“We Are Trying To Explore The Possibility Of India As Our Primary Sourcing Hub”

OnePlus continues its ‘Never Settle’ approach with back to back smartphone launches in the form of OnePlus 7, Pro, 7T and OnePlus 7T Pro McLaren Edition and for the very first time venturing into smart TV segment with OnePlus TV starting with India. Expanding its global outreach, OnePlus, started its second and largest R&D centre in Hyderabad to focus on deep customizations. As it plans to invest Rs 1000 crore in next three years, Haider Ali Khan had a conversation with Vikas Agarwal, GM, OnePlus India, to understand more about company’s future roadmap and more.

- Haider Ali Khan

Why did OnePlus choose Hyderabad over other Indian cities like Bengaluru to open its second and largest R&D center?

India is an integral market for us, and OnePlus is committed to achieving longterm growth in the country. With the commencement of operations at the new R&D centre, we seek to integrate and delve deeper into the ‘Make in India’ strategy. While selecting the location for the R&D centre, we weighed in several crucial factors before zeroing in on Hyderabad.

The city offers a sizeable pool of talent that the global smartphone maker sees great value in deploying and honing to suit the needs of its signature premium consumer experience. In addition, to having some of the most passionate OnePlus community members, the city is also one of the most active start-up zones in the country, especially in the space of emerging technologies.

This centre will house three labs - camera lab, communications and networking labs and automation labs.

The facility overall will focus on 5 areas including Network, Global Carrier Customization, OxygenOS native apps, global product development, software innovation and finally, testing. With regards to software and network, the centre will specifically work on the development of India-specific OxygenOS features including OnePlus applications design and development and drive the 5G enablement for regions like India, eU and UK.

In terms of software, we will be focusing heavily on AI and ML. Additionally, we are already creating several India-specific features for OxygenOS but will also be creating several global features out of India soon. We also plan to invest INR 1000 crore into its R&D facility in Hyderabad over the next 3 years.