Author: Ali Qasim

Lahore (NUT-Technology)

Today, a whole new world of infotainment is available online, instantly accessible for every smartphone user, nurturing a prolific new lifestyle. While the smart-devices industry is experiencing unprecedented progress at an enormous scale and speed, Pakistan must take maximum advantage of this revolution, to unleash the enormous potential of its youth at this critical juncture, to overcome the major challenges faced by this resilient nation.

In 2020, the telecom sector in Pakistan contributed 278 billion rupees to the economy – 129% higher than the previous year, while the country’s tele-density has reached well over 84%, with more than 184 million cellular subscribers. Thus, it is promising big revenue-opportunities for the investors. Due to this robust performance, almost all the global manufacturers of mobile-devices are planning to enter Pakistan, while ‘Infinix’ – a resourceful multi-national, has already pioneered the manufacturing of hi-tech devices in Karachi.

‘Infinix’ is surely the No. 1 smartphone brand in Pakistan, with the fastest business growth. It is showing complete confidence in the ability of this nation to progress, despite major crises like the Covid-19 pandemic. Infinix is proud to be the only manufacturer of smartphones, which has established 3 smartphone-factories in Pakistan, operating for more than a year now. Hence, the robust investments and advanced telecom technologies from Infinix are already gaining great recognition and reputation in this key Asian market.

These 3 state-of-the-art production plants installed by Infinix in Karachi, have provided employment for more than 6,000 people, with a capacity to manufacture the most sophisticated technologies for high-quality smart-devices sought by various consumer-segments. Local manufacturing of such high-tech products in Pakistan has enabled valuable savings in the import-bills and foreign-exchange. These valuable contributions of Infinix are enriching the national economy, while also promoting the ‘Made in Pakistan’ brand, all over the world.

Speaking at a forum, as the Chief Executive Officer of Infinix, I – Joe Hu, had recently promised to all our consumers and stakeholders that our company will pursue a new vision to achieve “Progress through innovation”, with a powerful strategy to introduce the best technology products in Pakistan. Nearly 70 percent of Infinix workforce in Pakistan are women. This clearly reflects our strong commitment for “Women’s Empowerment” and global best-practices, along with other social-development initiatives to improve quality of life, Public-Health and Education for the masses.

Infinix Mobile is a subsidiary of Transsion – a globally leading Chinese company that achieved the highest market share (47%) during the 2nd quarter of 2021. It also achieved 409% growth as a smartphone vendor in Pakistan. In the same period, ‘Vivo Mobile’ achieved 23% unit-share, while Xiaomi was ranked 3rd with 11% unit share. Samsung was 4th on the list with 9% share and Oppo came 5th with 7% share in Pakistan’s smartphones market.

In future, Infinix plans to focus on bringing cutting-edge technologies into Pakistan. One of its spectacular innovations is the Concept Phone 2021 that boasts a 160W fast-charging, to fully charge a 4,000 mAh battery in just 10 minutes. It is also working on other revolutionary features like; Color-changing technology to liven up the rear panel. Meanwhile, Infinix is also developing a sustainable technological ecosystem that will nurture the support industries for local-manufacturing of devices in Pakistan.

Currently, all three Infinix plants in Pakistan are based on Semi Knocked Down (SKD) components only. However, Infinix is now striving to enable ‘Completely Knocked Down’ (CKD) manufacturing in the country, to significantly reduce the cost of production, and achieve higher efficiencies. The CKD production-model will create a lot more room for local manufacturers to improve their quality-standards and build-capacity to produce more sophisticated technologies, indigenously. Infinix is thus enabling Pakistani industries to gain self-sufficiency in producing smart-devices. This game-changing development will soon bring tremendous opportunities for the mobile sector, leading to a brighter future for the nation.

Lahore (NUT-DESK)

Clubhouse, an audio-only chat app, said  it will launch a spatial audio feature to make voices sound as if they’re coming from different directions, helping conversations and virtual performances feel more life-like.

The app, which is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, jumpstarted the social audio trend last year and became known for chatrooms of thousands that included chief executives and celebrities. However, it faces increasing competition from larger tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Spotify, which have all introduced their own social audio chat features.

The new surround-sound-like feature will help Clubhouse lean into performances and entertainment rooms that have proliferated on the app.

Depending on how many speakers are in a Clubhouse room and a variety of other factors, the app’s technology will assign users a spatial positioning, so that the listener will hear the voices surround them in their headphones, said Justin Uberti, Clubhouse’s head of streaming technology.

In comedy rooms for instance, Clubhouse’s technology will detect the main speaker and place that person’s voice in the “front,” while the laughter of other people could sound as if they’re coming from a listener’s left and right sides, he said.

“I could hear people laughing and the room erupts around me,” Uberti said. “You can imagine in music … there’s a lot of potential.”

The spatial technology also makes it easier to detect when different users are speaking, whereas people previously might have to pay attention to the speakers’ cadence and vocal timbre, he added. Clubhouse, which started as an invite-only app and recently was opened to all users, said more than 700,000 rooms are now created each day, up from 300,000 in May. Spatial audio will roll out first to iOS users and then Android users soon after, Clubhouse said.

Lahore (NUT-DESK)

Google is seemingly adamant in its decision to maintain the coveted role of default search engine on iOS, a strategy that could generate nearly $15 billion for Apple in 2021, according to one industry analyst.

The analysts drew out two potential risks for Google’s payment to Apple, regulatory risk and Google deciding the deal is no longer worth it. Google may end the deal or it may try to renegotiate terms and decrease the amount it pays. The regulatory risk is a 4-5% impact to Apple’s gross profits in case of an adverse ruling.

Apple has been criticized for retaining Google as a search engine over the years, but the company’s senior director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, provided reasons in an interview, that Google was the most popular search engine. Google payments to the company account for Services segment, which helps showcase to its investors that it has more ways to grow revenue and profit.

While Google continues to pay hefty amounts to Apple to retain its search engine in Safari browsers, analysts predict the amount may increase over the years, leaving Google to stop payments or renegotiate the price to be paid with Apple.