Walmart sets up new R&D arm in B'lore

Global retail giant — Walmart, on Tuesday, announced the setting up of its R&D centre for e-commerce business in Bangalore, the first outside US in Silicon Valley.

It will support the company’s global strategy of anytime, anywhere access where millions of customers can research and shop for products through mobile devices. 

The facility in Silicon Valley houses 200 people and Bangalore, which has capacity of 400 people, will employ another hundred by the year-end.

“Employees in this office would be responsible for the development of our core e-commerce platform worldwide,” said Senior Vice-President & CTO of Global e-commerce, Walmart.com, Jeremy King.

King believes that smartphones now are like shopping devices in one’s pocket and this mobile shopping market has a huge potential to grow. 

Walmart Global e-commerce Senior Vice-President Anand Rajaraman said the company would also look forward to some app development from Bangalore in future.