Chinese telecom giant Huawei has launched its new R&D facility in Whitefield, Bengaluru. The facility will look at developing software for the company’s products, including smartphones, networking devices and other gadgets.

Huawei has invested $170 million in the R&D centre so far. The facility spread across 1 million sq ft covering 20 acres has the capacity to house 5,000 engineers. Huawei officials, however, did not comment on the number of people they plan to hire.

The campus also includes a customer experience centre and a residential block for expat employees. The Chinese tech major had entered Bangalore in 1999 and currently employs 2,700 people across India.

Wilson Wang, Chief Operating Officer, India R&D centre, told BusinessLine that the Indian centre has filed for 200 patents and this has boosted the confidence of the company to expand its base here.

He said the patents were filed across a range of products and services, which include products and services used by telecom companies which are commonly referred to as Operation Support Systems (OSS) and Base Station Subsystem (BSS).

Huawei spends more than 10 per cent of its revenues on R&D. The company, which is privately owned, clocked $46 billion in revenues last financial year.. Company officials said its devices business, which include smartphones, data cards and others, clocked revenues of $800 million in FY13. Huawei is upbeat on opportunities in India. “We have shipped 1 million smartphones and are expecting to sell 2 million phones in this financial year,” said Cai Liqun, CEO of Huawei India. The company, which started off selling networking equipment to Chinese telcos, now counts Mobily, MegaFon, Etisalat as its customers.

According to analyst data, global telecom outsourcing market is estimated to hit $76 billion by 2016.

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