Zoom plans significant investment in India over the next five years; highlights Indian descent of its top executives

Zoom is looking to engage with stakeholders in the country in the coming months.

Zoom’s newly appointed president of engineering and products, Velchamy Sankarligam, on Monday said the San Jose-headquartered video conferencing platform was planning a significant investment in India over the next five years including expanding its footprint and hiring more top talent in the region. “India is and will continue to be an important market for Zoom, and we are excited to build on the exciting opportunities we see in the region,” Sankarligam said in a statement adding that Zoom was looking to engage with stakeholders in the country in the coming months to “support Digital India, StartUp India, and Skills India.”

Sankarligam’s comments, that are part of a broader “Why I Joined Zoom and Our Commitment to India,” blogpost, come just days after India got its first truly comprehensive Zoom rival in Reliance Jio’s JioMeet. The comments also come at a time when the government is actively looking to bolster the country’s homegrown app ecosystem with made in India apps that may have a potential to scale and become world-class through its “Digital India Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge.”

While Zoom has already responded to competition from JioMeet, and even though it has justified its commitment to India in the past, this is the first time it is talking about the “great potential in the Indian business community,” and highlighting how three of its top executives are of Indian descent. This includes Sankarligam himself, chief operating officer Aparna Bawa, and corporate chief information officer Sunil Madan.

“From large multinational brands with Indian operations and subsidiaries, to MSME enterprises looking to expand, as well as home-grown start-ups, India is a key player in global business and a key market for Zoom. We can work with them to deepen connectivity to a global market undergoing significant transformations and opening opportunities for India’s business and people.”

In his writeup, Sankarligam has also addressed “misconceptions” about Zoom and China reiterating how Zoom has been always very clear about its identity (that it is a US-based company). Misconceptions that grew only stronger after Zoom acknowledged that it had been open to impacting user accounts outside of mainland China at the behest of the Chinese government until very recently. Owing to the current wave of anti-China sentiment in India, Zoom has been under a lot of scrutiny, with the government keeping a close watch on it over privacy concerns, and of course, the company’s purported links to China.