Latest news with #Plus
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Apple may raise iPhone 18 prices after Q2 pull-in, says Jefferies
-- Apple may increase prices for its upcoming iPhone 18 lineup following evidence of strong second-quarter demand and mounting cost pressures, according to analysts at Jefferies. 'We saw more evidence of strong iPhone demand in 2Q25,' said Jefferies, pointing to around 22% year-over-year growth in equipment sales reported by major U.S. telecoms. That figure, the highest in six quarters, was 'driven by pull-in' ahead of potential tariffs, the firm noted, suggesting that industry trackers like Counterpoint and IDC may be underestimating Apple's shipment growth. Jefferies reiterated its forecast of an 8% year-on-year increase in iPhone shipments for the June quarter, above Counterpoint's and IDC's reported figures of 4% and 1.5%, respectively. Despite this strength, Jefferies does not expect a stock re-rating based solely on current data. Looking ahead, Jefferies sees Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) raising the selling price of the iPhone 18 Slim, Plus, and Pro Max models by $50 to help offset 'higher component costs and China tariff.' The price hike would represent a 4%–5% increase year-over-year, but Jefferies cautioned that the move 'may barely cover the above cost increases.' Jefferies also highlighted Apple's accelerating shift of iPhone production to India. It expects 18% of iPhone 18 units to be made in India in the second half of 2025, rising to 35% by late 2026. However, it warned that lower yields and higher logistics costs in India could add pressure to margins. 'Supply chain security and India's localization requirement may prompt AAPL to move even if financially it does not justify the move,' Jefferies added. Related articles Apple may raise iPhone 18 prices after Q2 pull-in, says Jefferies Kering Q2 revenue falls 18% due to weak retail, wholesale sales and tourism slump Booking reports Q2 beat on strong travel demand, shares down on cautious outlook
Scottish Sun
3 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
Millions of Monzo customers warned they'll lose access to bank accounts if they don't act NOW
We've explained how to check if you're affected DON'T BANK ON THAT Millions of Monzo customers warned they'll lose access to bank accounts if they don't act NOW Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) MILLIONS of Monzo customers are being warned that they'll lose access to bank accounts if they don't act. The popular online challenger bank is urging users to upgrade their phone's operating system or risk losing access to its services. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 If customers fail to upgrade their OS - or switch to a newer device if their current one doesn't support the update - the Monzo app will eventually stop working altogether Credit: PA:Press Association The bank has announced that from October 31 2025, it will no longer support app updates on devices running operating systems older than iOS 16 and Android 9. If customers fail to upgrade their OS - or switch to a newer device if their current one doesn't support the update - the Monzo app will eventually stop working altogether. In an email to affected customers, Monzo said: "We've noticed you've recently used Monzo from a version of iOS or Android that we'll stop supporting on October 31, 2025. "This is because it's running on an older operating system (OS) that isn't getting the latest security updates and Monzo features. "So both your device and Monzo account aren't as secure as they could be. "We regularly stop Monzo from working with older operating systems. "If your device doesn't support a more recent OS, you'll need to use a newer device to keep using your Monzo account." For those with older phones that cannot support newer OS versions, the bank recommends upgrading to a newer device. iPhones that will be impacted and lose support are those that cannot update to iOS 16. This includes the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and the first-generation iPhone SE. Switch bank accounts for free perks For users of these older models, the Monzo app will eventually stop working, and access to their accounts through the app will be cut off. iPhones that will be supported include the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the iPhone X, and all later models, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE and newer. Meanwhile, some notable Samsung devices, such as the flagship Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge from 2016, will not be able to run the Monzo app. The original Google Pixel and Pixel XL phones will also be impacted. If you own one of these devices, you will need to ensure your software is updated to continue using the Monzo app after October 31, 2025. A spokesperson for Monzo said: "This is an incredibly common practice among reliable and trusted app providers. "We always recommend that customers run the latest version of their phone's operating system for the best and most secure app experience." How do I check my phone's operating system? On iOS: Go to Settings > General > About On Android: Go to Settings > About phone > Android version Note: it may vary slightly depending on your current version and device manufacturer. What else is happening at Monzo? Monzo is a UK-based digital, app-only bank that was founded in 2015. It is known as a "challenger bank" because it aims to compete with and disrupt traditional high-street banks by offering a more modern, user-friendly experience. Operating entirely through a mobile app without any physical branches, Monzo has more than 12million personal and business banking customers in the UK. In March, Monzo said it will no longer put parents on a waitlist to sign their children up for an under-16 bank account. The free account is for children aged 6 to 15 and is linked to a parent or guardian's Monzo account. Like standard Monzo accounts, the youngsters receive a debit card and also have access to pots for saving. But parents can set limits on spending and turn cash withdrawals or online spending off. In April, Monzo scrapped interest charges for customers whose account balances dip below £0, offering a fairer deal for those without an arranged overdraft. Previously, customers entering an unarranged overdraft faced steep interest rates of 19%, 29%, or 39%, depending on their credit score -those with lower scores often bore the brunt of the highest charges. To soften the blow, the bank capped monthly interest charges at £15.50. However, Monzo has taken a more customer-friendly approach, removing interest charges entirely for unarranged overdrafts. In May, Monzo slashed the interest rate on one of its savings accounts. The interest rate on its Personal Instant Access Savings Pots fell from 3.50% AER to 3.25% AER. AER, or Annual Equivalent Rate, is used to show you what you could earn from a savings account over a year. A lower AER means you will have less money in your savings account over a year because it indicates a lower rate of interest being paid on your savings.
