Indian software firm Zoho says its South African revenue has grown 60% so far this year, up from 34% in 2025, as larger enterprises increasingly adopt its cloud-based business software.
The company disclosed the figures at Zoholics Johannesburg, its annual user conference, held yesterday at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.
Andrew Bourne, regional head for southern Africa at Zoho, said enterprises that had previously hesitated to adopt Zoho products because of perceptions that lower pricing meant they were aimed at smaller businesses were now showing interest.
“Enterprises are now realising that Zoho is equal to or better than the competitors they’ve been using for a long time,” Bourne said.
He said growth was being driven by demand across financial services, manufacturing, retail, IT hardware, IT-related services and professional services.
Zoho’s top revenue-generating products in SA include Zoho One, its suite of business applications, alongside its CRM, Books accounting platform, Desk customer support software and CRM Plus.
The company says it has more than 1 million customers globally and more than 150 million users across its products. It employs more than 19 000 people worldwide.
Bourne said Zoho’s approach of developing its own applications and technology stack, rather than relying heavily on acquisitions, allowed it to integrate its products into a single ecosystem.
The company has also been expanding its use of AI, with Bourne highlighting applications including optical character recognition, image recognition, fraud detection and sentiment analysis.
Zoho’s AI strategy, he said, is based on using different models for different tasks rather than automatically deploying large language models for every application.
“For a specific task, you don’t need a large language model. You can use a narrow or small language model that is a specialist in performing that task,” he said.
The approach is intended to reduce costs and computing rerge-scale AI infrastructure
Zoho is also integrating external large language models into its ecosystem through the Model Context Protocol, allowing AI systems such as ChatGPT and Claude to interact with business applications and data.
Bourne gave examples of potential use cases, including asking an AI agent to analyse customer interactions, update sales pipelines, schedule meetings and send e-mails.
However, he said Zoho’s own AI capabilities would remain available independently of external models.
“If these large language models become very expensive or, for some reason, they get switched off, your own environment is still going to be sitting there with Zoho,” he said.
As its South African business grows, Zoho is also considering the need for local data infrastructure.
Bourne said a local data centre would be particularly relevant for government and public sector customers, where data sovereignty and regulatory requirements can influence procurement decisions.
He said the company has seen demand for locally hosted infrastructure, particularly where organisations need greater control over sensitive citizen information.
Zoho currently operates data centres in Europe and the US, but Bourne said a South African facility could support further expansion into sectors where local data residency is a requirement.
The company says privacy and security remain central to its operations, with Bourne noting that Zoho owns much of the technology stack underpinning its services, from data centres and servers through to its applications.
The company also used the event to launch the South African edition of Zoho POS, adding point-of-sale functionality to its broader suite.
Zoho POS is already available in several markets, including India and Saudi Arabia, with SA now joining the list.
The launch fills what Bourne described as one of the remaining gaps in Zoho’s South African ecosystem, alongside payroll.
Zoho POS is aimed at retailers and other businesses that need to manage in-person sales, inventory, purchasing, payments and customer relationships.
The platform supports South African VAT requirements and allows businesses to configure applicable tax rates. It also provides inventory management, low-stock alerts, purchase orders and stock synchronisation between physical stores and online channels.
Retailers operating multiple stores can manage locations through a single system, with centralised inventory visibility, user access controls and store-level performance tracking.
The platform can continue processing transactions when connectivity is disrupted, with data synchronised once the connection is restored. Mobile billing capabilities can also be used during busy periods to reduce queues.
Zoho POS is designed to work with retail hardware such as bar code scanners, cash drawers, weighing machines and customer-facing displays. Bourne said the company is also working on integrations with South African payment providers, including Yoco and TymeBank.
The POS platform connects with other Zoho applications, including Zoho Books and Zoho Commerce, allowing retailers to link their physical and online operations.
Bourne said payroll remained a missing component because local payroll requirements are more specialised than in other markets. Rather than immediately building its own platform, Zoho has been integrating with existing payroll solutions.
With the launch of POS and continued investment in its AI capabilities, Zoho is looking to broaden its footprint beyond its traditional small and medium-sized business customer base.
The company’s sharp increase in South African revenue this year suggests that strategy is gaining traction among larger organisations, although Bourne said the company still sees significant room for growth in the local market.
