India among most critical markets: Zoom President of Product and Engineering, Velchamy Sankarlingam

Zoom considers India as one of its most critical markets, the American technology company's President of Product and Engineering Velchamy Sankarlingam said, highlighting the significant level of AI adoption in the country.

"India, we consider as one of the most critical markets... One (reason) is India by itself, it's a huge market, lot of talent, lot of innovation. All the educational institutions are top notch. Plus, also lot of the US and European countries have a huge presence in India as well. So (both) local businesses and lot of MNCs," Sankarlingam told PTI in an interview here.

"We see India as a very critical market for us in terms of selling our services to India as well as through multinationals... we have pretty much every team represented in India, and we expect to learn from there, deploying there.


"We're learning from all over the world, but I think India provides more test beds... There is a lot of uniqueness to India where we can actually learn and there is a lot of dialects also," he said.

Earlier this month, Zoom commemorated its 15th anniversary, with Founder and CEO Eric Yuan ringing the Nasdaq bell to mark the occasion. The company's 15-year journey has seen it evolve from a video communication platform to an AI-powered system of action.

In India, Zoom has two technology centres in Bengaluru and Chennai. The Bengaluru centre, focussing on R&D and engineering support, was launched in July 2020 and the Chennai centre -- Zoom Contact Center development and support launched in April 2022. The company also has two data centres in Mumbai and Hyderabad.

Sankarlingam cited the example of leading optical prescription eyewear retail chain Lenskart, which faced challenges in managing the uneven distribution of optometrists across different regions in India. To address this, Lenskart turned to Zoom Contact Center, which enabled optometrists to carry out remote eye tests for customers via video.

Sankarlingam noted that the company has invested a lot on the phone and contact centre in India and was the first to launch the Zoom phone.

Last year, the company expanded its Zoom Phone service to Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana. Licensed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) India, Zoom Phone is now available in six telecom circles in India, including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Telecom Circles, covering key business and technology hubs in the country.

Zoom Contact Center in India delivered an AI-first, omnichannel contact-center-as-a-service solution (CCaaS) optimized for video. Zoom Contact Center supports a wide range of channels, including voice, video, virtual agents, social media, email, and messaging apps.

Sankarlingam underscored that the company sees these segments growing "really well in India, both for multinationals and the domestic businesses. The AI adoption in India is also pretty good from what we have seen so far," he said.

"We supported five or six languages in India, like Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, and a few other languages there. We are getting all of that on the AI side as well. So that'll be a focus for us -- how we make sure we can support all the local languages in India," as well as ensure smooth AI adoption.

"If you're in India and if the data needs to reside in India, we can actually support that. So we work very closely with the regulators, policymakers. We are also expanding our channel reach in India and the whole of Asia-Pacific region (APAC) as well," he said, adding that Zoom is very bullish on India.

Zoom's focus is on "conversation to completion", ensuring that "we make work easy. We are the platform for action as well... We have ZoomMate, but I think there will still be a lot more evolution, and sometimes it may go into different verticals as well".

In a blog post, Yuan has said 15 years ago, Zoom was a bet that simplicity and human connection could win. "That bet paid off because of the people who believed in it, our team, our customers, and the millions of people around the world who trusted us to keep them connected when it mattered most.

"Now we're entering a new chapter. The question is no longer whether AI will transform work. It's whether we'll continue to build it in a way that makes work not only easier, but more human and enjoyable," Yuan said.