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Zoom to report earnings for first time since pandemic hit

The videoconferencing company is seeing 300 million daily meeting participants on its platform.

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Guests attend a Virginia couple's nuptials over Zoom. The platform is used for everything from work meetings and school lessons to weddings.
Guests attend a Virginia couple's nuptials over Zoom. The platform is used for everything from work meetings and school lessons to weddings.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Zoom will report its first-quarter earnings Tuesday. The last time the videoconferencing company reported financial results was before the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything about the way we live — and before so many of us started living our work, school and social lives online. Zoom has facilitated everything from job interviews and virtual funerals to the filming of TV episodes and movies.

Back in early March, Carnegie Mellon University professor Michael Smith says, Zoom was “the cute little videoconferencing platform” that was mostly used by workplaces.

Then came the COVID-19 crisis. “Now it’s almost a verb,” Smith said.

The company has seen a huge surge in users since the pandemic hit, with 300 million daily Zoom meeting participants now. It seems like Zoom is everywhere.

“I don’t think it was thought of like this in its infancy,” said Ian Greenblatt of J.D. Power.

Rapid growth has meant occasional slowdowns and security issues like “Zoombombing.” John Freeman of CFRA says Zoom has to figure out how it can lock people into using its application longer-term.

Third Bridge analyst Scott Kessler says there’s a lot of competition out there from the likes of Google, Microsoft and Facebook.

“They’re all focused on a whole host of other things. Zoom seems to be squarely focused on the opportunity at hand,” Kessler said.

That’s one advantage Zoom has. It really only does one thing, and we all know what that is.

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