There were many announcements last week, but the most interesting were Facebook’s (FB) progress in India, Google’s (GOOGL) lure to XP users and the new graphics processing unit (:GPU) from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Facebook Crosses 100 Million Users in India

TechCrunch reports that Facebook users in India crossed 100 million on Mar 31 this year making India a close second to the U.S. Not only that – Facebook users in India are growing at a much faster rate than the U.S. (10X in 4 years) with every possibility of India outpacing the U.S. in 2014 itself.

A number of factors have played a part in this. On Facebook’s part, there has been great focus on rural India where it first tied with Vodafone to get locals on board. Second, keeping in mind the uniqueness of India with respect to languages (it is the only nation state with over 20 languages in daily use), Facebook has made its service available in many Indian languages including Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Third, Facebook has focused on mobile. Similar to other Asian countries, India has its fair share of mobile users (84% of Facebook users connect through mobile devices), which makes for a broader user base.

Facebook is also extremely well-suited to the cultural diversity and basic characteristic of Indians to discuss and debate. Facebook being a non-restrictive platform unlike Twitter (TWTR), there is great scope for doing just that. It should therefore benefit greatly from any events such as the ongoing elections in India.

However, while usage should continue to grow, monetization is not likely to be as easy. That’s mainly because of the dollar-rupee differential, which is unlikely to change materially any time soon. So Facebook can only win with volumes. It has already successfully wooed big spenders like Tata DoCoMo, Vodafone Zoozoos, Kingfisher, Pepsi India, Jet Airways and Jabong. There are also a large number of small enterprises on the platform. Rural disposable income makes it difficult to consume branded products, so this is where the small enterprises could come in handy.

Intel Alters Reporting Structure

Intel (INTC) is dissolving the Other Intel Architecture segment and including different parts within other segments. Two new segments are thus being created, including the Internet Of Things Group (:IOTG) and the Mobile and Communications Group (MCG.V). MCG will now include revenue from phone and tablet chips. Revenue from Wind River moves from the Software and Services Group the newly-formed IOTG, with gateway and STB revenues being included in the PC Client Group and communications infrastructure in the Data Center Group. This is despite the fact that it lost the socket in Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 4 to Qualcomm.

The separate disclosure of revenue from mobile products and IoT is positive, since it will now be easier to track this revenue. It also indicates that Intel anticipates strong growth in the new segments.

Google Looking For a Piece of XP Upgrade

Microsoft has officially withdrawn support to XP and users that avoided moving to Vista, Win 7, Win 8 or Win 8.1 are now being pushed to go for an upgrade. Microsoft’s primary target is the enterprise, where it needs to increase penetration of its latest OS. And this is where Google would like to pick up a share, so it’s offering some impressive discounts on its Chromebook.

Google has announced a $100 discount on very Chromebook bought by companies. This discount will increase to $200 if companies also purchase VMware’s Horizon Desktop as a Service (DaaS), which starts at $35 per month per user. Since VMware’s DaaS greatly enhances the Chromebook experience by virtualizing even legacy Windows apps, the discount makes sense.

Users opting for the Citrix XenApp Platinum Edition instead of VMware’s service will get a 25% discount on that service. This is very impressive considering the fact that the basic Chromebook comes for just $199 to $329 plus an additional $150 for Google’s management console and support.

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Other stories you may have missed-

New Apple Products On the Way: Rumor has it that Apple (AAPL) will launch not one, but two iPhones of different display sizes this year, with the first one coming to market as soon as July. Separately, a Piper Jaffray survey of 7,500 teens revealed a strong interest in Apple’s upcoming iWatch. Around 17% said they would go for the device (up from 12% in October) if it was priced at around $350. Android smart watches are expected this summer.

AMD Takes A Leap in Graphics: Last week, AMD stole NVIDIA’s thunder to launch the Radeon R9 295X2, the world’s fastest GPU. AMD also priced aggressively, which could help it gain a foothold in the high-end graphics market. For entry-level desktops, AMD announced a socketed Kabini accelerated processing unit (APU), which includes Jaguar cores (competitor to Intel’s Atom). This will allow companies to replace the APU without changing the motherboard, a feature that was previously available only on more expensive desktops.

Facebook’s WhatsApp Deal Cleared by FTC: Facebook says that its $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp has been cleared by the FTC after they made commitments to protect user privacy. This includes a clause that disallows WhatsApp from using user data for targeting ads.

Icahn Withdraws from PayPal Fight: Activist investor Carl Icahn withdrew from the fight with eBay management. Icahn had been calling for PayPal’s spin-off from eBay, which eBay management thought did not make sense because the two were dependent on each other for traffic, revenue and profits.

Weibo Plans an IPO

PC Shipments to Gain From XP Retirement: IDC and Gartner printed PC shipment numbers for the first quarter. Both firms were of the opinion that the withdrawal of Microsoft’s support to XP is helping PC sales. This is the main reason that the decline in PC shipments may be expected to moderate through the year.

Big Tech reporting This Week: Intel, AMD, Google, Yahoo (YHOO) and IBM are reporting this week. Based on a combination of rank and ESP, Intel seems to be the most likely to beat estimates.

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