Twitter opening first R&D centre outside US in Bangalore

Twitter’s big on India. It just acquired its first Indian startup, Bangalore-based ZipDial last month, and now, the company is opening a research in design centre in Bangalore, reports The Financial Times. This is Twitter’s first office of the kind outside the United States.

Twitter's big on India. It just acquired its first Indian startup, Bangalore-based ZipDial last month, and now, the company is opening a research in design centre in Bangalore, reports The Financial Times . This is Twitter's first office of the kind outside the United States.

According to the report, Twitter plans to use ZipDial's team as the basis for its new R&D facility to speed up its growth in emerging markets such as India and Indonesia, which are set to be its two fastest-growing markets this year. According to a report by research firm eMarketer, India is set to become Twitter's largest market after the US with 40 million users by 2018.

There are no details yet on what exactly will Twitter do with the R&D centre. but Valerie Wagoner, ZipDial's founder who is now a Twitter employee did confirm to The Times that it would be used to build new products for emerging markets and will not simply be a Silicon Valley back office.