	3Q16 Market Share (%)
Greater China	107,129.0	27.9	120,343.9	32.3
Emerging APAC	81,549.0	21.3	70,927.8	19.1
North America	47,511.3	12.4	42,722.9	11.5
Western Europe	36,019.8	9.4	32,900.7	8.8
Latin America	33,553.5	8.8	31,162.0	8.4
Others	77,640.9	20.2	74184.7	19.9
Total	383,403.5	100.0	372,242.0	100.0

Source: Gartner (November 2017)

Leading Chinese manufacturers Oppo, Huawei, Vivo and Xiaomi continued to drive sales across emerging markets, led by their midprice and budget smartphones with a focus on 4G connectivity and better cameras.

"The arrival of Apple's new flagship iPhones at the end of the third quarter of 2017 has delayed smartphone purchases into the fourth quarter of 2017," said Gupta. "Following compelling offers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the holiday season will likely boost sales of smartphones before the end of the year. We estimate the fourth quarter’s smartphone sales will boost total sales for the full year. We expect smartphone sales will reach 1.57 billion units in 2017," concluded Gupta.

Skill India, Arvind Ltd Partner to train 20,000 Candidates Under PMKVY Scheme

Committed to empower the youth with employable skills, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) through its implementation agency, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in collaboration with Arvind Limited, will provide training to 20,000 youth (till 2020) under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). The first batch has commenced training in Bangalore. 

Under this collaboration, Arvind Limited (aka Arvind Mills), a leading exporter, supplier and manufacturer of ready-made garments will be the training provider and will offer its infrastructure, space, training facilities and machinery for the skill training. The admissions would be open to all skill seekers, especially the unemployed youth in the age group of 18 to 35 years.  An integrated skill development program under PMKVY, the association entails skill training and further placements being facilitated by Arvind Limited through its nine training centres in Karnataka.

The skill trainings to be provided in Apparel, Made-ups and Home Furnishing sector include six job roles, namely Specialised Sewing Machine Operator, Sewing Machine Operator, Quality Check Executive– Sewing Line, Packer, Pressman and Washing Machine Operator.  The second largest employment generator in the country, the sector has immense demand for the skilled candidates.  The job roles, aligned to the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), encompass training of candidates for three to six months.

Stressing upon the role of corporate houses in aiding skill development initiatives,  Anantkumar Hegde, Minister of State, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship said, “Corporate India can be a major contributor to this nation-building exercise.  The industry can promulgate their expertise and provide industry relevant training to the candidates in accordance with the demands. Such trainings not only enhance productivity and employability opportunities for the youth, also provide a ready talent pool to the industry.  I congratulate Arvind Limited for their pioneering collaboration to accelerate the Skill India Mission.” 

Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC commented, “Inclusive approach is paramount for sustainable skill development.  Corporates are major stakeholders in this progressive journey and can play pivotal role in narrowing the existing gap between the demand and supply of skilled workforce.  This two-fold approach benefits both the stakeholders – the skill seekers and the employers.”

Vikram N., Senior HR Manager, Arvind Limited said, “Skilled manpower is the need of the hour and we shall provide employment opportunities for every eligible youth who successfully completes their training program. It is a pleasure to associate with Skill India Mission and we thank the Ministry for providing us an opportunity to work in this noble endeavour.”

Adding impetus to the skill training, the Apparel, Made-ups & Home Furnishing Sector Skill Council under the guidance of NSDC has provided for skill training to nearly 2,14,000 candidates in 8 job roles across the country.

VMware and AWS Expand Capabilities and Availability of VMware Cloud on AWS

At AWS re:Invent 2017, VMware, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company announced VMware Cloud on AWS is expanding availability from the U.S. West (Oregon) region to also include the AWS U.S. East (N. Virginia) region, and includes additional VMware capabilities and support for more AWS services, making it even easier for customers to move, run, and protect mission-critical applications at scale.

“The momentum for VMware Cloud on AWS is growing rapidly, and VMware and AWS are delivering major new capabilities after only three months of availability while enhancing our strategic relationship with new integrations across our platforms,” said Mark Lohmeyer, vice president and general manager, Cloud Platform Business Unit, VMware. “Customers of VMware Cloud on AWS will be able to migrate application portfolios to the cloud even more rapidly with Hybrid Cloud Extension and AWS Direct Connect, while maintaining the optimal levels of performance, scale, and availability required for mission-critical apps.”

