Zoho to invest $27.2 million for expansion in UAE

On the occasion of Zoho’s annual user conference of the company, Zoholics Dubai, Zoho’s CEO and co-founder, Sridhar Vembu, announced its plans for a massive $27.2 million expansion in the UAE. 

He also said that in the five years since starting its operations in the country which serves as its Middle East and Africa headquarters, the firm has seen a growth of over 10 times with a 5-year CAGR of 60%. 

In 2022, the company saw a 45% growth in the UAE, the second highest growing country globally, which led to the doubling of its employee base in the country and the MEA region by hiring locally as per its ‘transnational localism’ policy of being locally implanted while being globally connected. Also, the partner network in the country grew by 50 per cent in 2022.

Sridhar Vembu said that the company has been investing in local hiring, growing our partner network, adding Arabic support to the company’s products, and merging with local payment gateways to adapt solutions for the local market.

He added that the company will continue to invest in growth in the country through hiring, upskilling programmes, localisation of products, integrating solutions with local vendors, and partnering with organisations to assist local businesses in their digitalisation steps.

Zoho’s Partners

Zoho has partnered with various organisations such as the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) to offer free access to Zoho One for a year. 

It partnered with Dubai Culture and Arts Authority a year ago intending to support creative entrepreneurs around the country. The other partners include Dubai Economy in August 2021 to help firms on their digital transformation journey, educational institutes such as the Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE) and Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM) to offer courses with better skills.

 Zoho has helped over 3,500 SMEs gain access to its cloud technology through various partnerships, investing 20 million in wallet credits since 2020. It has also invested 4.5 million in upskilling initiatives for imparting digital literacy to over 200+ students and 300+ companies.

Top Zoho products in the UAE

• Zoho One (a unified platform of over 50 products)
• Zoho Books (FTA-approved VAT-compliant accounting software)
• Zoho CRM (customer experience platform)
• Zoho Workplace (enterprise collaboration platform)
• Zoho Creator (enterprise collaboration platform)

The industries from where the most market is are IT services, wellness/fitness, real estate, manufacturing and retail sectors.

About Zoho

Zoho Corporation is a technology company specialising in business tools based out of India. It is one of the world’s most prolific technology companies with 55+ apps in almost every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back-office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools. 

Furthermore, more than 80 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, count on Zoho every day to run their businesses.

The company is privately held and is headquartered in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in the United States, India, Japan, China, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.