Taiwan’s MediaTek, a fabless semiconductor company, plans to triple its workforce in India over the next three years to 1,500 as it expands its research and software development capabilities in the world’s third largest smartphone market.

The company, which employs 12,000 worldwide, yesterday announced a smartphone design-training programme to develop talent for India’s fast-growing handset industry.

The programme will provide hands-on training to about 50 managers and senior engineers on handset design and planning at its facilities in Taiwan before the end of the year. The company said the two-and-a-half-month programme, created in collaboration with India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the Indian Cellular Association and Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, supports the ‘Make in India’ initiative.

MediaTek chairman M.K. Tsai said its market share in Indian-brand smartphones increased from 35 per cent in 2007 to about 70 per cent by 2014, Reuters reported.

Attracting foreign vendors
A growing list of device makers are looking to set up local production facilities.

A year ago the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer Foxconn announced plans to invest $5 billion over five years in a factory in the state of Maharashtra, in west India, which will employ up to 50,000 people.

Foxconn also is in talks with Nokia and government officials in India about restarting handset production at a factory near Chennai that was closed in 2014 due to a tax dispute between the Finnish company and Indian tax authorities.

Last month China’s Huawei said it will start producing Honor smartphones in the Indian city of Chennai this month.

The $16 billion India smartphone market, with only one in four people owning a smartphone, is on track to soon become the second largest in the world after China. It is also an attractive market for Chinese vendors looking for growth outside their home market, which is nearing saturation.