Zoom has come a long way since its heyday during the pandemic, with its stock down 90% and challenging growth prospects ahead.
Zoom quickly became the poster child for videoconferencing during the pandemic, as businesses, schools, churches, and families turned to the platform to stay in touch. As things have returned to normal, however, the company has struggled to maintain its growth and fend off larger rivals.
The company’s stock is now down 90% over its pandemic peak. What’s more, growth prospects are far slimmer moving forward, with Slack, Microsoft Teams, and others posing more challenges to its core business. Zoom is trying to address this by rolling out additional applications and services, such as Zoom Mail and Zoom Calendar.
Even with the pivot, however, analysts believe the company still has a long road ahead of it before it can return to the type of growth investors have become accustomed to.
“Zoom has a fundamental flaw – it has needed to spend heavily to keep hold of market share. Spending to cling onto, rather than grow, market share is never a good place to be and was a sign of trouble ahead,” said Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Sophie Lund-Yates, according to Reuters.
“The game is not over for them but without acquisitions this is a multi-year path to returning to higher growth,” said Needham & Co analyst Ryan Koontz.