Technology
Samsung Records Highest Smartphones Sales in Q3 2020
By Adedapo Adesanya
Samsung recorded the most sales to end-users in the third quarter of 2020 as it sold 80.8 million units, indicating a 22 per cent market share of the smartphone sale market.
This followed an improvement in Q3 sales after seeing a slump in the early months of the year, according to the latest findings from research firm Gartner.
Following Samsung was Huawei, who was in the second spot, but is seeing a year-on-year decline in sales. Its third-quarter sales for 2020 were 51.8 million units, down from 65.8 million units last year.
Huawei’s slight decline compared to last year saw one of its core competitors Xiaomi grow its share from 8.5 per cent in 2019 to 12.1 per cent this year, taking the third spot from Apple, who sold 44.4 million units as against 2019’s 32.9 million units.
Huawei, despite some contraction, still holds 14.1 per cent market share, but it is lower than 16.9 per cent market share last year. Its annual growth saw a significant decline of 21.3 per cent.
Apple takes the fourth position in global smartphone sales figures with 40.5 million units in Q3 2020 and a market share of 11.1 per cent. It saw an annual decline of 0.6 per cent.
Despite a late start to the iPhone 12 lineup, Apple posted a record quarter for its fourth quarter in 2020.
Oppo becomes a part of the top five original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to achieve the highest smartphone sales globally. It sold over 29.8 million units in Q3 2020 raking in a market share of 8.2 per cent. Its annual growth also saw a decline of 2.3 per cent.
Gartner noted that worldwide smartphone sales to end-users totalled 366 million units in the third quarter of 2020, down 5.7 per cent from the third quarter of 2019.
Overall global mobile phone sales to end users totalled 401 million units, a decline of 8.7 per cent year-over-year. The research firm explained that quarterly smartphone sales saw a slump in the early quarters of 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis but noted that a sequential recovery was noticed in the third quarter.
Speaking on this, Mr Anshul Gupta, senior research director at Gartner said, “Early signs of recovery can be seen in a few markets, including parts of mature Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Near normal conditions in China improved smartphone production to fill in the supply gap in the third quarter which benefited sales to some extent.
“For the first time this year, smartphone sales to end-users in three of the top five markets i.e., India, Indonesia and Brazil increased, growing 9.3 per cent, 8.5 per cent, and 3.3 per cent, respectively.”
By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Thursday, July 23, 2026, provided an opportunity for financial services professionals to converge on Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, to brainstorm on ways to meet the rising customers’ expectations.
The platform used for this purpose was Core by Interswitch. It is part of the company’s broader commitment to strengthening Africa’s digital payments ecosystem by fostering collaboration, knowledge sharing and operational excellence across the financial services value chain.
At the event, participants, numbering over 400, also highlighted the growing importance of operational excellence in sustaining resilient payment infrastructure.
As digital financial services continue to expand across Africa, closer collaboration among financial institutions, fintechs and payment service providers will be essential to improving responsiveness, resolving operational challenges more effectively and delivering consistently reliable customer experiences.
The Executive Vice President for Operations and Technology at Interswitch, Mr Babafemi Ogungbamila, said the forum reflects the company’s belief that exceptional customer experiences are built not only on innovative technology but also on the expertise, collaboration and commitment of the professionals who keep payment systems running every day.
“Every successful digital transaction is powered by professionals whose work often goes unseen but is fundamental to building trust in digital payments. Core by Interswitch was created to recognise their contribution, strengthen collaboration across the industry and create opportunities for shared learning that ultimately benefit financial institutions and the customers they serve.
“As digital payments continue to evolve, investing in the people and processes that power the technology is just as important as investing in the technology itself,” Mr Ogungbamila said.
Beyond recognising the professionals whose work often goes unnoticed, the programme underscored the value of creating stronger connections across the payments ecosystem.
By creating a dedicated platform for knowledge sharing, collaboration and professional development, Core by Interswitch aims to build a more connected community of payments operations professionals equipped to respond to the evolving demands of the digital economy.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
WhatsApp has been updated with a web calling feature, allowing users to now make and receive audio and video calls, both one-on-one and group, directly from WhatsApp Web.
A notice from the Meta-owned messaging platform disclosed that this feature works without the need to download any app.
It was disclosed that this update was made to WhatsApp to make it easier for users to make calls wherever they are and on whatever device, phone or laptop.
