14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has been expanding at a huge rate and has recently gotten to 500 million users. Along with the growth in users, it's also been growing as a company and has been on somewhat of a hiring spree.
And now it has made the first step towards opening its Indian offices, with a welcoming ceremony for the Facebook employees now working there.
Facebook announced earlier this year that it is opening offices in Hyderabad, India. The city is already the home of several big technology companies including Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and others.
Facebook plans to house several teams in the Indian offices including sales and operations. Of course, it's also going to house a support team which will enable Facebook to offer 24-hour support.
This will be Facebook's second international office and the third expansion out its headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Facebook also has an office in Dublin, Ireland, again a city home to several technology companies, including Google.
"By having multiple support centers in a variety of time zones, we can provide better round-the-clock, multi-lingual support," Facebook said when it announced it will be expanding into India.
"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," it added at the time.
Facebook has now held an official ceremony to welcome the staff coming from the US to work at the new offices. However, Facebook says, the official launch is not until September.
The timing is interesting, though, as Facebook has just managed to overtake Orkut in India to become the largest social network in the country. Google's social network had enjoyed the top spot in India and Brazil, but it is now down to just one country.