Apple opens India-based development center to work on its maps services

Apple CEO Tim Cook is in the middle a busy trip to Asia’s two biggest countries. Last week, he was in China where Apple announced a landmark billion dollar investment in Uber rival Didi Chuxing, this week it is India where the announcements are continuing to flow.

Yesterday, Apple announced plans to open an “an app design and development accelerator” in Bangalore, and today it officially opened a development center in Hyderabad, the same city where Uber’s support center is housed. This is Apple’s first such facility in India.

Plans for the center first leaked out in January, and Apple today confirmed that it will be focused on developing its maps services for iOS. The U.S. firm plans to create up to 4,000 jobs to staff the center, although it isn’t clearly exactly how it will contribute to Apple’s maps services.

Apple is increasing its efforts in India, where it has less than one percent of the fast-growing smartphone market. I wrote more about the company’s challenges in India yesterday, so head over to that post (here) if you want more context behind today’s announcement.