Zoom user-base up by 50% in 3 weeks

 Many countries and companies have come down on the usage of Zoom. But with social distancing and work from home being more or less the norm across the world, the Zoom platform continues to be popular, and the company has reported a 50% rise in the use of the online meeting application in the past three weeks.

According to its Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan, by April 21 the user-base of Zoom's flagship videoconferencing app had reached 300 million --- a 50% spike from the 200 million base on April 1.

Zoom's response to the bans and the rising reports of security flaws seems to have had a positive impact on the users and also its investors. Shares of Zoom, which have surged nearly five-fold since the company went public in March last year, rose 12% to a record high of $168.24 on Thursday.

Security fears allayed

“Clearly the Zoom platform is providing an incredibly valuable service to our beloved users during this challenging time,” Yuan said in a webinar Thursday. “We are thrilled and honored to continue to earn the trust of so many enterprises, hospitals, teachers and customers throughout the world.”

The California-based company has come up with a variety of updated security measures for the latest version of its app, including the ability to report a user to Zoom and a boosted level of encryption. 

The company also now gives hosts the ability to lock meetings and restrict what attendees can do. Like many of its peers, the company doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption, which is the highest standard.

Further, Zoom has appointed former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos and a number of other experts to attack security concerns, and the general feeling in the market is the company has responded robustly to the issues.

India is one of the countries that has issued an advisory on the use of Zoom. The Indian government has been pushing for a similar platform that is locally made and run.

Competitors up the ante, too

Meanwhile, the popularity and ubiquitousness of Zoom seems to have forced Google to realise that it needs to add more features on its videoconferencing platform, Google Meet, to stay competitive. 

Google now allows G Suite users to directly take calls on its video conferencing tool Meet. The integration of Meet with e-mail is the first of several features being launched ahead of schedule because of a surge in demand for video conferencing

Google Meet now allows web users to simultaneously see up to 16 video chat participants. More updates are coming for larger meetings, better presentation layouts, and support across more devices, says Google.

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