Xiaomi starts camera R&D in Finland; In the same city where Nokia’s camera R&D center was

Finnish town of Tampere might be the world’s hotspot in terms of camera experts. Mostly thanks to Nokia that had a camera research and development center in Tampere, but in 2016, Huawei also came to town offering refuge to a lot of former Nokia employees (also creating new ones) and starting its camera R&D center. Furthermore, Huawei’s R&D is in the same building where Nokia’s was.

Another well-known Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi also decided to tap into Finnish camera expertise by founding a new company in Finland, or more precisely, two companies – Xiaomi Finland Oy and Xiaomi Technology Finland Oy.

Suomimobiili.fi, that discovered Xiaomi’s new business activites in Finland, learned from Xiaomi that the newly-founded company located in Tampere will focus on product development, initially starting with camera technologies.

Xiaomi follows the steps of Huawei and is finding Finland as an attractive source of skilled labour. Huawei became a new home to lots of former Nokia experts and after partnering with Leica, Huawei devices now have a reputation of being the best or among the best camera phones on the market. Xiaomi is probably hoping to achieve the same thing.

The maker of Nokia phones HMD Global also has an office in Finland, as well as in London, primarily working on design and antenna technologies. HMD opened up its first R&D last year in Shenzen, China, with focus on camera, materials, 5G and future mobile experiences.

Source: Suomimobiili.fi