Zoom sees huge profit rise as home working continues to soar

Zoom has seen a huge rise in revenues as the remote working boom shows little sign of slowing down.

In its second quarter financial results, the video conferencing platform revealed it saw a 355% growth in revenues to hit $663.5 million in the quarter, with profits hitting $186m.

Before the global lockdown, Zoom was somewhat of a niche player, but has enjoyed a titanic surge in usage as employees around the world began a new era of working from home.

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Zoom profits

Along with the huge revenue rise, Zoom also revealed a major rise in user numbers across the world, with businesses large and small signing up to the platform. 

Zoom says it now has approximately 370,200 customers with more than 10 employees, (an increase of around 458% from last year). This included nearly a thousand (988) customers contributing more than $100,000 over the past 12 months - an 112% increase as Zoom succeeded in adding paying customers alongside free users.

This customer growth included a 288% year-over-year increase in the Americas, with combined APAC and EMEA revenue topping 629% year-on-year.

Overall, Zoom now expects total revenue for its 2021 financial year to be between $2.37 billion and $2.39 billion, and is set to boost its workforce to around 3400 employees worldwide.

"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. At Zoom, we strive to deliver a world-class, frictionless, and secure communication experience for our customers across locations, devices, and use cases,” said Zoom founder and CEO, Eric S. Yuan.

The results are good news for Zoom shareholders, but the company still faces questions over its security protection and privacy settings. Zoom had come under scrutiny for several high-profile security incidents, and earlier this year apologised for supposedly accidentally routing some meetings through Chinese servers. This step-down prompted a significant overhauling of the company's routing processes, with Zoom promising continued security research and development.

The company recently revealed it will no longer carry out direct sales of its products to users in some markets, and instead switch to a partner-only model. The move is thought to only affect the company's home nation of China for now, but could have big ramifications for the thousands of businesses across the world who have come to rely on Zoom throughout the global lockdown.

The news also came shortly after the company launched Zoom Hardware as a Service (HaaS), partnering with a number of third-party hardware manufacturers for its Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms HaaS offerings.

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