Hyderabad: While Inaugurating the country’s largest R&D facility in Hyderabad, Chinese premium smart phone maker OnePlus announced that it plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore in the new facility in Hyderabad over the next three years.
OnePlus plans to increase head count in Hyderabad to 1,500 employees from the current 200 personnel. Pete Lau, founder and CEO of OnePlus, TRS working president KT Rama Rao and IT Secretary Jayesh Ranjan inaugurated OnePlus’ first R&D centre in India at Vamsiram’s Sohini Tech Park in Financial District.
Pete said Hyderabad is one of the fastest growing markets for OnePlus, and added, “As we expand beyond smart phones, this centre will focus on technologies of tomorrow, including 5G, IoT and AI. We have been well-aligned with the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative and this centre will soon expand to software development and innovation for our global products. In three years, we plan to grow the new R&D centre in Hyderabad into our biggest globally.”
“Last year in September, I visited Hyderabad for the first time and it gave me a feeling of Shenzhen about 10 years ago. We have five R&D centres across the world, the largest being Shenzhen, but in future Hyderabad will be biggest because of its positioning,” he added.
To further improve the brand awareness and product adoption, the company is expanding presence in offline channels through own and partner stores. The next phase of retail expansion will start from Hyderabad with the launch of the company’s first ‘Super Experience Store’ spread over 16,000 sq ft on six floors at Himayathnagar next quarter.
“As Pete was mentioning, Hyderabad has many attributes that can make it ‘Shenzhen of India’ and I do hope and believe it comes true. I would strongly recommend Pete to look out for a manufacturing facility in Hyderabad.”
“As Pete was mentioning, Hyderabad has many attributes that can make it ‘Shenzhen of India’ and I do hope and believe it comes true. I would strongly recommend Pete to look out for a manufacturing facility in Hyderabad.”
KT Rama Rao
Congratulating OnePlus he further said that While the OnePlus tag line says ‘Never Settle’, picking Hyderabad among various cities of India, I think you have chosen wisely, don’t settle for any other place for your factory but Hyderabad.
The company has a manufacturing plant in Noida and is reportedly looking to expand that facility. The company now houses biggest team outside its HQ as well as its global support operations team.
OnePlus is looking to hire 25- 40 per cent of fresh talent from premier institutes like IITs and NITs, apart from relocating product managers to the Hyderabad centre.
OnePlus GM India Vikas Agarwal said the R&D facility will play a crucial role as OnePlus is making India a hub for product innovation. Given the long-term commitment, we have invested in purchasing the office space, and not leased it.