Earlier in the month, the major Chinese web portal Tencent claimed Apple was looking to establish a research and development center in Beijing and last week Cnet China corroborated the story, but noted that the rumored six-story facility with over 100,000 square feet of space is actually going up in Shanghai. Today, a new report from another Chinese news site give us more in way of details…
BrightWire translated this report by the Chinese web site Yicai, which is basically an online news section of China Business News, an economic and financial media group based in Shanghai:
Apple has registered three firms in three buildings in Pudong, Shanghai, and one of them will be dedicated to procurement management and R&D, according to documents on the Shanghai Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce’s website.
The news is kinda official because Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce has formally announced that Apple will open its R&D center this summer.
Tim Cook said last week in a conference call with analysts that China, which amounted to nearly one-fifth of Apple’s 2012 revenue , would become its most important market.
The Cupertino firm is also building an enormous data center in Hong Kong and is working to expand its retail presence in China.
Apple for at least six years had been planning to build a research and development center in China. The total annual rent for the three buildings is said to exceed CNY 50 million, or about eight million USD.
The management consulting firm Booz & Co in its Global Innovation 1000 study last year named Apple the most innovative company for the third time in a row, despite spending far less on R&D compared to both Samsung and Microsoft.
What do you think employees will be researching in the Shanghai R&D center?
That budget iPhone, perhaps?