Zoom (ZM) reported its fiscal Q3 2021 earnings after the closing bell on Monday, beating analysts’ expectations in another blowout quarter for the video chat software provider, with revenue jumping 367% year-over-year. Zoom has been on a tear throughout 2020 as companies, schools, and average consumers turned to the service to stay connected amid the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, though investors appear to be cautious about the company’s continued trajectory, even as its Q4 forecast beat expectations.
Here’s how the company performed in the quarter compared to what analysts were expecting.
Revenue: $777.2 million versus $693.4 million expected.
Earnings per share: $0.99 versus $0.75 expected.
For Q4 the company is predicting revenue of between $806 million and $811 million. Earnings per share are expected to be between $0.77 and $0.79.
The company’s stock was down more than 4.5% after the announcement.
At the start of the year, Zoom’s stock price sat at $71.90. But with the wild growth the company has seen amid the pandemic, the stock ended Monday at $478.36.
Zoom has seen its user numbers soar. The company doesn’t break out individual users, but instead counts customers with more than 10 employees and those that pay more than $100,000 per year.
In Q3 2020, Zoom had 74,100 customers with more than 10 employees using the platform and 546 customers paying more than $100,000 per year.
In Q3 2021, the company reported having 433,700 customers with more than 10 employees, and 1,289 customers paying more than $100,000 a year.
But there have been signs of trouble. When Pfizer and BioNTech announced that the coronavirus vaccine the companies had been working on proved 90% effective in testing on Nov. 9, Zoom’s stock price plummeted. The company went from trading at $500.11 on Nov. 6 to $376.01 on Nov. 10. The price has modestly recovered since, but is still shy of its Oct. 11 closing price of $559.
The earnings report also follows Zoom’s settlement with the FTC following accusations that the company lied about its security capabilities including saying that it offered end-to-end encryption when it never did.
The settlement requires Zoom to boost its security capabilities, something the company was already doing following public backlash over vulnerabilities in its default app settings. The firm also announced it began rolling out end-to-end encryption as a technical preview in October.
And while there are questions as to Zoom’s long-term growth, Mizuho Securities' Siti Panigrahi wrote in a recent analyst note that the firm is well positioned for the future.
“We continue to see Zoom as benefiting even in a post-COVID-19 scenario, as its video conferencing solution has become a critical component of how companies communicate during COVID-19, while the pandemic has also increased the recognition of its long-term importance in the new normal, post-pandemic workplace that will emerge over the coming years,” he wrote.
If that scenario plays out, Zoom could be the go-to video chat platform for some time.
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