The social media giant Facebook is eyeing to take up about 220,000 sq ft office space in Bengaluru which would be their largest office in India. The company has acquired the space in Embassy Golf Links, an office park that houses marquee clients such as IBM, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and reinsurer Swiss Re among others.
With this, The city’s booming commercial market will now house all the Big Five tech firms that include Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Google.
The company is expected to move into the new facility next year which would supposedly have a headcount of 2,200. The exact nature of operations is not clear immediately, however, the rent stands at Rs 130 per sq ft, or Rs 34 crore a year.
The Menlo Park-based company opened its first India office in Hyderabad, in 2010. Likewise, the company leased 23,000 sq ft in central Delhi last year from Parsvnath Developers, and 22,000 sq ft in Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex three years ago.
Till now, it had a minor existence in Bengaluru — at the Prestige Trade Towers and UB City but now it would have the largest one in India in the city. Facebook is aggressively expanding its operations in India which is clearly showing the country’s growing importance.
The company states that the number of users in India is close to 250 million, making it one of the biggest globally. For the second quarter ended June 30, daily active users on Facebook reached 1.47 billion, up 11% over last year, led by growth in India, Indonesia and the Philippines.