Oppo to launch selfie-focused ‘Oppo F5’ in India with AI Beauty Recognition technology

The Oppo F5 launch is set to happen on November 2

Oppo expects to launch its bezel-free display phone in the Indian market on November 2. The company has sent the invites for the launch event. The official launch of the device in the country has been much awaited.

The complete details of the specifications and features of the new Oppo F5 are yet to be revealed and much of it is still in the realm of speculation. However, the little that is available can be shared here:

The phone is expected to sport a 6-inch full HD display with a screen resolution of 1080x2160pixels and this would be a full screen display with the aspect ratio being 18:9. Oppo may go in for two variants as far as the RAM is concerned; these could be 4GB and 6GB and the internal storage for the corresponding variant would be 64GB and 128GB respectively.

The processor is being rumored to be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 or 660 and the battery would be a sizeable 4000mAh.

On the camera front, while the exact sizes of the sensors in the rear and the front are not known, there is definitely the hint that the emphasis will be on the selfie capabilities of the phone. Even the invite mentions the tagline “capture the real you” pointing to the importance of the selfie camera. If one were to go by the rumors, the Oppo F5 will feature the AI Beauty Recognition technology, which will enable the front camera to identify the type of skin tone, age and even the gender of the person being photographed and this will then be applied towards enhancing the overall user experience in clicking the selfies and obtaining the best outputs.   

The Oppo F5 will be made available to India and five other countries from November 2; these are Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.   

One will also have to wait till November 2 to know the price of the new Oppo F5.

M&A

Flipkart in talks to buy large minority stake in BookMyShow

If the proposed deal goes through, BMS is likely to be valued at $500-700 million.

Homegrown ecommerce major Flipkart is reportedly in talks with buy a large minority stake in online ticketing platform BookMyShow. As per a Mint report, Flipkart wants to not only invest fresh capital but also buy shares from some of BMS’ parent Bigtree Entertainment’s investors.

This move by Flipkart is being seen as its efforts to improve customer stickiness and gain a lot more out of urban India’s spending.

If the proposed deal goes through, BMS is likely to be valued at $500-700 million. Flipkart’s initial intention was reportedly to buy out BMS, however, sources told Mint that a stake sale is more likely that a complete buyout.

Founded back in 1999 by Ashish Hemrajani, Rajesh Balpande, Parikshit Dar, Mumbai-based BMS is an online ticketing company, not just for movies but also for events and sports. It is one of the very few profitable internet business in India. Mint reports that the firm posted a profit of Rs 3.1 crore on revenue of Rs 248 crore for the year ended March 2016.

It last raised Rs 550 crore in July 2016 from Stripes Group, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners and Network18 at a valuation of over Rs 3,000 crore. Accel is also an investor in Flipkart.

BookMyShow now faces competition from Paytm, which recently bought a majority stake in Insider.

At a time when Amazon is expanding beyond ecommerce through Prime, this could be Flipkart’s move to stay ahead of competition and ensure customers stay loyal to Flipkart. Mint reports that Flipkart is seeking a deal and business partnership with BookMyShow with the idea of getting a higher share of the spending by upper-middle-class and rich Indians.

And since Flipkart doesn’t have an equivalent service such as Prime, it is looking to forge partnerships with the likes of BookMyShow.

Flipkart has been on an acquisition spree over the past few years. Now plush with funds from SoftBank and Tencent holdings, Mint reports that Flipkart plans to pursue more M&A deals. Since inception in 2007, it has bought or invested in over 20 companies.

Last month, Flipkart bought F1 Info Solutions, which offers repair services for mobiles and electronics, for an undisclosed amount. Before that it bought eBay’s India operations earlier this year.

Its largest acquisition was that of online fashion retailer Myntra for more than $330 million in May 2014 and Jabong in July 2016. Earlier this year, it also tried to buy Snapdeal for nearly $1 billion in stock but the deal collapsed in August after Snapdeal decided to continue operations on its own.

The Andhra Pradesh government supported financial technology-focused eco-system, Fintech Valley Vizag in conducting its first accelerator programme with eight start-ups. These new eight were selected from 20, which were shortlisted, through a process of personal interactions with the startups.  

The accelerator programme envisages a 12-week residential orientation and the attendees will be provided access to technology and guidance on fund-raising and on matters legal. In addition, each of them will also be eligible for a Rs. 4 lakh grant. The selected startups are operating in different domains. A brief sketch of those eight companies are as below:

GyanDhan: This specialises in syndicating overseas education loans and students can access the different funding options to fund their higher education.

Moneytor: This is a Mumbai-based company working towards improving the efficiency of the stressed receivables recovery market using machine learning technologies.

Incremint: Incremint runs an online platform for financial products which can be cross-sold on their site by different financial advisors. They are headquartered in Delhi.

TAQBit: Based out of Bangalore, TAQBit is into cybersecurity solutions for enterprises and uses quantum technology to build their products in this space.

iProov: This is a London based startup and its special capabilities include face recognition-based authentication solutions and some of the vertical they are associated with include healthcare, ecommerce and financial services.

Nanobi: Business analytics is this company’s forte and they focus on the SME sector to offer their services.

FingPay: This startup is also based out of Mumbai and facilitates point of sales payments through e-wallets or even bank accounts by using finger scan.

Heckyl Technologies: They are also in the same analytics space, offering data analytics of both structured and unstructured data. Financial institutions can also draw on their high-end analytics capabilities.

Fintech is one area the government of Andhra Pradesh appears to be keen on developing in the state and is even working towards creating a fintech fund for this purpose.