Celkon Mobiles has decided to shift its research and development design centre in China to India shortly. The firm is looking at options to locate the centre in Hyderabad or Bengaluru with a likely investment of ₹100 crore.
“The centre will have 500 engineers, designers and testers against 130 at its centre in Shenzhen. This will help us reduce costs up to 10 per cent,” Y Guru, Chairman and Managing Director of Celkon Mobiles, said.
Addressing reporters here, he said the company would tie up with the Chinese firm Vikin to set up the R&D and design centre. “We are in negotiations with the government (for land in a vantage area),” he said.
The firm, which has set up a mobile assembly unit in Hyderabad recently, would double its capacity to 10,000 phones a day from this week. “This unit is going to help us meet at least half our total production,” he said.
The firm launched Millennia 2GB Xpress with 2GB ram and 16 GB ROM. It comes with 1.2 GhZ quad core processor, 1,500 mAh battery and runs on Android Kitkat (which can be upgraded to Lillipop). It is priced at ₹6,222.
The company will launch a phone whose battery can act as a power bank.
The 5K Transformer, which is under testing, has a battery backup of 5,000 mAh.
“We will give a power transfer cord, using which you can charge other phones or gadgets,” Guru said.