“We are proudly made in India, made for the world," says CEO Sridhar Vembu amidst growing misconceptions about Zoho’s origin

Zoho Corporation’s CEO, Sridhar Vembu, has spoken out to clear some confusion about the company’s operations. 

Recently, questions have been raised about whether Zoho’s products are truly made in India and where customer data is stored. In a detailed post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Vembu set the record straight and explained how Zoho runs its business.

Built in India, Present Across the Globe

Mr. Vembu highlighted that Zoho’s roots are firmly in India. 

“All the products are developed in India. Our global headquarters is in Chennai and we pay taxes in India on our global income,” he wrote. 

While the company is Indian at heart, it also has offices in more than 80 countries, with the US being one of its biggest markets.

This global presence, he explained, doesn’t change the fact that Zoho is proudly Indian. Its growth story is a mix of local innovation and international reach.

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Data Stays Where It Belongs

One of the biggest concerns customers often have is where their data is stored. On this, the Zoho CEO was clear: 

“Indian customer data is hosted in India (Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, soon Odisha). We have over 18 data centers globally and they host the respective country or regional data.”

He also dismissed rumors that Zoho relies on Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure.

“We do not host our products on AWS or Azure… We use some of those services for regional switching nodes to speed up traffic but data is not stored in them,” he clarified. 

Instead, Zoho owns its own hardware and builds its own software, relying only on open-source tools like Linux and Postgres as the base.

Another point of confusion has been Zoho’s developer account on the App Store and Play Store, which shows a US office address. 

Mr. Vembu explained that this is simply because the account was set up in the early days of those platforms by a US-based employee for testing. “We never changed that,” he added, clarifying that it doesn’t reflect where the company is headquartered or where its work is done.

He ended his post with a note of pride:

“We are proudly ‘Made in India, Made for the World’ and we mean it.”

His message reinforces Zoho’s position as a rare example of an Indian tech company that has scaled globally while keeping its operations self-reliant. For customers, it’s also a reminder that their data and privacy are firmly under Zoho’s control.

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