Users will have access to features available on their other devices, including screen sharing, reactions, and a dedicated Calls tab with full call history and favourites, all from their browsers.
WhatsApp noted that calls from this feature are end-to-end encrypted, with no time limits and at no cost, as it is the same private experience they expect from the platform.
WhatsApp has also been embedded with easy call transfer, enabling the movement of an active group call from one device to another without hanging up. Users can seamlessly transfer calls to WhatsApp Web or Desktop when they arrive home to collaborate on a larger screen – or vice versa.
The platform further said it now has QuickHD, which allows for an improved video experience at the beginning of a call. With QuickHD, users can now enjoy high-definition video immediately in the very first few seconds of the call.
In addition, it has launched noise suppression to remove the background noise around callers so their voices come through clearly to the person on the other end, even in loud or busy environments. This can be managed at any time in in-call settings.
WhatsApp said these features are rolling out gradually and will be available to everyone soon, expressing its desire to make WhatsApp calling simpler to use.
Modded Minecraft worlds take weeks to build. Custom biomes, terraformed landscapes, established bases — losing any of it to a corrupted chunk or a failed update is devastating. Backups aren’t optional for modded servers. They’re essential.
Modded hosting with reliable backups protects everything players have built across every minecraft biome types the pack introduces — without requiring manual backup routines that nobody remembers to run.
Why Modded Worlds Are More Vulnerable to Data Loss
Vanilla Minecraft worlds are relatively stable. Modded worlds have more ways to break. Mod updates can corrupt chunk data if block IDs change. Crashes during chunk generation leave partial files. Automated farms that run while no players are online can cause chunk-level issues over time.
Biomes added by mods require extra care. Changing biome mods later can cause unexpected problems. If the old biome data no longer exists, Minecraft may not know how to read parts of the world anymore. The Minecraft Wiki explains that every generated chunk keeps its own biome information in the save. Modded biomes require their mod to be present to load correctly — removing the mod without migrating chunks first causes permanent data loss in those areas.
Minecraft Biome Types: What Mods Add
People often focus on giant mountains or rare structures, but smaller biome changes matter too. A carefully designed minecraft grass biome can completely change the appearance of an entire region. Once that combines with improved forests, rivers, and mountain generation, exploration naturally takes longer because there’s almost always another interesting place nearby. There’s a massive difference once biome mods are installed. Biomes O’ Plenty alone adds over 80 biomes. Terralith adds another 95 plus, although it still builds worlds using Minecraft’s regular generation system rather than a custom one. Oh The Biomes You’ll Go adds tropical and fantasy biomes not found in either.
Each of these creates a richer world to explore — and more unique terrain to protect. A player who spends two sessions exploring and settling in a modded cherry blossom grove loses something irreplaceable if that chunk gets corrupted without a backup.
Content creator and modpack player Noxite has described modded biome exploration as one of the most memorable experiences in the game — “every new biome feels like discovering a location that exists only in your world.” Backups protect that discovery.
Many players only start thinking about backups after something goes wrong. It’s surprisingly easy for a modded world to develop problems. Maybe the server restarts halfway through chunk generation, or a mod update changes world data in a way the old save no longer understands. Even experienced server owners don’t get through every update without issues. Sometimes everything looks fine until someone explores a new biome and discovers broken chunks. At that point, having a recent backup is usually the simplest solution instead of trying to repair damaged terrain piece by piece.
What a Reliable Backup System Looks Like for Modded Servers
For modded worlds, backup requirements go beyond vanilla minimums:
- Daily automated backups — at minimum; hourly for active community servers
- Full world backups — not just player data; entire world folder including all dimensions
- Pre-update snapshots — automatic backup triggered before any mod or server update
- Offsite storage — backups stored separately from the server to survive hardware failure
- Easy restoration — one-click restore to a specific backup without technical support
Protecting Every Biome You’ve Explored
Minecraft biomes wiki entries for modded biomes often include notes about save compatibility across versions. The community’s experience is consistent: mod updates break worlds more often than player actions do. Regular backups are the only reliable protection.
Choose modded hosting with reliable backups that runs automatically, stores multiple restore points, and makes restoration simple. The time investment in setting up proper backups is always less than the time lost rebuilding after a preventable data loss event.
