Zoho Corporation says it now serves 130 million users and about 900,000 businesses worldwide, with an average monthly churn rate of 2.4%.
The company revealed this during its annual user conference, Zoholics Nigeria, held on Monday, September 8, 2025, in Lagos.
Kehinde Seun Ogundare, country head for Zoho Nigeria, said the company is not in the market for short-term profits. “We are not just here to make money and leave, you know, I said from the beginning,” Ogundare said.
He stressed Zoho’s guiding philosophy, “Privately Held. Publicly Responsible”, which reiterates its focus on long-term value rather than quick exits.
Key Announcements for Nigeria
Zoho outlined three major commitments to Nigerian businesses:
- Local billing and naira pricing to ease exchange-rate challenges.
- Hiring and expanding local teams to improve customer support.
- Maintaining access to 55+ products across finance, workplace, CRM, HR and collaboration tools.
The company shared growth statistics to back its local drive:
- 29 years in operation, with over 18,000 employees globally.
- Products used in more than 150 countries.
- Average customer tenure of about 45 months.
- 75 million registrations in Nigeria over the last five years.
- Local growth rates of 64.07% in 2021, 83.68% in 2022, and 74.28% in 2024.
According to Zoho, the top sectors using its software in Nigeria include services, financial services, professional services, real estate and construction, retail, energy, media, and education.
Building on One Technology Stack
Zoho emphasised that all its 55+ applications run on a single technology stack. This, it said, reduces integration costs and makes its software affordable to SMEs.
Its “composable” product model lets customers start with individual apps, then scale into customised suites or vertical solutions. For SMEs in Nigeria, this means they can adopt an off-the-shelf bookkeeping or HR product, or commission a tailored workflow without rebuilding everything from scratch.
Spotlight on Zia AI
One of the most interesting parts of the event was Zoho’s in-house AI platform, Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant built for automation and business intelligence across its apps.
The Zia suite includes language, speech and automation tools, as well as features that allow customers to create automated assistants and custom apps. Technical features include:
- Language models available in multiple parameter sizes (1.3B, 2.6B and 7B), with plans to scale further.
- Zia ASR, a home-grown speech recogniser benchmarked by the company against global competitors on word-error-rate.
- Agent Studio and Zia Agents marketplace offering pre-built assistants for sales, marketing, UX, support and other workflows.
- Co-Creator and low-code/no-code tools to let non-developers build applications and automation.
Zoho described Zia as a practical tool which enables businesses to automate workflows, delegate routine tasks to AI assistants, and focus more on decision-making and growth.
Privacy and Infrastructure
Beyond features, Zoho stressed that it owns its full technology stack, from networks and storage to compute and applications. This, it said, helps it control costs, safeguard privacy and deliver products built for enterprise needs.
Local billing, local hiring and local support were framed as part of the same strategy, reducing total cost of ownership while making the tools more relevant to Nigeria’s business environment.
What it Means for Nigerian SMEs
For local companies, Zoho’s strategy could bring three immediate benefits:
- Affordability: naira billing removes the pressure of paying in foreign currency.
- Faster support: more Nigerian teams mean better response times and understanding of local challenges.
- Customisation: the “composable” product marketplace and low-code tools make it easier to build tailored solutions without major development projects.
Zoholics Nigeria revealed that Zoho wants to be more than a global software vendor. The company is working to adapt to local realities, cut expenses for businesses, and build long-term trust.
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