In a bid to make deeper in-roads in India’s smartphone market, China-based smartphone manufacturer Oppo has today announced that it is setting up a  new Research and Development (R&D) facility in Hyderabad.

This first R&D centre in India from Oppo will be the company’s largest facility outside its home country. The facility will contribute towards bringing exciting innovation and advanced technologies to India, says the company.

Currently, the site has 50 people on the development side and another 50 on quality control. However, the company says that it plans to increase the workforce to about 500 in the next three to five years. Further, the company has revealed that its first R&D centre in India will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), camera, fast charging technology, and 5G.

It appears that Oppo is seeing Research & Development as a key to the company’s plans to dominate the global smartphone market. The company has increased its focus on innovation and R&D and recently announced a global investment of RMB 10 billion towards the R&D space for 2019. Oppo currently has 3000 engineers working at its R&D centres across all locations.

Tasleem Arif, Vice-President and R&D Head, Oppo India, said that the company will mainly emphasis on deeper consumer insight. He added that the new R&D centre in India will work on a number of local features that will help improve the experience on its phones, including User Experience (UX). In a statement, he said:

The opening of our R&D centre in Hyderabad will help us implement innovative and exciting technologies in future products that we introduce in India as well as help us build a local ecosystem for smartphone devices. As India is an extremely important market for us we aim to drive innovation locally through the R&D centre in Hyderabad to deliver an insightful revolutionary, and seamless smartphone experience that caters to the demands of our consumers. We are looking forward to filing new patents for new technologies for our consumers to truly experience the best of technology.

Read More: OPPO R17 Pro and OPPO R17 launched in India; check out the phone’s specifications, features, and pricing

With this new local facility in Hyderabad, India, Oppo has now become the third smartphone player, after Samsung and Huawei, to have the Research & Development centre in India. Another Chinese brand OnePlus too is planning to setup the R&D centre in India.

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