Taiwanese IT company BenQ Corporation plans to set up a research and development center in Mumbai for designing software programmes for mobile phones.
"We will soon set up a technology centre in Mumbai for mobile phone software requirements and will double headcount of software professionals from the current 50 in a year's time," BenQ chairman and CEO K Y Lee told reporters on Tuesday.
Declining to divulge investment details for the proposed R&D centre, Lee said the company had invested over $150 million in R&D in calendar 2004.
"We are looking at India as a global resource base, particularly for knowledge capital to aid us in developing embedded software for our digital lifestyle products. We will increase headcount of software professionals to several hundreds in the coming years," he said.
Lee said there are no plans to set up manufacturing facility in India. BenQ has manufacturing plants in Malaysia, Mexico, China and Taiwan, he said.
BenQ India Pvt Ltd country head (India operations) Ashish Bakshi said the company has 3.1 per cent market share in mobile phones in India and it would aim to double the growth.
"Though the company has plans to enhance its product portfolio, we will focus on products like LCD monitor, projector, storage, scanner and mobile phones," he added.