Extra.ie
4 hours ago
- Business
- Extra.ie
Irish EuroMillions player just one number away from €150m fortune
An Irish EuroMillions player was just one number away from a life-changing jackpot win in Tuesday's draw. More than 45,000 players in Ireland won prizes on Tuesday's EuroMillions and Plus games. Amongst the winners was a punter who matched four numbers plus the two lucky stars in the main draw — meaning they were just one number away from a €150m win. An Irish EuroMillions player was just one number away from a life-changing jackpot win in Tuesday's draw. Pic: Shutterstock. The winning numbers for Tuesday's main EuroMillions draw was: 05, 06, 42, 44, 46 and the Lucky Stars were 04 and 08. The player had to settle for a prize of €2,256 having matched 4+2 Stars, while the eye-watering €150m jackpot rolls over to Friday's draw. The EuroMillions Plus draw numbers were: 19, 25, 31, 35 and 45. The €500,000 jackpot also went unclaimed, however 40 players did win €2,000 having matched four correct numbers. The EuroMillions Plus draw numbers were: 19, 25, 31, 35 and 45. Pic: Getty Images In the Ireland Only raffle, 10 punters bagged themselves €5,000 each. The winning raffle numbers were: I-SLT-48498; 1-SLT-49895; I-SLT-81043; I-SLW-00536; I-SLX-03786; I-SLX-61779; I-SLZ-19406; I-SLZ-95220; I-SMB030044; I-SMB-51977. The National lottery are urging all players to check their tickets carefully. It comes not long after it was revealed that a Cork family syndicate were the winners of the mammoth EuroMillions jackpot prize last month. The country went wild after it was revealed a Cork EuroMillions player had picked up the record €250m prize, with the lucky shop revealed to be Clifford's Centra on Shandon Street in the city. Pic: Mac Innes Photography The country went wild after it was revealed a Cork EuroMillions player had picked up the record €250m prize, with the lucky shop revealed to be Clifford's Centra on Shandon Street in the city. Speculation was rife as to where and who was the luckiest person in the country, with National Lottery at the time urging the lucky punter to 'stay calm.' Understandably, the family have opted to remain anonymous, but admitted the life-changing windfall has been 'surreal.' One member admitted that they were a regular player but hadn't picked up a ticket for the two previous draws, but decided to buy one on their way to an appointment. 'I was watching the Nine O'Clock News and saw that someone in Ireland had the winning EuroMillions ticket,' they shared, 'Naturally, I got my ticket and scanned it on the National Lottery app, and a message popped up, 'You've won big, contact the National Lottery.''
Tom's Guide
6 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
Samsung Galaxy S26 — everything we know so far
Now that the 2025 foldables from Samsung have arrived, it's time to pivot our attention onto the Samsung Galaxy S26. The S26 launch may still be several months out, but we're still eager to see what Samsung has in store for 2026 — and how it's going to push its flagship devices forward. It's still quite early in the Galaxy S26 rumor cycle, so there are plenty of things we don't know about the upcoming lineup. But we have started hearing some murmurs about what to expect, which will only increase as we get closer to 2026. One noteworthy rumor suggests Samsung may revert back to releasing three phones instead of four, as it did with the Galaxy S25 — but which three? Here's what we know about the Samsung Galaxy S26 so far. While we don't have a definite launch date for the Galaxy S26, we do know that Samsung generally sticks to the same release window each year. As of late, Samsung's new flagships typically arrive toward the end of January and start of February with a Galaxy Unpacked event taking place around the start of the year. A wider release typically follows two weeks later. This brief window also means the release lands between January's CES and MWC at the end of February. In other words, Samsung schedules the Unpacked launch event at a time when it's going to dominate the limelight. It's also timed so that Samsung can claim to have the first phones arriving at the start of the year, though recently OnePlus has beaten it to the punch by a few weeks, at least in China. For what it's worth, the Unpacked 2025 event that gave us the Galaxy S25 launch took place on January 22. The 2024 edition happened on January 17. Both of those events took place in San Jose, Calif. As for the Galaxy S26 price, we can't be sure right now as that information tends to emerge closer to the launch event itself. But one piece of good news is that the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 is reportedly going to be the same price as the original Elite chipset. That gives Samsung one less component to have to worry about paying more for, and a better chance that prices will stay static. