“Previous to Zoom, I felt like the debate around video conference apps was “Which do you feel is least terrible? Let’s use that one”… Zoom had an intersection of stable, high-quality performance plus ease-of-use, and the network effect started snowballing from there.” Zoom is headquartered in San Jose, California, with 18 data centres located globally in cities such as Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, New York, and Melbourne. By December of that year, Zoom’s market capitalisation was $18.8 billion, up 18% since its IPO. Taking several co-workers with him, Eric founded Zoom.īy 2018, Zoom were recording revenues of $151.5 million, and floated an initial public offering (IPO) in April 2019. When?Įric left his job at Webex in 2011, with Cisco wanting to emphasise aspects of social networking, which went against Eric’s vision of a cross-platform video conferencing app for businesses. However, some analysts suggested that part of the shift to remote work and online meetings would be permanent, suggesting a hybrid form of meetings between those at home and in the office. To counter the competition, Zoom needed to continuously upgrade its products, but sceptics believed the American company’s primary driver of growth – social distancing due to the pandemic – would diminish as vaccines and therapies for COVID-19 became available. Zoom’s price had soared during the pandemic but some believed that it was just a matter of time before large rivals such as Webex by Cisco Systems, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams caught up with Zoom’s industry leading product features. Zoom offers four main products: Zoom Meetings (synonymous with Zoom), Zoom Video Webinar, Zoom Phone and Zoom Rooms. Zoom serves a wide cross-section of society, including large corporate companies, educational institutions and healthcare providers, and social gatherings between friends and family. Zoom is the online video conferencing app that exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eric Yuan, Zoom Video Communications Inc.

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