Displaying items by tag: Eric Yuan
Zoom profits double as revenue quadruples
Zoom shares soared after the video-meeting service reported that quarterly revenue rocketed as its ranks of users more than quadrupled.
Revenues leaped 355% to $663.5m for the three months ending 31 July, beating analysts' expectations of $500.5m.
Profits soared to $186m, while customer growth rose 458%, compared with the same period in 2019.
Video conferencing apps remain crucial due to the increase in remote working.
Zoom's shares hit a record high, closing at $325.10, as the firm raised its annual revenue forecast by more than 30% to the range of $2.37bn-$2.39bn, from its previous projection of $1.78bn-$1.80bn.
Key to Zoom's success was its ability to add paying customers - high-budget corporate clients - as opposed to those who use its services for free.
"Organizations are shifting from addressing their immediate business continuity needs to supporting a future of working anywhere, learning anywhere, and connecting anywhere on Zoom's video-first platform," founder and chief executive Eric Yuan said in an earnings release.
Zoom shares were up more than 22 percent in after-market trades that followed release of the earnings, which beat market expectations.
The company reported that it ended the quarter with approximately 370,000 customers that had more than 10 employees, more than four times as many than it had in the same period a year earlier.
The increase in customers built on a surge in the previous fiscal quarter, and appeared to offset investor concerns that Zoom's popularity would decline when restrictions on movements ease and people can get back to seeing one another in person.
The earnings come with Zoom still under pressure to deal with security and privacy. It has taken heat over uninvited cyber guests disrupting online meetings with a tactic called "zoombombing."
Zoom was originally built for businesses with dedicated IT teams to handle implementing security features, but first-time users flocked to the service to work or socialize from home due to the pandemic.
Yuan said on a previous earnings video call with analysts that Zoom "learned a hard lesson" that it should have provided more tech support.
"We should have played the role of IT for first-time users. We learned a hard lesson; this was a mistake I made." As a result, the company has poured resources into privacy and security.
