Sun Ming told local media that Huawei invested US$50 million into its Turkish R&D facility over the past three years and now employs 770 people at the centre, of which 350 are engineers. The company plans to spend US$20 million on R&D in the country each year.
Around 85% of the staff at the centre are Turkish he added, possibly in rebuke to claims that the company is keen to export Chinese workers to other countries as opposed to hiring locally.
"Turkish engineers are like Chinese people," Sun Ming added. However, there may be concerns that they could be working too hard.
Hulusi Acar, a vice general manager at Turkcell said that "These people are crazy," noting that "They have beds behind their computers and they sleep there."
The comments were made at a press conference launching the Ascend P1 smartphone in the local market.
On the web: Hürriyet Daily News
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/55483.php