The company coined the term hardware-as-a-service because Zoom expects to disrupt nearly every area of telephony. The company has since launched Zoom Rooms, a virtual marketplace Zoom Apps, and OnZoom. The company is more than two years into developing products and services that broaden its use beyond web conferencing with Zoom Phone launching in January of 2019, yet the market has priced Zoom for only one path (web conferencing). The market’s biggest misperception about Zoom is that it’s a web conferencing app. I believe the market is making a mistake by dropping Zoom from the top 20 for cloud software valuations. My overarching thesis about cloud software’s resiliency extends to other names, yet this analysis focuses on Zoom Video as it’s one the strongest stocks on the market in terms of its historic top line growth, strong margins, incredible free cash flow and growing profitability. Competitively it can be very harmful to not transition to cloud right now, as I’ve emphasized in my past reports. Traditional IT is expensive and will only hinder a company from taking advantage of AI and 5G.
There is only one way forward for SMBs and enterprises-adopting cloud IaaS, platforms, and software. The Q1 reports are necessary to shed light on what companies will be the leaders coming out of the unusual year of 2020.
We are not surprised to see lower valuations following the Q4 earnings reports as the market holds its breath to see how cloud will perform following tough comps from Covid. This year is very unique for cloud software because many stocks are guiding for less than 40% revenue growth.