After India & China, Apple said to be setting up an R&D center in Indonesia next year

With the asian market a large and growing one for Apple, the company appears to be focusing on expanding its R&D efforts in the region. Following the announcement of multiple development centers in India and China, Indonesian site Tempo reports that Apple is to setup an R&D center in Jakarta sometime next year …

Giant tech company Apple Inc will set up R&D centers in early 2017. Communication and Information Minister Rudiantara said that the preparation of the project development has progressed to the final stage.

Rudiantara said that Apple would confirm the location next month, with construction and recruitment in 2017. The Indonesian government said that Apple had revealed to it the value of the investment, but it could not reveal the figure.

While Apple focuses most of its R&D work in Cupertino, it does have a number of satellite offices around the country. These are established for a variety of reasons, sometimes practical – such as tapping into local expertise – and other times political, helping to ensure good relations with countries that need to approve the import or sale of Apple products.

MakeMac has suggested that the establishment of the center was a quid pro quo for a licence allowing the company to sell LTE products in Indonesia. Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country after China, India and the USA, with a total population of more than 260M people.

Photo of Jakarta: Teledirect