Twitter now has 199 million average monetisable daily active users (mDAU), a 20 per cent growth (year-on-year), driven by ongoing product improvements and global conversation around the pandemic.

The micro-blogging platform reported $1.04 billion in revenue for the Q1 2021, up 28 per cent (on-year), and a net income of $68 million. The advertising revenue reached $899 million, an increase of 32 per cent.

“People turn to Twitter to see and talk about what’s happening, and we are helping them find their interests more quickly while making it easier to follow and participate in conversations,” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement late on Thursday.

Total ad engagements increased 11 per cent year-over-year while cost per engagement (CPE) increased 19 per cent year-over-year.

While US revenue reached $556 million, international revenue totalled $480 million, an increase of 41 per cent.

“Advertisers continue to benefit from updated ad formats, improved measurement, and new brand safety controls, contributing to 32 per cent year-over-year growth in ad revenue in Q1, said Ned Segal, Twitter’s CFO.

The mDAU were 199 million for Q1, compared to 166 million in the same period of the previous year and compared to 192 million in the previous quarter.

Average international mDAU were 162 million for Q1, compared to 133 million in the same period of the previous year and compared to 155 million in the previous quarter.

“We are attracting more great people to Twitter than ever before and investing in our highest priorities to deliver on our long-term goals across consumer product, revenue product, and platform,” the company said.

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Google Lens can now automatically translate texts in screenshots for devices running Android 11 or above.

According to 9To5Google, users can now take a screenshot of a foreign language and let Google Lens do the translation without any intermediate step.

The exciting new feature is available on the Google Lens Screenshot UI for devices running Android 11+.

The translate button will become visible on the screenshot and a click on it will detect and translate the required text quickly.

Google continues to release innovations that are bound to help it maintain its edge among its competitors, GizmoChina reported on Tuesday.

In addition to translating the text, users can also copy the text on the screenshot, which can then be downloaded for offline access or shared on the Google Translate app or social networks like Twitter or Instagram.

Users can also download the current language for offline access and can also swiftly send the screenshot to the full Google Translate app, the report said.

Google Lens was first unveiled at Google I/O 2017. It is an image recognition tool that was first integrated with Google Assistant on Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

It was later in 2018 integrated with Google Photos for both Pixels and other Android devices.A

The app was released as a standalone app on the Play Store in June 2018 and as of January this year, the app had recorded over 500 million downloads.

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Aiming to boost its laptop users, Samsung Electronics on Wednesday unveiled two new laptops, Galaxy Book Pro and Galaxy Book Pro 360, under its Galaxy Book Pro series, which is designed around the needs and routines of modern mobile-first users.

Both the laptops under the Galaxy Book Pro series will be available in two variants — 13-inch and 15-inch — and are Samsung’s first-ever Windows PCs with Super AMOLED displays.

“The new Galaxy Book Pro series offers true mobile computing for the connected world, enabling ultra-light, yet mighty portability, boundless connectivity and a window into your wider Galaxy ecosystem,” TM Roh, President and Head of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics, said in a statement.

The Galaxy Book Pro Series is powered by next-generation hardware, including an 11th Gen Intel Core processor and Intel Iris Xe graphics.

The Galaxy Book Pro series is verified to the Intel Evo platform, signifying an industry-leading balance of power, immersive graphics, always-on connectivity, and long-lasting battery life.

According to Gregory M. Bryant, Executive Vice President & General Manager of the Client Computing Group at Intel, the new Galaxy Books are the thinnest 13-inch and 15-inch Intel Evo designs ever and delivers on the Evo promises of responsiveness, instant wake and long battery life.

Both the laptops also offer custom Bluetooth enablement and industry-leading connectivity including 5G and Wi-Fi 6E capabilities.

With Studio mode, users can enjoy video call environments that help them look as they prefer regardless of your setting.

Quick Share for the Galaxy Book Pro series allows you to share content between your Galaxy devices or with classmates and coworkers in just a few clicks.

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YouTube Shorts which is a TikTok-like short form video app continues to gain popularity with over 6.5 billion daily views as of March, up from 3.5 billion at the end of 2020, the company has announced.

