How Zoom surpass Skype to emerge as the most popular video conferencing platform across the globe
Zoom is where people go to school, work, party and pray these days.
Skype was the most popular choice among people whenever it was about video calls or video conferences. Even for podcasts to record conversations with guests.
People continuously gave Skype a chance whenever the question was about taking video calls during “work-from-home”, to catch up with friends/family or to discuss rental problems with overseas landlords.
After giving several chances to Skype and suffering continuous disappointments pertaining to video/voice quality that never improved and interrupted sessions, people decided to switch to alternative options.
Zoom was right around the block when the Coronavirus pandemic took over the planet. Zoom: A California-based video conferencing company founded by Eric Yuan, worked on the pain-points of customers and offered better audio and video quality, recording and sharing of high-quality conversations. Plus, with added features such as a beauty filter and virtual background, it emerged as the most popular app in no-time.
Just last week, Zoom’s iOS app hit the top free apps list on Apple Store and went on to become the second most downloaded Mobile application just behind TikTok according to Sensor Tower (Business Insider, 2020). On the Google App store, it has been downloaded over 50 million times (BBC, 2020).
According to Apptopia, Zoom ranks №1 on Top Free Apps list on both iOS App store in US, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and several other countries.
Enticing Unique Features
Zoom has a built-in beautification filter that smooths out skin tone and blemishes and presents a polished looking appearance. The feature is available under the Video section of Settings with a checkbox titled ‘Touch up my appearance’. For the camera-shy and video conscious ones, it works as a ‘confidence boost’.
Also, for the background conscious ones, zoom offers custom backgrounds to hide clutters, running children, pets etc. Popular ones include the Milky Way galaxy and top of Burj Khalifa. Users can also add images and videos to customize it.
Zoom also allows a host to split participants into different rooms just like how colleagues in a particular department sit together and work at workplaces. The host can split its coworkers into 50 different sessions called breakout rooms. So, Employees can discuss and collaborate with their teammates while the boss can pop-in and out of each breakout room to gather updates.
Success during Lockdown and Quarantine
Prior to Coronavirus Crisis, Zoom’s existing customer base consisted of desk workers who preferred the platform over Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams etc. for video conferencing.
Now with countries across the globe going under lockdown and mandatory “work-from-home” situation for offices, people were bound to rely on the platform during home quarantine.
This has led to a rapid increase in sales and stock price of Zoom. Heather Bellini (5-star Goldman Sachs Analyst) explains that due to COVID-19, zoom is seeing increased demand as organizations rely on communication tools that will allow their employees working remotely to collaborate effectively (Yahoo Finance, 2020).
According to Forbes, 343,000 people across the globe downloaded the Zoom App of which 60,000 were from the U.S. The figures were released by Apptopia that tracks mobile apps.
Moreover, Universities, Colleges and Schools have switched to online platforms to conduct lectures. Institutes, as big as, Harvard University have switched all in-person undergraduate and postgraduate classes to zoom sessions.
How did this happen?
As coronavirus spread across the planet and countries were beginning to go under lockdown, Zoom leveraged this opportunity and acted quick to capture schools and colleges in Coronavirus-struck countries.
At first, zoom rolled out free access to K-12 schools and educational institutions in Japan, Italy and the US and got them onboard.
Next, it lifted the 40-minute time limit and allowed free access on basic zoom accounts for Austria, Denmark, France, South Korea and other countries as schools were beginning to shut down.
Educational Users benefitted from the following built-in features:
· Unlimited meetings for upto 300 participants
· HD Audio, Video
· Screensharing, Whiteboarding, Annotation, Nonverbal Feedback
· LTI integration to support LMS platforms
· Advanced admin controls for enabling/disabling recording, chat, and notifications
· 500 MB of cloud recording
· Cloud recording transcription
· Usage reports to track participation
So, Teachers can log-in, schedule classes, send invites to students and share screens. Students can join classes using the links without registering for zoom account.
And this is how zoom emerged as a popular choice among students and started trending across other social platforms.
According to the New York Times, Gen Z teenagers are now calling themselves “Zoomers” jokingly and College students feel that they all go to “zoom university”, same virtual school but different price tags.
From birthday parties to beer pong nights to Zoom University Merch, Gen Z has successfully moved all in-person socializing events over the internet and is making most of their time online, respecting social distancing and quarantine during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Conversely, Zoom managed to get on headlines when UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted a picture of himself using zoom for a cabinet meeting (Source: BBC News). This has sparked security concerns.
Zoom had a security breach in the past where a security flaw allowed attackers to remove attendees from the ongoing meeting, spoof messages and hijack shared screens. Therefore, government officials, security officers and a few corporates still prefer its competitor platforms such as Microsoft Teams and Cisco’s Webex.
Conclusion
There are growing security concerns surrounding a few features. Such as, administrations gaining information on IP, location, device information etc. of participants, full access to records of meetings and uninformed monitoring of screens by hosts. Zoom’s competitors Microsoft and Cisco have a competitive advantage as they offer more security. The latter seeing demand surge and increased subscriptions alongside Zoom (Source:Bloomberg,2020).
Moreover, Eric Yuan stated that Zoom would not leverage the pandemic to boost its marketing and sales and gave free access to Education Institutes. Although Zoom received an influx of customers during this period, it is unclear whether the numbers will convert into paying customers in the future.
Moreover, Bellini predicts that the COVID-19 crisis could negatively impact Zoom’s customers which are, small and medium-sized businesses as some may suffer losses and others going out of business. This would cause a drop in retention rates as businesses decide to eliminate zoom subscriptions to cut costs and switch to free platforms (Source:Yahoo News).
However, Zoom could benefit from the brand building and market capture at the moment as university and college students become brand loyal customers and continue to use the platform when they step into workplaces.
