Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus opened its first R&D centre in India at Hyderabad. The company will invest over Rs 1,000 crores in the next three years to make the new facility its largest globally. This is the third R&D facility of the company after Shenzhen and Taipei.
The Hyderabad centre was launched by TRS working president K.T. Rama Rao and will eventually house over 200 employees spread across five floors over 186,000 square feet. It is expected to employ over 1,500 in the next three years.The facility will be headed by Ramagopala Reddy Palukuri as company’s vice president for R&D in India.
"In three years, we plan to grow the new R&D centre in Hyderabad into our biggest globally. We plan to re-focus our R&D efforts on a large scale and drive innovations in India for the global product, especially on the software side with special emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, 5G and IoT," Founder and CEO of OnePlus Pete Lau said.
OnePlus said the R&D facility will cater to both the needs of the Indian market and the global market. OnePlus devices are the leading contributor to the growth of the premium segment with Samsung and Apple shares shown to be stagnating.
The OnePlus Hyderabad R&D centre will house three labs—camera lab, communications and networking labs and automation labs—that will focus heavily on camera development, 5G testing, software with a focus on AI and performance.
With the Shenzhen R&D facility spearheading hardware and product development, the Hyderabad facility will primarily focus on the software side. Features like the Zen Mode and the smart SMS inbox feature have already come out of India and was later rolled out globally. OnePlus said it will contribute to the Modi government's Digital India initiative and collaborate with multiple startups in the country to offer customised services. OnePlus was also quick to note that the company won'i simply pre-load apps on its devices. Instead, they will be customised with OnePlus’ own UX.
OnePlus said it will be relocating product managers to Hyderabad and hire local talents from leading engineering colleges to spearhead the software development. Last year, the company had initiated campus hiring programmes in IIT Delhi and IIT Mumbai.
The Hyderabad facility will also support OnePlus' other global requirements including 5G solutions.
