Zoom’s Paid Userbase Grew Fourfold In India Amid The Pandemic
While the free user base has grown 67 times in January-April, the paid user base has grown four times, Zoom COO Aparna Bawa says.
Zoom Video Communications Inc. said that its paid user base in India grew fourfold as adoption rates for its video conferencing app surged as people stayed home to avoid risk of contracting the novel coronavirus.
“India’s an incredibly important market for Zoom, and while the free user base has grown 67 times between January and April, paid user base has grown four times,” said Aparna Bawa, the company’s chief operating officer. She said demand is coming from enterprises and daily consumers.
“Future of work has changed forever and companies have realised they don’t need to mandate working from a particular location,” Bawa said. “In our customer base, they’re thinking through work standards and policies, and will be looking to tap into global workforce.”
Zoom has become the pandemic’s social network, with the number of people using it rising from around 10 million as of November 2019 to more than 300 million daily meeting participants, or daily users coming on the platform, as on date. India is among its key growth markets. Bawa, while refused comment on its Indian user base, said most of its growth is coming from international markets.
‘Intention to Invest More’
The San Jose, U.S.-headquartered company is making significant investments in India and has “intentions” to invest more.
Bawa declined to comment on the quantum of investment but said it will be on technology. The company seeks to tap Indian talent for its R&D expansion and hire staff for its data, security and business operations. It’s also looking at expanding its sales and marketing team in Mumbai by three times.
The firm opened its first technology centre earlier this week in Bengaluru, and already has two data centres in the country. In total, Zoom has about 17 data centres globally, including one in China.
Zoom, which competes with Cisco Systems Inc.’s WebEx and Google Meet as well as Jio Meet and Airtel’s Bluejeans, has faced challenges over data security issues. The Indian government had said recently that Zoom “isn’t a safe platform”.
“We continue to engage with the (Indian) government and trying to provide them with as much information as possible to make an informed decision. It’s an ongoing process and we’re positive about it,” Bawa said, adding the company has resolved multiple security and disruption issues. It will offer end-to-end encryption to all users by the end of this year.