Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei will invest $150 million in its research and development (R&D) centre coming up in Bangalore.

The centre, being built over one million sq feet can seat about 4,000 people, according to the company whose revenues were at $32 billion in 2011.

Huawei officials did not give out specific hiring plans, but said that 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. Scott Sykes, Vice-President, Corporate Media Affairs, Huawei Technologies, told Business Line : “We see demand coming from 4G rollout in India, and the centre will work on our NextGen smartphone handsets.”

Last year, Huawei started making smartphones and, according to company officials, has sold 60 million smartphones till date. The India centre will work on technologies that can increase battery life in smartphones. This is because the battery life of most handsets in the market last not more than a day.

“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.”

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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