Hyderabad: Apple has hired 3,500 people for their development centre in Hyderabad and is expected to take the number to 5,000 eventually, said a senior Telangana government official on Wednesday.

“Apple has taken 3,500 people so far for their development centre in Hyderabad. They will totally hire 5000 people eventually. There is no time frame for that (to achieve 5000 headcount)," Jayesh Ranjan principal Secretary IT and Industries told PTI.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant in May last year opened it development centre here that will focus on development of Maps for its products, including iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch.

The Californian firm had then said the investment in the facility will accelerate Maps development and create up to 4,000 jobs. The company had not specify how much it would invest in the facility.

While India is projected to become the world’s second biggest smartphone market, experts say it will be long-drawn game. Average selling price of a phone in India is very low compared to the US or China, and a vast majority of the country’s population is slowly warming up to the smartphone ecosystem dominated by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Micromax Informatics Ltd., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Intex Technologies (India) Ltd.

The company’s plan to import and sell cheaper refurbished iPhones to court price-conscious Indian consumers was rejected by the government because it could lead to electronic waste dumping in the country. Besides, it could have disrupted the government’s Make in India initiative that promotes local manufacturing.

The Telangana government invited Apple to set up a manufacturing facility and offered land to the company to set up its campus in Hyderabad on the lines of Google and Amazon.com Inc., which are building their biggest campuses outside the US in the city.

Meanwhile, Jayesh Ranjan today inaugurated Pactera Technologies’ first office in India here. The Hyderabad office of Pactera Technologies reflects its strategic focus on becoming an industry leading provider of IT services on a global scale, the company said.

The new office can seat 150 people in Phase 1 and additional 300 people in Phase 2. The abundant talent that is currently part of Pactera would help contribute much more to the digital and innovation world, which would also help them grow to 3,000 people organization in the next 2-3 years, it added.

(With Livemint inputs)

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