INDIA WILL BE OUR LARGEST R&D BASEINNEXT3 YRS: ONEPLUS CEO
NEW DELHI: Premium smartphone maker Oneplus is betting on the engineering talent pool in the country to drive innovation and expects India to become its largest research and development (R&D) base in the next three years. The company, which has recently set up its R&D centre in Hyderabad, has similar facilities in Shenzhen, Taiwan and the US. It has about 700 people globally working in its R&D teams. “We are looking at India as a global talent hub for the company. The idea is to have a long-term approach, bringing the best of talent and training them and have them work with us over the long term .... We anticipate that India will be our largest R&D base in three or more years,” Oneplus co-founder and CEO Pete Lau told PTI. He added that the company is engaging with the top engineering colleges like IITS to scout for talent. The India R&D team has under 100 people currently. The focus, Lau said, is on using software and technologies like artificial intelligence to make a global impact. He, however, declined to comment on how the headcount of the India R&D team would be ramped up. Lau highlighted that there is “significant untapped potential” in the Indian market as the premium segment accounts for about 4-5% of the overall smartphone shipment.
Barista eyes doubling India store count to 500 in 3 yrs
NEW DELHI: Coffee chain Barista is looking at more than doubling its stores in India to 500 and reaching 10,000 outlets for its FMCG offerings in the next two-three years, a senior company official said. The company has expanded its fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) offerings with the launch of chocolates, cookies and coffee powder. “Coffee consumption in India is very low compared to developed countries. We see tremendous opportunities in the coffee sector here...we are looking at operating 500 outlets and distributing our FMCG offerings through 10,000 outlets in the next 2-3 years,” Barista CEO Puneet Gulati told PTI. The majority of the Barista outlets will be opened through the franchise route, he added. Barista, which at present has over 200 Barista Cafes and Barista Express kiosks across
India, expects its FMCG offerings to account for up to 12 per cent of its bottomline (profit) by fiscal 2020 from about 5% at present, he said. The company reported revenues of about ₹104 crore in the previous year.
SBI to sell 3 NPAS to recover dues worth ₹2,111 cr
NEW DELHI: The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has put up for sale three of its non-performing loan accounts to recover dues of ₹2,110.71 crore. An e-auction will take place on 13 December for the sale of these three accounts—sona Alloys Pvt. Ltd, MCL Global Steel Pvt. Ltd and Jayaswal Neco Industries Ltd. “In terms of the bank’s policy on sale of financial assets in line with the regulatory guidelines, we place these accounts for sale to banks/ ARCS/NBFCS/ FIS etc, on the terms and conditions indicated there against,” SBI said in the auction notice on its website. It said the interested banks/arcs/nbfcs or financial institutions (FIS) can conduct due diligence of these assets with immediate effect, after submitting expression of interest and executing a non-disclosure agreement with the bank.
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