Zoho posts 34% SA revenue growth, debuts Zoho POS for local retailers

Andrew Bourne

"South Africa remains a strategic growth market for Zoho, and today's launch reflects our continued investment in helping businesses across the country embrace digital transformation," said Hyther Nizam, CEO, Middle East and Africa (MEA), Zoho.

Growth driven by affordability, not acquisition

Zoho attributes its 34% growth to rising demand for scalable, unified business software that's easy to implement, with Zoho One, CRM, Books, Desk and CRM Plus named as the biggest revenue drivers locally.

Key sectors include IT hardware and IT-related services, financial services, retail, manufacturing and non-IT professional services.

Speaking at Zoholics, Andrew Bourne, regional head of Zoho South Africa, framed that growth as the product of a deliberately slow, organic strategy rather than acquisition-led expansion, a point he returned to more than once during his talk.

"I watch our competitors all the time, and they go and buy this business and buy that business for millions and billions because they're trying to get to a point quickly," Bourne said. "In this game, it's slow and steady wins the race."

He linked that philosophy directly to Zoho's ownership structure. "We're privately owned; we don't have shareholders bringing down our necks for massive profits," he said, adding that even as input costs like memory prices have risen sharply, Zoho has resisted passing those increases on to customers.

Zoho's local growth also has some public-sector weight behind it: Bourne pointed to the Department of Home Affairs' GCIS-run national information site, which he said has fielded roughly 300,000 citizen queries through Zoho Desk.

Zoho POS: built for offline-first, VAT-compliant retail

The centrepiece announcement was the South African launch of Zoho POS, a cloud-based point-of-sale system covering billing, inventory, purchasing, payments, customer relationships and loyalty from a single platform.

"Retailers today need technology that is both powerful and easy to use, enabling them to respond quickly to changing customer expectations while keeping operations running efficiently," Bourne said in the release.

"Zoho POS streamlines day-to-day store operations and helps retailers deliver memorable customer experiences through faster checkouts with mobile billing and self-checkout options, and by providing customers with flexible payment methods, such as cash, cards, credit points, and more."

The platform integrates with Zoho Books for accounting and Zoho Commerce for e-commerce, and extends further via APIs, webhooks, Zoho Flow and Zapier.

Bourne also told attendees a direct integration into Zoho CRM is in development, which would let retailers plug loyalty and transaction data straight into customer relationship management.

Zoho POS ships in Free, Standard, Professional and Premium tiers, with the Standard plan starting at R120/month billed annually. A 15-day free trial is available on any paid plan.