Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei will invest 150 million U.S. dollars in its research and development (R&D) centre to be built in Bangalore, the state capital of India's southern state of Karnataka, a top company official said Monday.
The centre will come up over 1 million sq feet and can accommodate about 4,000 people, according to the company whose revenues were at 32 billion U.S. dollars in 2011.
Huawei officials did not want to specify their hiring plans, but indicated they would pick up telecom engineers and networking specialists whenever there was a need. The development centre will cater to Huawei's enterprise, telecom operators and cellphone business segments.
"We see demand coming from 4G rollout in India, and the centre will work on our NextGen smartphone handsets,"Scott Sykes, vice- president of Corporate Media Affairs of Huawei Technologies, told the media.
Last year, Huawei started making smartphones and, according to company officials, has sold 60 million smartphones till date. The Indian centre will work on technologies that can increase battery life in smartphones. "We already have smartphones that come with two days of battery life and are looking to further reduce the form factor in a smartphone and provide better quality battery life and run on the latest networks," the official said. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, Huawei launched its slimmest smartphone at 6.68mm weighing about 110 gm.
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