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Zoho Corp, the global technology firm that reported more than $1 billion in revenue in 2022, is expanding in the Middle East and Africa with more offices and recruitments in the next few years.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing GITEX Global tech-fair at the Dubai World Trade Centre, Hyther Nizam, President of Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Zoho, said the UAE has rapidly snowballed into one of the biggest markets for the brand, in terms of revenue and growth.
“The Middle East and Africa region is the fastest growing market for Zoho today, with its total revenue contribution inching towards 10% of our global figure, marking a significant increase from the 2-3% it generated a few years ago,” Nizam told Zawya. “This region has grown at a CAGR [Compound Annual Growth Rate] of 60% over the last five years, and while we have seen a slowdown of 10% in 2023, it is still growing at a rate of 50%, with the UAE as the frontrunner.”
He continued: “Not too long ago, India did not even feature in the top five in terms of revenue contribution, but today, it is in the top three in terms of individual revenue contribution,” he said, adding, that the MEA region was on a similar trajectory, with the UAE as its biggest success story. “The UAE today is already in the number six position in terms of individual country contribution. That is the kind of [growth] acceleration we are seeing here.”
Expansion on the cards
It is this growth curve that has put the India headquartered company on a path to expand its operations further in the region.
“We have already expanded into a new office, with plans of moving into a bigger space in a few more years to accommodate our new hirings,” Nizam revealed. “There is expansion planned across every office, with new hirings in Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. We will be doubling hirings every two years until the growth lasts.”
While Nizam concurs that the company’s growth trajectory has witnessed a slowdown in the last quarter in light of global economic conditions and current geopolitical flare-ups, he doesn’t believe that will slow down Zoho’s expansion plans or result in a freeze in hirings.
“Obviously, the political situation and the economic situation impact has been felt in all parts of the world and it is affecting us. We have seen a slowdown in last couple of months globally, but not so much in the MEA region though,” Nizam said, adding: “In India, some big companies are skipping their performance appraisal and not doing any mass hiring, so their net employee addition is shrinking. Similarly, with Zoho, we are seeing hyper growth, but we are also seeing a slight slowdown in that hypergrowth across all countries and all products. This should last for the next few quarters, but we remain bullish for this market and in India and we want to continue investing.”
At GITEX, Zoho also announced it has invested 43 million UAE dirhams in local partnerships since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, to help UAE businesses digitise their operations. To date, the company has provided free licenses to 5,000 small, medium, and large local businesses to move their operations to the cloud.
Funding has been fuelled organically and Zoha does not believe in growing via M&As or joint ventures but re-invests its profits into R&D to keep growing, Nizam said.
“Today we are a $1 billion revenue-making company without taking any external funding, having crossed 100 million registered users,” Nizam said. “We want to double this revenue every three years. That’s the kind of projection we are looking at. If the economic conditions are conducive and the political situation favourable, then we hope to have the same trajectory for three to five years.”
(Reporting by Bindu Rai, editing by Seban Scaria)
