NEW DELHI: Micromax has overtaken Samsung to become the largest mobile phone supplier in India in Q2 2014, according to independent market research and consulting firm, CounterPoint Research. 
 
 
As per the report, Micromax's handset shipments share was 16.6% in the quarter while Samsung's share was 14.4%. This is the first time that Samsung has been displaced from the pole position. 
 
Nokia was at the third position with a 10.9% shipments share, followed by domestic brands Karbonn and Lava which had a 9.5% and 5.6% share, respectively. 
 
In terms of smartphone shipments, Samsung still retains the top slot with a 25.3% shipments share in the second quarter. Micromax is closing the gap with 19.1% share, followed by Karbonn, Motorola and Nokia. 
 
 
 
The smartphone shipments share figures is in line with a recent report by Canalys which also placed Samsung, Micromax and Karbonn as the leading smartphone makers, shipping 8.5 million, 5.8 million and 2.3 million handsets, respectively. 
 
According to the Canalys report, Motorola shipped 955,650 smartphones in the three-month period, while Nokia shipped 633,720 smartphones. 
 
Interestingly, Micromax was also the leading feature phone supplier with a shipments share of 15.2%, as per the CounterPoint Research report. It displaced Nokia for the first time. Nokia's shipments share was 14.7%. 
 
 
 
Globally, Micromax is the tenth largest handset brand in terms of mobile phone shipments, it added.

Micromax Beats Samsung, Becomes India's No. 1 Mobile Vendor: Report

NEW DELHI: In line with previous reports, Microsoft has officially announced the first update to its Windows Phone 8.1 operating system. The new update extends Cortana support to new markets, live folders, improved Xbox Music app, and enhanced privacy features, among others. 
 
The update will be available next week for users already on the Windows Phone 8.1 Preview for Developers version. Consumers who own Windows Phone 8.1 devices will receive the update in the coming months. Microsoft has not specified a fixed timeframe for it. It is worth pointing out that there are very few devices that have received the Windows Phone 8.1 software update, at this time. 
 
The update brings Cortana, Microsoft's Siri- and Google Now-like voice assistant, to China and the UK as a 'beta' (test version) and to Canada, India, and Australia as an 'alpha'(early test version). 
 
Cortana will offer a number of additional features in China including a different visual appearance, animations, and sounds, support for Chinese (Mandarin) in voice, text, and speech and specialized suggestions for people living in China, such as air quality information in weather cards, information about driving restrictions, and the ability to track local TV shows and celebrities. Cortana will also be able to look up English words in the Bing Dictionary. The US version will also get improvements including new natural language scenarios, and snooze times for reminders. 
 
The alpha version, available in Canada, India, and Australia will be opt-in and give users the ability to try Cortana using English language models from the US and the UK. Full support for Cortana is expected to be extended to India by 2015. the delay in rolling out this feature is most likely due to the software's inability to efficiently recognize different accents as well as languages and perform tasks. 
 
Cortana is powered by Microsoft's Bing search engine and notifies users of phone calls, emails and messages; lets them set appointments and reminders, perform searches and operate the music player etc hands-free. It is also able to track users' online searches as well as new calendar entries and also access third-party apps. 
 
The update also offers the ability to organize apps into folders on the Start screen, natively. The folders are being called Live Folders as the live tiles of apps also appear in the tile of the folders. To create a Live Folder, users need to drag a tile over another tile and then name the folder. It will also offer Apps Corner, through which users can specify which apps are displayed in a special 'sandboxed' mode (like a protected Start screen) that restricts which apps are used. This is useful in scenarios where businesses want employees to access select apps, or for retail demos. 
 
The Xbox Music app has also been updated to deliver better performance in areas like app load and list scrolling, and offer new features, as per Microsoft. 
 
In addition to these, the Windows Phone 8.1 Update comes with Live Tile for the Store app, the ability to select multiple SMS messages for deletion and forwarding, and the ability to send and receive data through a virtual private network (VPN) when connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots.

Anupam Saxena

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