OnePlus has just announced an investment of Rs 1000 crore over the next three years to build its first R&D Centre in Hyderabad, which will eventually go on to become the company’s largest R&D facility in the world. This is a huge announcement from the Chinese smartphone maker whose events up until now were mainly limited to launching the next smartphone from the brand. All it took for Pete Lau, Founder and CEO of OnePlus was one visit to Hyderabad to decide that this is where he wanted to set up not just any but the largest R&D facility for the brand.

OnePlus plans to invest Rs 1000 Crore in Hyderabad R&D Centre over next three years

The reason behind choosing Hyderabad as home to this massive R&D centre was how he saw many similarities between Hyderabad and Shenzhen in China. OnePlus is headquartered in Shenzhen and Lau lives in Shenzhen which is more or less the 'Silicon valley' of China. Lau also said that he can see Hyderabad becoming the next Shenzhen. Well it’s certainly not just an instinctive decision on Lau’s side to zero in on Hyderabad for the R&D centre. The city is one of the most active start-up zones in the country, especially in the space of emerging technologies and it offers a sizeable pool of talent that the global smartphone maker intends to use and could immensely benefit from.

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OnePlus R&D Centre in Hyderabad likely to hire 1500 professionals

This is the sixth R&D facility for the smartphone brand globally. Lau is clear that while this will eventually go on to become the largest R&D set up for OnePlus, it will also have a more meaningful presence for the brand and become the creative hub for the brand in future. Lau is keen on getting some of the best talents in the R&D centre at Hyderabad and is clear that the R&D centre will not be reduced to a support hub. OnePlus has plans to create a total of about 1500 jobs at the R&D centre. The R&D facility will be broadly housing three labs, camera lab, AI lab and a 5G lab. For 5G lab alone, Lau says the investment could touch 100 crores. The facility overall will focus on areas including Network, Global Carrier Customization, OxygenOS native apps, global product development, software innovation and, testing. The centre will also work on the development of India-specific OxygenOS features including OnePlus applications design and development.

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Former Minister of Telangana, Mr. K. T. Rama Rao who inaugurated the facility was evidently elated that the fast-growing smartphone brand - now ranked fourth globally after the likes of Samsung, Apple in premium smartphone category - chose Hyderabad to set up its R&D facility, especially considering the amount of investment and jobs it is likely to bring to the state. In fact, Rao jokingly asked Lau to shift the OnePlus India headquarter from Bangalore to Hyderabad. He also invited OnePlus to set up its manufacturing units in Hyderabad too. Lau, while caught off guard with the invite, did talk about being open to the idea and open to scouting locations. This could be the right time too considering the OnePlus manufacturing factory in Noida has reached its potential.  

Hyderabad is clearly one of the fastest-growing markets for OnePlus. As per the company the city also has a massive “OnePlus Community”. Apart from the R&D Centre, the brand currently has an Exclusive Service Centre in the city and is in the process of expanding its offline presence in the region. OnePlus has already announced setting up its very own OnePlus Experience Store too in Hyderabad.

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