“We are pleased to extend availability of VMware Cloud on AWS to the AWS U.S. East region. Both teams have been really focused on quickly iterating to provide the capabilities that our customers have told us they want,” said Sandy Carter, vice president, Enterprise Workloads for Amazon Web Services. “In addition to the availability, networking, and security features that will further support production workloads, we’re excited to extend native integrations with AWS Direct Connect.”

Scripps Networks Interactive is a leading provider of lifestyle content in the home, food, and travel categories for television, the internet, and emerging platforms. “We have a significant footprint with both VMware and AWS, and our goal is to create a hybrid cloud model that will seamlessly integrate our existing VMware infrastructure with our strategic public cloud, AWS,” said Drew Fredrick, vice president, IT Cloud & Infrastructure Services, Scripps Networks Interactive. “VMware Cloud on AWS will allow us to move, modernize, protect, and scale our applications, and expand the value of these applications with native AWS services. Having VMware vSphere at the core of the service means we get operational consistency with our on-premises environment, enabling us to maximize our existing IT skillsets and tools.”

Faster Application Migration with Seamless Portability

VMware Cloud on AWS customers have the ability to choose where to run their workloads based on their business needs. With VMware vSphere vMotion, new L2 stretched networking features, and AWS Direct Connect, customers will be able to migrate applications from their on premises VMWare cluster into VMware on AWS without any disruptions to the application, and without having to make any changes to the network configuration. Customers will also be able also use AWS Direct Connect for high-speed, reliable, and private network connectivity, supporting faster cold and live application migration with vMotion.

VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension, an add-on SaaS offering for VMware Cloud on AWS, will provide large-scale migration between on-premises environments running vSphere 5.0+ and VMware Cloud on AWS with no replatforming, retesting, or change in tooling. Hybrid Cloud Extension will provide built in high performance Layer 2 extensions so customers will be able to keep the same networks, IP, and routing policies in place while moving workloads. This eliminates the need for extensive application dependency mapping when migrating applications to VMware Cloud on AWS. It also includes high performance Layer 2 extensions, data synchronization, traffic analysis, WAN optimizations, and built-in IPsec VPN connectivity that will enable secure, efficient, and effective cloud migration with no impact to application uptime. 

Application Availability and Business Continuity for Mission-Critical Workloads

VMware Site Recovery, a new service for VMware Cloud on AWS customers, delivers protection between customer data centers and VMware Cloud on AWS, or between environments running in separate AWS Availability Zones (AZs). With VMware Site Recovery, customers can lower capital expenditures by eliminating the need for a secondary disaster recovery site, streamline operations with automated orchestration, enable failover and failback with familiar management tools, and increase disaster readiness with non-disruptive, on-demand testing available anytime.

Scale, Security, and Visibility for Mission-Critical Applications

VMware and AWS are expanding the scale, network connectivity, and security capabilities of VMware Cloud on AWS to further support the most resource intensive applications such as Oracle, Oracle RAC, Microsoft SQL Server, Apache Spark and Hadoop.

VMware Cloud on AWS supports 32 host clusters and multiple software-defined data centers (SDDC) per organization today, and will support 10 clusters per SDDC soon. This will enable a single customer to support environments as large as tens of thousands of VMs. Customer SDDC environments run on a high-performance, dedicated, and highly secure next-generation AWS hardware infrastructure.

For application teams, VMware is adding support for Wavefront by VMware, a VMware Cloud Service that allows customers to visualize, alert upon, and troubleshoot applications running on VMware Cloud on AWS. Wavefront by VMware provides an open API platform supporting more than 80 integrations to collect time-series data from application metrics collectors such as for Java, Ruby, Python, and Go, to service metrics collectors for MySQL, Pivotal, Kubernetes, AWS, and more.

Pricing and Availability

VMware is now offering one-year and three-year subscription options for VMware Cloud on AWS, in addition to the existing hourly on-demand pricing. These new subscription options help customers lower their TCO by up to 50 percent compared to on-demand pricing. In addition, VMware’s Hybrid Loyalty Program provides discounts on the core service subscriptions to customers with on-premises vSphere, VMware NSX, and/or VMware vSAN licenses, which can further reduce the TCO by an additional 25 percent. The pricing model, combined with the VMware Hybrid Loyalty Program discounts, provides customers with a path to significantly lower total cost of ownership compared to traditional data center deployments.

