Zoom Revenues Skyrocket As Profits Double

Because of the coronavirus epidemic, popular videoconferencing software Zoom has seen its sales grow as second-quarter earnings more than double.

Revenues soared 355 percent to $663.5 million ( £ 496.3 million) for the three months ended July 31, smashing estimates of $500.5 million from analysts, reports BBC.

Profits jumped to $186 million, although consumer growth grew by 458% relative to the same time in 2019.

Video conferencing applications continue to be critical because of expanded remote functions.

Zoom's stock reached a new high on Monday, closing at $325.10 when the company increased its annual sales outlook by more than 30 percent to $2.37bn-$2.39bn from its previous $1.78bn-$1.80bn estimate.

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.

The company said that its large customers - firms that generated more than $100,000 in revenue in the past year - doubled to 988 during the quarter.

Zoom, along with rivals Cisco Webex and Microsoft Teams, have all seen a rise in the use of their video conferencing platforms since multiple countries imposed lockdown measures on coronavirus in March.

But the soaring popularity of Zoom has also strained its infrastructure, with a few outages last week as schools virtually resumed classes in many parts of the US.

Its reputation was also hit, as the new attention prompted hackers to hijack meetings and exposed a host of security flaws, revealing that the company had sent user data to Facebook, wrongly claimed that the app had end-to-end encryption and allowed meeting hosts to track participants.

Zoom has also attracted political criticism over its relations with China-where it has more than 700 employees, including much of its software creation staff-which has sparked concerns that it is not appropriate over government use.