YouTube had rolled out Shorts app feature in India in September last year.

Shorts is a new short-form video experience right on YouTube for creators and artists who want to shoot short, catchy videos using nothing but their mobile phones.

The company later rolled out the video streaming service on its platform in the US in Beta.

With over 2 billion monthly logged in users and over 1 billion hours of video watched every day, Google-owned YouTube is offering advertisers efficient reach to large audiences which are incremental to those found on TV.

“With respect to YouTube, people continue to find all types of informational content, from educational videos to podcasts,” Alphabet and Google CEI said during the company’s earnings call on Tuesday.

According to the company, it is also seeing strong growth in YouTube’s brand business, fuelled by global consumer trend from linear TV towards streaming video.

“YouTube is offering advertisers efficient reach to large audiences which are incremental to those found on TV. Large brands are benefiting from this trend,” the company informed.

The company said that YouTube advertising revenues of $6 billion in the January-March period of 2021, up 49 per cent, is driven by exceptional performance in direct response and ongoing strength in brand advertising.

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Driven by online work and learning amid the ongoing pandemic, Microsoft Teams now have 145 million daily active users globally, almost double the number a year ago, CEO Satya Nadella informed.

The number of organisations with more than 1,000 users integrating their third party and line of business applications with Teams has increased nearly three times year-over-year.

“In markets where employees have returned to the workplace including Australia, China, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan, we have seen usage continue to grow,” Nadella said during the company’s earnings call late on Tuesday.

The company has added more than 300 features in Teams over the past year, including more than 100 new capabilities so far in 2021.

New inclusive meeting experience for hybrid work including custom gallery views enable anyone to be seen, heard and participate whether they are at home, in a meeting room, at an office or on a factory floor.

“Customers like GM and Sanofi are using Teams for unified communications including for voice. Teams is extending beyond communications, creating an entirely new category of modern collaborative applications as organizations use Power Platform to build custom apps, bots and workflows within Teams,” informed Nadella.

“We added support for shared workspaces with people outside the organisation and we are seeing Teams used for everything from virtual retail showrooms and personal shopping to interactive webinars,” he added.

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Samsung Electronics has expanded its presence in the Indian smartphone market in the first quarter of the year on the back of multiple new handsets, a report showed Tuesday, as the South Korean tech giant aims to fend off challenges from Chinese players.

Samsung represented 20 per cent of the smartphone shipments in India in the first quarter, up from 16 per cent a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research.

Among the top five brands, Samsung posted the highest on-year growth in smartphone shipments in the first quarter.

“Samsung remains the second-largest brand for India’s smartphone shipments with 52 percent on-year growth driven by its focus on the budget segment with the new M02 series and multiple other launches,” the market researcher said.

“It refreshed its A-series with the A32, A52 and A72, and the M-series with the M12. It also launched its latest flagship Galaxy S21 series earlier than its normal launch period.”

The company remained in the runner-up spot in the Indian smartphone market but managed to narrow the gap with top player Xiaomi, whose market share declined to 26 per cent from 31 percent a year earlier.

Samsung was the only non-Chinese brand in the top five. Vivo came in third with 16 per cent, followed by realme and OPPO with 11 per cent each.

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(Corrects company identifier to AAPL.O)

By Alexander Marrow

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said it had fined Apple $12 million for alleged abuse of its dominance in the mobile applications market, in the latest dispute between Moscow and a Western technology firm.

The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said on Tuesday that U.S. tech giant Apple’s distribution of apps through its iOS operating system gave its own products a competitive advantage.

Apple said it “respectfully disagreed” with the FAS ruling and that it would appeal it.

Western tech companies have come under increasing pressure in Russia in recent months, with social network Twitter punitively slowed down over a failure to delete content which Moscow says is illegal.

Facebook, TikTok and Alphabet’s Google have also come under fire.

The FAS said in a statement it had imposed a turnover fine on Apple of 906.3 million roubles ($12.1 million) for the alleged violation of Russian anti-monopoly legislation.

