At a time when Chinese technology majors are looking to tap into engineering talent in India, local smartphone major Micromax is doing the reverse and starting a research and development (R&D) centre in Beijing.

The company said this will not only help it to be among the top five smartphone makers in the world, but also move into the services space with Yu Televentures. It already has a R&D centre in Bengaluru and the new centre in Beijing will work in tandem with the India centre.

Growing sales

“Our numbers (sales) are growing month-on-month and we are there in the list of top 10 smartphone makers in the world. The interesting part is that we are the only Indian firm. We want to be in the top 5,” Rahul Sharma, co-Founder, Micromax, told BusinessLine .

He said the Beijing R&D centre has just started with a few engineers and will soon be expanded into a bigger team, which will work on both hardware as well as software fields.

According to analysts, the move will help the company achieve goals not only in India and Russia, but throughout Asia.

“One possible logic behind setting up an R&D centre in Beijing could be establishing better out-reach to emerging smartphone markets pan-Asia. This falls in line with the company’s expansion plans in geographies like China, Russia and Eastern Europe specifically,” Manasi Yadav, Analyst – Smartphone/Tablet at IHS Technology, said.

Also, this will bring the company closer to its manufacturing or original design manufacturer partners and help in reducing the time to market its products by incorporating design changes faster, she added. Sharma has recently launched a new brand Yu Televentures. The company looks to develop platforms, wearables, and services that will be agnostic to the device.

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