VMware Site Recovery is available today as a separate add-on and is priced per protected VM with hourly metering. VMware vMotion, L2 network stretch, AWS Direct Connect, multi-cluster support, VMware Hybrid Cloud Extension support and AWS Direct Connect private connectivity to VMware Cloud on AWS are expected to be available in VMware’s Q4 FY2018 which ends on February 3, 2018.

ABB Unveils Dual-Arm Industrial Robot as Newest Member of the YuMi Family

ABB is previewing its newest collaborative robot, now with a single arm, at the International Robotics Exhibition (iREX) 2017 in Tokyo. As their name suggests, collaborative robots are designed to work alongside humans on the factory floor to raise productivity and support the transition to mass customization. The robot will be officially launched in 2018.

Like YuMi, a small-parts assembly robot introduced in 2015, the new robot has a payload of 500 grams and, thanks to its compactness, is easily integrated into existing assembly lines, increasing productivity. The new robot also features lead-through programming, eliminating the need for specialized training for operators.

“The success of YuMi has exceeded expectations; it was originally designed for small-parts assembly, but it has turned out to be exceptionally versatile – it can solve a Rubik’s Cube, make sushi, wrap gifts and conduct an orchestra. Based on YuMi’s enormous success, we fully expect our new single-arm robot to be equally well-received, especially since it was developed at the request of customers,” said Sami Atiya, President of ABB’s Robotics and Motion division.

“We continue to build our collaborative robotics portfolio,” said Per Vegard Nerseth, Managing Director, ABB Robotics. “The newest robot is a much anticipated addition to the ‘factory of the future,’ enabling our customers to grow and thrive in the age of mass customization. Combining this robot with our ABB Ability™ digital solutions will allow our customers to take efficiency and reliability in their factories to the next level.”

ABB is exhibiting at iREX 2017 from November 29 to December 2, in the East Hall, Booth IR3-56.

ABB is a pioneering technology leader in electrification products, robotics and motion, industrial automation and power grids, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport & infrastructure globally. Continuing a more than 125-year history of innovation, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization and driving the Energy and Fourth Industrial Revolutions. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 136,000 employees.

Adieu to Mental Stress and Ambiguity in 4 Weeks with Calm India

Calm India, a 4-week Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) course on how to gain control of your mind and build resilience to stress, anxiety and depression; has been launched to address declining risk in India.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy follows the basic scientific principle –

“Your thoughts affect your emotions, your emotions affect your behavior and your behavior affects your thoughts.”

Calm India’s training module contains 13 episodes ranging over 4 weeks, a set of 23 Audio books and a Reference deck which is a beautiful graphical representation of the course content in a concise format.

On announcing the launch Shashank Udupa, Founder of Calm India says “In India, 93% of the population suffers from chronic stress and well over 1/4th of the country suffers from depression. As a business, if we were hiring therapists (or aggregating them), we’d still run into the issue of the imbalance between number of therapists versus number of mental health sufferers, so we’ve come up with a more scalable solution at a price that makes it really affordable for all the people in remote areas of India that neither have access nor have the purchasing power to spend on a therapist. Our next step is to regionalize the content and have it dubbed into most of the popular Indian Language.”

Shashank further focuses on the awareness of mental health issues that is almost negligible in India. He says, “A general session of a therapist costs a good amount of money and it takes a minimum of 15 sessions to have an effect. Not all teenagers or working professionals going through anxiety or depression can possibly afford the money or the time to go to a therapist regularly. Housewives undergoing similar issues also may not be as comfortable due to our society’s outlook. They can easily buy our calm India course and regain their mental health without having to head out for help and it’s also easy on their pocket. This platform being priced at 399 rupees makes it affordable and private to seek out better-thinking patterns. We want to give the masses a better alternative solution that uses real science. We also have the links to our research on our website for every point we’ve presented, if the viewer wants to dig deeper at any point during or prior to the course.”

Calm India’s objective is to provide self-help online access to mental health solution that is very affordable to all. The entire course costs Rs 399 only.