It determined in August 2020 that Apple had abused its dominant position and then issued a directive requiring the U.S. company to remove provisions giving it the right to reject third-party apps from its App Store.

That move followed a complaint from cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab, which had said that a new version of its Safe Kids application had been declined by Apple’s operating system.

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Apple’s custom next-generation Mac processor has entered the mass production stage this month, media reports said.

Tentatively dubbed the “M2” after Apple’s M1 chip, the processors take at least three months to produce, according to sources.

The next generation of Mac processors designed by Apple entered mass production this month, sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia, bringing the US tech giant one step closer to its goal of replacing Intel-designed central processing units with its own, MacRumors, Nikkei Asia reported.

Shipments of the new chipset could begin as early as July for use in MacBooks that are scheduled to go on sale in the second half of this year, sources said.

Produced by Apple supplier TSMC, Apple’s custom aCEM1aCE silicon made its debut late last year with the introduction of the Mac mini, MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro, bringing considerable performance improvements and battery efficiency over the Intel chips it replaced.

Just last week, Apple unveiled redesigned 24-inch iMacs and a new iPad Pro lineup and to underscore the hardware capabilities of the devices, Apple kitted them out with the same 5nm-based aCEM1aCE processor found in its other Apple silicon Macs.

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Continuing its dream run in India, Apple shipped over a million iPhones in the country in the otherwise dull first quarter of 2021, growing close to an impressive 90 per cent (on-year) during the three-month period.

As per early estimates from market intelligence firm CyberMedia Research (CMR), iPhone 11 and XR accounted for 67 per cent of Apple’s shipments during the January-March period.

On the back of increased domestic assembly, Apple iPhone 11 shipments increased 176 per cent (on-year) in the first quarter.

“Apple has had yet another exceptional quarter in India, shipping over a million iPhones for the first time in, what is traditionally, a lull quarter,” Prabhu Ram, Head-Industry Intelligence Group, CMR, told IANS.

Apple iPhone shipments gained in strength on the back of the enduring brand equity that Apple enjoys in the country and also, in part, “driven by evolving consumer understanding about tech not being a luxury, but a necessity”, Ram added.

In the festive quarter (Q4) of 2020, Apple for the first time doubled its smartphone market share in India to nearly 4 per cent.

Despite arriving in October, the iPhone 12 contributed significantly towards the rise of Apple in Q4 (October-December) in the country.

The tech giant had registered over 60 per cent growth (yea-on-year) in its India business in the full year 2020 while for the festive quarter, the growth was an impressive 100 per cent (YoY).

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Buoyed by pent-up demand, the local smartphone market grew by a whopping 23 per cent over a year earlier in the January-March quarter. As a result, shipment of smartphones touched 38 million units – unprecedented for the quarter – a report by analyst firm Counterpoint Research showed.

“Continuing with its stellar run, India’s smartphone market registered a third consecutive quarter of record shipments in the first quarter of 2021, riding on pent-up demand. consumer confidence also increased due to the beginning of a vaccination drive in the country”, said Prachis Singh, analyst at Counterpoint.

With a 14 per cent rise in shipment of feature phones during the period, the overall handset market registered 19 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) growth. Strong shipment numbers of Reliance’s JioPhone drove the feature phones market, while Chinese vendor Itel led the market with a 21 per cent share.

In the smartphone space, market leader Xiaomi witnessed a strong demand for its handsets and had to expand local sourcing capacity by partnering with two Chinese manufacturers — BYD and DBG. Rival Samsung, which held the second spot, registered 52 per cent growth in shipment over the corresponding quarter last year. Its sales were driven by new launches in the budget segment.

Analysts, however, are now weary of the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in its second wave, and its impact on the market in the April-June quarter. According to Singh, the superior growth in the March quarter might not sustain in the coming days. “These (March quarter) numbers should be taken with a caution as a second and more virulent wave of Covid-19 is currently on in the country. That is likely to impact the coming quarters. The consumer demand will take a hit due to the ongoing Covid-19 wave and subsequent lockdowns,” said Singh.

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