Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says all products developed locally, taxes paid in India on global income

NEW DELHI: Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu has clarified key details regarding the development, data hosting, and global operations of his company, amid circulating misinformation on social media.

In a detailed social media post, Vembu emphasized that all Zoho products are developed in India and that the company pays taxes in India on its global income. Addressing questions about the company’s global presence, Vembu stated that Zoho’s global headquarters is in Chennai, and the company has offices in over 80 countries, including a strong presence in the United States, which is one of its major markets.

“All the products are developed in India. Our global headquarters is in Chennai and we pay taxes in India on our global income. As a global corporation headquartered in India, we have offices in over 80 countries and have a strong presence in the US which is a big market for us”, he wrote.

There are questions about where Zoho is developed and where the data is hosted and who hosts it. There is a lot of false information we want to correct.

1. All the products are developed in India. Our global headquarters is in Chennai and we pay taxes in India on our global…

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) September 30, 2025

On the issue of customer data, Vembu clarified that data of Indian customers is hosted in India, specifically in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, with plans to expand to Odisha soon. He added that Zoho has over 18 data centers worldwide, each hosting data for the respective country or region. “We are committed to hosting each country’s data in their own jurisdiction”, he said.

Vembu also highlighted that all Zoho services run on hardware owned by the company and software frameworks developed internally, built on open-source platforms such as Linux OS and Postgres database. He clarified that Zoho products are not hosted on major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure or GCloud.

Specifically, the company’s messaging platform Arattai is not hosted on any of these cloud providers; only some services for regional switching nodes are used to speed up traffic, without storing data on them. He mentioned that Zoho is adding multiple “points of presence” (POPs) globally to enhance performance.

Regarding Zoho’s presence on global app stores, Vembu explained that their developer account in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store lists the US office address because it was registered in the early days by an employee in the US for testing purposes, and the address was never updated. Concluding his post, Vembu reiterated Zoho’s commitment to being “Made in India, Made for the World.”

Earlier, Zoho got a resounding endorsement from Union Minister Piyush Goyal who said, “Nothing beats the feeling of using a Swadeshi product. So proud to be on Arattai , a Made In India messaging platform that brings India closer. My team and I are on board and are looking forward to also connecting with you here.”

Meanwhile, Sridhar Vembu also called on Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday as the government continues its push to use more Indian products. (ANI)