Uber Announces UberEXCHANGE Winners at Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017

Uber, the world’s largest on-demand ridesharing company, today announced UberEXCHANGE finalists at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017. As a part of this program,10 startups won an-all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco, where they will visit Uber’s headquarters to meet the executive leadership team and be introduced to potential investors.

UberEXCHANGE was launched in 2016 as a part of Uber’s mission to create a startup ecosystem in partnership with Invest India. Since then, over 150 startups have been mentored by Uber’s senior leadership team. The finalists have been chosen through a rigorous selection process anchored by T-Hub, Telangana's flagship startup incubator and accelerator. Among the winning startups, 5 startups are based in Hyderabad - Anytimeloan, Docturnal, Imaginate, Ekincare and Carengrow.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri. K.T.Ramarao, IT Minister, Government of Telangana said, “Many compliments and congratulations to Uber and the startups that have been selected for the trip to San Francisco. T-Hub will continue to guide the startups and Uber is an exceptional partner who can really take them places. I hope the startups do extremely well going forward.”

Amit Jain, President, Uber India & SA said, “We are very excited to announce UberEXCHANGE finalists at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017. We launched this program in partnership with T-hub last year  to support the Prime Minister’s Startup India vision. Since then, we have had the opportunity to mentor over 150 starups and be a part of their entrepreneurial journey. We thank the Government of Telangana and T-hub for their continued support in helping us bring this initiative to life.”

Srinivas Kollipara, COO, T-Hub said, “We aim to create opportunities for the startups in India to benefit from the global ecosystem through exchange of knowledge, access to mentors and investors. Through UberEXCHANGE, several startups  in India have benefitted from hands-on mentorship sessions by Uber’s global leadership team. We are looking forward to continuing this partnership to provide a platform that will help many more Indian startup succeed in their entrepreneurial journey.”

Gayam Raja, Founder of Gayam Motor Works said, “We signed up UberEATS as our first customer for limitless e-bike in Singapore, Hongkong and San Francisco through UberEXCHANGE. Thanks to UberEXCHANGE and T-Hub for the kickstart.”

Bengaluru First City to Flag Off ‘The Color Run’ in India

Oaks Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (OMCPL), a leading experiential marketing agency headquartered in Mumbai, is organizing The Color Run, the HAPPIEST 5K RUN ON THE PLANET on December 16, 2017 at Ozone Urbana Koramangala, Bengaluru.  

In Bengaluru, The Color Run will be held from 4 pm onwards and will culminate into Urbana Music Festival. The music festival is known as Bengaluru’s biggest entertainment, flea and food festival. It aims to create a memorable experience for a well-defined target audience from all age groups. This year, the festival will feature established artists, namely Siddharth Mahadevan, Neeti Mohan, and DJ Hussain.

Designed as a worldwide platform to celebrate dreams, The Color Run is being organized in India for the very first time. The Color Run is a unique race that celebrates healthiness, happiness, and individuality. It is the largest running series in the world, having made its way across 40+ countries, over 400 cities, and 6 million runners worldwide.

Unlike other runs, winning is not the objective here. The Color Run lays emphasis on the spirit of participation and the celebration of life. The Color Runners start with the classic powder Color Zones. Along the course, participants can paint their aspirations on the Dream Wall, snap whimsical photos with giant unicorns, and get the ultimate color inspiration as they party with friends at the Finish Festival amidst vibrant bursts of color throws. 

The Color Run will be organized in 10 cities namely Bengaluru on Dec 16, Mumbai on Jan 14th, Delhi on Feb 11th followed by Pune, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Indore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

Talking about bringing the property to India, Rahul Gomes - Managing Director, OMCPL commented, “We at OMCPL believe in creating unique IPs, and now we come with a game changing IP – The Color Run India. We believe that cosmopolitan Bengaluru with its love for celebration and a good time is the perfect city to begin our nationwide celebration of dreams and happiness.”

Srinivasan Gopalan, CEO, The Ozone Group (Presenter for The Color Run event) added, “As leading property developers, we want to promote Bengaluru as a cultural hub. The city sees a number of high profile events — from concerts to festivals. Now we are proud to host The Color Run in India, which is happening for the first time in India.”