Price of Zoom's shares 2020-2024

The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVD-19) pandemic has changed the way many people communicate, personally and professionally. An increase in working from home (WFH) and social distancing has made face-to-face contact with relatives, friends, and colleagues harder. Tracing the share price of Zoom – a prominent video communications service – shows how central web conferencing has become to keeping people in contact throughout the pandemic.
While the price has increased steadily throughout 2020, a positive announcement regarding the efficiency of a COVID-19 vaccine made on November 9, 2020, resulted in Zoom’s share price falling from 500.11 U.S. dollars to 403.58 U.S. dollars on November 10, 2020. Since then the share price has stumbled downwards, landing on 61 U.S. dollars on July 29, 2024. Despite the fall from grace on the stock market, Zoom's business is more robust than ever, both in terms of revenue and income. The company has really cashed in on the opportunity provided by the pandemic and has grown its business tremendously.

The work-from-home experiment

A recent survey showed that in companies with digital output, 75 percent of respondents work either entirely in a work-from-home (WFH) setting, or in a hybrid arrangement. Web conferencing software is experiencing an increase in spending as a result, with 67 percent of respondents planning to increase their spending in this area.
Services such as Zoom are certain to see a reduction in user numbers when the pandemic is brought under control, but usage is unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels. In a recent survey of 1,428 CIOs and IT leaders across 83 countries, 94 percent of respondents said they expect at least some of their workforce to WFH post-COVID-19.

Hardware sales defy forecasts

As well as increases in software and services that enable WFH, physical hardware has also seen an increase in sales, likely due to workers setting up offices at home. Following an initial dip caused by supply chain disruptions, increased demand, especially in the education and business sectors, saw PC shipments return to growth. This defies forecasts made during the initial phases of the pandemic, when analysts expected a drop of anywhere from 1.6 to 11.5 percent in the shipments of personal computing devices.