Zoom Hits US$1 Billion in Quarterly Revenue - Shows Signs of Easing Growth

Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s quarterly revenue surpassed US$1 billion for the first time in the company’s history, though the strong demand for its videoconferencing services that made it ubiquitous during the pandemic is showing signs of easing as regular activities resume.

The roughly 54% increase in revenue, while slightly better than Wall Street expected, couldn’t match the huge growth that Zoom had in the year-earlier period, when revenue surged fourfold compared with the prior year as companies leaned more heavily into remote working.

While the company forecast revenue of more than $1 billion again in the current quarter, its adjusted earnings guidance came in lower than expected. And company officials said small businesses and consumers were starting to spend less as opportunities for in-person meetings and gatherings expand. Zoom officials said some metrics supercharged by the pandemic had begun to normalize as customers returned to “more thoughtful, measured buying-patterns.”

Zoom shares fell 12% in after-hours trading, after closing up 2% on Monday.

Research firm International Data Corp. projects that collaboration applications will become a roughly $51 billion market by 2025, nearly double 2020 levels.

Microsoft Corp. in its most recent earnings report said that usage of Teams, its group conferencing and collaboration software, had reached record levels with nearly 250 million monthly active users and nearly 80 million monthly active Teams Phones users, with total calls surpassing 1 billion in one month.

Zoom Phone, which the company sells as a telephone option for huddle rooms and executive offices, in August reached 2 million seats sold, and the number of Phone customers that generated more than $100,000 in revenue over the previous 12 months more than tripled from the comparable period a year earlier, company executives said.

As offices start to reopen, analysts are raising questions about Zoom’s ability to retain paying customers and sustain the kind of growth rate it has enjoyed during the pandemic.

On Monday, Zoom said it had about 504,900 customers with more than 10 employees, up from about 497,000 in the April quarter, and said about 2,278 customers generated more than $100,000 in revenue over the past 12 months, up from about 1,999 in the previous quarter.

Zoom has been adding features and services and in July agreed to buy cloud-based customer-service software provider Five9 Inc., in a deal that Zoom said would allow it to tap into a $24 billion contact-centre market.

“Today we are a global brand counting over half a million customers with more than 10 employees, which we believe positions us extremely well to support organizations and individuals as they look to reimagine work, communications, and collaboration,” Zoom founder and Chief Executive Eric S. Yuan said.

Zoom’s second-quarter profit rose to about $317 million from about $186 million a year earlier, while revenue reached $1.02 billion, up from $663.5 million a year ago.

The results beat Zoom’s and Wall Street projections, according to FactSet.

The California-based company said it now expects annual revenue to reach $4.01 billion to $4.02 billion, compared with its earlier view of $3.98 billion to $3.99 billion, and $4.75 to $4.79 a share in adjusted profit, compared with its previous range of $4.56 to $4.61 a share.

Australia is in the midst of a ‘baby recession’ with preliminary estimates showing the number of births in 2023 fell by more than four percent to the lowest level since 2006, according to KPMG. The consultancy firm says this reflects the impact of cost-of-living pressures on the feasibility of younger Australians starting a family.

KPMG estimates that 289,100 babies were born in 2023. This compares to 300,684 babies in 2022 and 309,996 in 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). KPMG urban economist Terry Rawnsley said weak economic growth often leads to a reduced number of births. In 2023, ABS data shows gross domestic product (GDP) fell to 1.5 percent. Despite the population growing by 2.5 percent in 2023, GDP on a per capita basis went into negative territory, down one percent over the 12 months.

“Birth rates provide insight into long-term population growth as well as the current confidence of Australian families,” said Mr Rawnsley. “We haven’t seen such a sharp drop in births in Australia since the period of economic stagflation in the 1970s, which coincided with the initial widespread adoption of the contraceptive pill.”

Mr Rawnsley said many Australian couples delayed starting a family while the pandemic played out in 2020. The number of births fell from 305,832 in 2019 to 294,369 in 2020. Then in 2021, strong employment and vast amounts of stimulus money, along with high household savings due to lockdowns, gave couples better financial means to have a baby. This led to a rebound in births.

However, the re-opening of the global economy in 2022 led to soaring inflation. By the start of 2023, the Australian consumer price index (CPI) had risen to its highest level since 1990 at 7.8 percent per annum. By that stage, the Reserve Bank had already commenced an aggressive rate-hiking strategy to fight inflation and had raised the cash rate every month between May and December 2022.

Five more rate hikes during 2023 put further pressure on couples with mortgages and put the brakes on family formation. “This combination of the pandemic and rapid economic changes explains the spike and subsequent sharp decline in birth rates we have observed over the past four years,” Mr Rawnsley said.

The impact of high costs of living on couples’ decision to have a baby is highlighted in births data for the capital cities. KPMG estimates there were 60,860 births in Sydney in 2023, down 8.6 percent from 2019. There were 56,270 births in Melbourne, down 7.3 percent. In Perth, there were 25,020 births, down 6 percent, while in Brisbane there were 30,250 births, down 4.3 percent. Canberra was the only capital city where there was no fall in the number of births in 2023 compared to 2019.

“CPI growth in Canberra has been slightly subdued compared to that in other major cities, and the economic outlook has remained strong,” Mr Rawnsley said. “This means families have not been hurting as much as those in other capital cities, and in turn, we’ve seen a stabilisation of births in the ACT.”

Zoom Hits US$1 Billion in Quarterly Revenue – Shows Signs of Easing Growth

Company raises full-year guidance, reports more than half a million customers with more than 10 employees.

Continued stagflation and cost of living pressures are causing couples to think twice about starting a family, new data has revealed, with long term impacts expected