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Prices on Samsung flagships currently start at $799 for the Galaxy S25. The Plus model costs $999 while the Galaxy S25 Edge debuted at $1,099. The Galaxy S25 Ultra is the most expensive phone in the lineup, starting at $1,299. The arrival of the Galaxy S25 Edge in the spring brought the number of Galaxy S25 models to four. And that's before the release of the Galaxy S25 FE, which some people expect to see later this year. The words is, that Samsung may trim down the number of entries in the Galaxy S26 lineup. Specifically, the Galaxy S25 Plus may have been the last model of its kind. Instead, Samsung is rumored to be replacing the Plus with a Galaxy S26 Edge — similar to how Apple is reportedly replacing the iPhone 17 Plus with the iPhone 17 Air when its new phones arrive this fall. Sadly the S26 may follow the example set by the just-released Galaxy Z Fold 7, and ditch the S Pen stylus. According to leaker PandaFlashPro, Samsung may ditch the digitizer layer in the screen to offer true magnetic Qi2 wireless charging — something the S25 series lacks. Without that layer, the current S Pen won't work. However there is some speculation that Samsung could have a different digitizer-free stylus, though it would likely be too large to store inside the phone itself. Samsung may also be ditching the hole-punch camera in the S26 Ultra, with leaker Kro_roe claiming that an under display camera is on the way. We have our doubts, since the under display camera was recently removed from the Z Fold 7, but it could mean that the Ultra model finally gets the uninterrupted display we've been dreaming about. As for the rest of the S26 design, a report from well-known leaker Ice Universe suggests that the Galaxy S26 Ultra won't look all that different from the Galaxy S25 Ultra. That leaker says we can expect some extra height and width, lower weight, and the same 6.9-inch display. The first major camera rumor we've heard about the 2026 Samsung flagships claims that the entry-level Galaxy S26 will retain the 50MP main camera for another year. That said, we may see a brand new sensor, one that's larger than before to capture more light — something that can greatly benefit picture quality in different conditions. The bigger change could come to the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which may up the ante on the telephoto lens. Some rumors promise a 200MP zooming camera with 5x magnification. The trademark secondary telephoto lens on the Ultra is also reported to get a boost to 50MP, with 3.5x optical magnification. However all that pales in comparison compared to rumors of a 324MP main camera — though that may be a bit excessive. Further speculation claims the S26 Ultra may see the return of variable aperture, something we haven't seen on a Galaxy since 2019. The old implementation was a lot less flexible than what other phone makers, like Xiaomi, have offered in recent years. So it'll be exciting to see what Samsung can do with it. Since the Galaxy S25 series runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, our guess is that Samsung would opt for the next generation Snapdragon chip for the S26 — which we assume will be the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. Given how powerful the Elite chipset has proven itself, how much better will the Elite 2 be? One rumor by Digital Chat Station suggests the new chipset will be considerably more powerful — with a 4.6GHz CPU and 1.2 GHz GPU — an increase from the 4.47GHz CPU in the current Elite. This doesn't tell us a lot, but typically the higher the clock speed, the better the chip will be. However there has been some speculation that Samsung could return to using Exynos chipsets, as it did with the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Sadly, Exynos chips often come with weaker performance, as showcased by a comparison of the Galaxy Z Flip 7 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered Motorola Razr Ultra. While it's unclear how widespread this change might be, past releases have seen Samsung only offer phones powered by Qualcomm chips in North America, with the rest of the world getting Exynos chips instead. The fact Qualcomm Snapdragon chips have been more widely available the past few years is more of a blip compared to the previous trend — reportedly due to chip shortages and issues manufacturing 3nm Exynos hardware. Leaker Jukanlosreve claims that the S26 will rely on the Exynos 2600, one generation newer than the 2500 in the Z Flip 7. There have been a bunch of Galaxy S26 battery rumors so far, and none of them can seem to agree on what to expect from the three phones in the lineup. The earliest suggested that we may see the phones come with silicon carbon battery chemistry, which offers much higher power density than ordinary lithium-ion batteries. That would essentially mean more battery capacity without taking up more space. It could also translate to a smaller physical battery that frees up room for other things. It all depends on which way Samsung wants everything to run. Some reports claim that Samsung could increase the battery capacity to somewhere between 6,000 mAh and 7,000 mAh — which would be an incredible leap upwards. Sadly later rumors suggested that the Ultra model wouldn't exceed 5,400 mAh. While larger than the 5,000 mAh battery in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, it's not quite the spectacular increase from those earlier reports, even if it is a lot more believable. In the months since then, we've heard that the battery may not be getting any kind of increase at all, with Ice Universe claiming that the S26 Ultra will have the same 5,000 mAh battery as previous Galaxy Ultra models. Thankfully Ice Universe also claims that the charging speed will finally exceed 45W — later claiming it would hit 60W. While that's something of a meme at this