Zoom continues upward trajectory

The continued growth and strong performance of the Zoom video conferencing service has been underlined by the California-based company revealing higher than expected sales in fiscal 2021 and projections for an even stronger performance in the 2022 fiscal year.

The company, whose founder and Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan was born in Shandong province in China, enjoyed phenomenal growth during 2020/21, as businesses, social groups and educational institutions worldwide relied upon it to continue to function during the coronavirus pandemic.

Its revenue growth for the fiscal year ending Jan 31, 2021, was a remarkable 326 percent, to $2.65 billion. The revenue figure for fiscal 2022 is projected by the company to be 41.9 to 42.6 percent higher at $3.76 to $3.78 billion, ahead of the 37 percent increase predicted by analysts.

"We believe we are well positioned for strong growth with our innovative video communications platform, on which our customers can build, run, and grow their businesses. Our globally recognized brand and team (is) ever focused on delivering happiness to our customers," said Yuan in a statement.

Despite the ongoing success of its core service, Yuan has explored branching out into other fields, including a cloud phone system, to further expand its appeal to businesses.

Workplace fixture

The increasing spread of vaccines means the end of the pandemic is becoming an ever-greater reality, economies will start to come back to life and some sort of normality will return.

Quite what this new normal will look like is unclear, but Zoom has been embraced by so many people with such enthusiasm that it looks like it will remain a fixture of working and social life in years to come.

"In our view, and whether you like it or not, video will continue to remain a core element of our daily lives and further be embedded in work, school, etc," Matt VanVliet, an analyst at international brokerage company BTIG, said in a note published before the results came out.

"Zoom will clearly benefit and report sustained levels of growth, in our view, and increasingly in the enterprise segment."

Zoom's video conferencing facilities offer up to 40 minutes of call time free of charge, for as many as 100 participants, before the service costs.

Business Insider reports that Yuan originally came up with the idea for it when he and his girlfriend were at different universities, a 10-hour train ride away from one another.

When he moved to the United States, Yuan became a vice president at telecoms company Cisco Systems and tried to pitch the idea for Zoom, only for Cisco to reject it, so he started up on his own.