Hot on the heels of Facebook overtaking Orkut as India’s most prominent social network with 21 million vs. 20 million unique visitors in July, the company opened up its much anticipated office in Hyderabad earlier this week. Facebook Hyderabad will be Facebook’s tenth international office.
Headed by Kirthiga Reddy and Manoj Varghese, the Indian Facebook team will include more sales and operations as well as multi-lingual support staff in order provide round-the-clock international support.
From the Facebook blog:
The new offices come at a significant time in our international growth. Seventy percent of the people using Facebook are outside the U.S. and are accessing the service from more than 70 languages. In India alone, we’ve seen rapid growth and now have more than 8 million people there actively connecting on Facebook with their friends, family, and other people they know, both within India and around the globe.
Hyderabad, India’s “City of Pearls,” is often called “Cyberabad” as it is the Indian base of many other technology companies including Google, Microsoft, Oracle HP, Dell, Motorola, IBM, HP and Amazon. Social gaming giant Zynga also recently set up an outpost in Bangalore, in an effort to capitalize on the sizable Indian market.
Video of the traditional Indian opening ceremony, above. Highlights include American Facebookers awkwardly dancing Bollywood-style and an impressive Facebook cake.
Update: According to Facebook, the video and hoopla signify the office arrival of the initial Facebook Hyderabad landing team. The “official” Facebook Hyderabad launch date will be in September.
Thanks: Amit Bhawani