point, it's about time Samsung pushed the charging rate to something that can better rival its Chinese counterparts. One big change that could be happening with Galaxy AI is support for other third party chatbots — not just Gemini and Bixby. Choi Won-Joon, the president and COO of Samsung's mobile division confirmed to Bloomberg that talks have been happening, but didn't specify which (if any) third parties could come to Galaxy AI. Bloomberg notes that Samsung is "nearing a deal" with Perplexity, which would also see Samsung invest in the company. Naturally, we assume that AI will play a huge role in the Galaxy S26's software, which we're guessing will come with a version of One UI 8. However at this early stage it's impossible to say what additional changes we might see from the phones. At this early stage, there's still a lot we don't know about the Galaxy S26 lineup, though the rumors are slowly painting a picture of the kind of phone we should expect. Anyone hoping for a dramatically different-looking set of devices is going to be disappointed, though so far the potential upgrades do sound positive. The rumored loss of the Plus model does intrigue us, especially when you consider that it's been inching ever closer to the Ultra model for the past few years. So the inclusion of the Edge as a part of the main trio could be a very interesting behind-the-scenes shakeup. But for now there's still a lot we don't know about the phones — and we'll have to wait and see what future rumors and leaks hold.
Time of India
13 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
GCCs taking to ‘hub plus one' plan to cut concentration risks
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills At least a fifth of fresh investments into new global capability centres (GCC) over the next one to two years would follow the "hub plus one" strategy, where companies expand from their metro base to add a centre in tier-II cities , showed the data from a major industry facilitator.'Having a second delivery center mitigates risks tied to over-concentration in one city,' said Vikram Ahuja, cofounder, ANSR, which helps clients set up GCCs across the country. 'Improvements in physical and digital infrastructure are making these cities viable for global delivery.'The model is picking up pace, driven by considerations of talent diversification, cost efficiencies, and business continuity and risk diversification, experts said. GCCs have lately been at the forefront of adding technology talent, even as locally listed pureplay outsourcing companies either shed jobs or run a tight ship amid growth challenges in the metros are seen as the nerve centres anchoring complex R&D, high-value functions, and global process ownership, while the 'plus one' centres typically handle standardised or volume-based transactional processes and support functions and may have specialised skill emerging cities offer specialised, high-quality talent pools, especially in areas like analytics, cybersecurity , and digital engineering , Ahuja said, adding that these locations are also evolving into self-sufficient innovation hubs.'The Hubs Plus One model is a strong indicator of a larger trend towards a more dispersed and distributed GCC model,' said Alouk Kumar, CEO, indicates strategic evolution, he said, where core functions and high-value strategic work will remain concentrated in the established metro hubs while scalable, repeatable, and specialised functions will increasingly be pushed out to multiple "plus one" or even "plus X" national and state governments are taking steps to ease GCC setups, Kumar stressed the need for an expedited and pragmatic approach addressing gaps for timely execution and on-ground action.'The approach combines the advantages of tier-I cities with the scalability of tier-II hubs, allowing companies to hedge location risks while optimising costs,' said Kapil Joshi, CEO Quess IT staffing. 'These cities are estimated to contribute 15-18% of net new GCC hiring by 2026, as the 'Hubs Plus One' strategy transitions from pilot to mainstream adoption.'Tier-II and III locations are increasingly tapped for shared services, mid-office operations, digital engineering, and cloud by GCCs in tier-II and III cities has been growing faster than that in the tier-I hubs. Quess data showed that in Q1 FY26, hiring grew in Coimbatore by 34% sequentially, in Kochi by 28%, and Ahmedabad by 25%, outpacing the six metros where hiring grew between 3-10%. On average, tier-II hiring by GCCs is growing at nearly 20% are challenges, cities are still struggling to meet the depth requirements of advanced digital roles, such as full-stack DevOps, GenAI engineering, and L3+ cybersecurity. About 50% of complex mandates are being re-routed back to tier-1 locations, where talent density, peer networks, and marquee projects remain key magnets for senior professionals, as per of the end of June, among GCCs of Fortune Global 500 companies in India, over 20 companies have GCCs in emerging hubs acting as 'plus one' centre, ANSR data instance, Uber which has centres in Hyderabad, Bengaluru has its 'plus one' in Vizag. Allianz has a metro centre in Pune and a satellite in Trivandrum. Ford has set up in Coimbatore alongside its centres in Bengaluru, NCR, and progress, some tier-2/3 cities still lag in Grade-A office spaces, power reliability, internet bandwidth, and urban mobility, Ahuja said.
