Zoom's outlook adds to investors' ho-hum views of company's post-Covid growth prospects
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Zoom Video Communications (NASDAQ:ZM) shares slipped by less than 2% in after-hours trading, Monday, amid tepid reaction to the company's quarterly results and outlook.
Following the stock market close, Zoom (ZM) said that for its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended January 31, it earned $1.29 a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $1.07 billion. Those results surpassed Wall Street analysts' estimates for a profit of $1.07 a share, on $1.05 billion.

However, Zoom (ZM) has also been subject to scrutiny regarding how it will grow its business as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wane. And its outlook for its first quarter was enough to add to the skepticism felt by some investors.
Zoom (ZM) said that it expects to earn between 86 cents and 88 cents a share, excluding one-time items, on revenue between $1.07 billion and $1.075 billion, while analysts had earlier forecast the company sales for the quarter to reach $1.1 billion. Zoom (ZM) also pegged its full-year sales at between $4.53 billion and $4.55 billion, while Wall Street was looking for revenue of $4.75 billion.
Chief Executive Eric Yuan said in a statement that Zoom (ZM) expects that "customers will continue to transform how they work and engage with their customers," and as such, the company is focusing on "new cloud-based technologies" it will roll out in the months ahead.
In addition to delivering its quarterly results and forecast, Zoom (ZM) also gave details about some changes it is making in how it reports its business data.
Beginning with its first quarter, Zoom (ZM) will stop reporting customer numbers for companies with more than 10 employees, as well as the trailing 12-month "net dollar expansion rate" for that group of customers. That figure is seen as a sign of the spending levels of existing customers.
Instead, Zoom (ZM) will begin reporting how many so-called "enterprise" customers it has--or, customers that buy their products through Zoom's (ZM) direct sales team or partners, and that group's net dollar expansion rate. Zoom (ZM) said it had 191,000 of those enterprise customers in its fiscal fourth quarter.
Additionally, Zoom (ZM) authorized the repurchase of up to $1 billion in company stock, and added ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) CEO Bill McDermott to its board of directors.
Zoom (ZM) shares have struggled of late, and have fallen further after hitting an initial 52-week-low in early February.