Zoom Does Not Have As Many Daily Users As Company Says

Shares of Zoom were dropping on Wednesday after the company walked back on claims that it has 300 million daily active users.

On April 22nd the company had reported that it saw a 50% surge in daily users and later updated its statement to say it had 300 million daily meeting participants.

The difference between daily active users and participants is that meeting participants can be counted more than once.

Shares fell as much as 8.7% on Thursday after the company walked back on its claims.

“We are humbled and proud to help over 300 million daily meeting participants stay connected during this pandemic. In a blog post on April 22, we unintentionally referred to these participants as “users” and “people.” When we realized this error, we adjusted the wording to “participants.” This was a genuine oversight on our part,” a Zoom spokesperson said.

In other news the company also joined the NASDAQ 100 on Thursday.

The company also recently announced robust security enhancements with the upcoming general availability of Zoom 5.0, a key milestone in the company’s 90-day plan to proactively identify, address, and enhance the security and privacy capabilities of its platform.

According to a press release from Zoon on April 22nd, by adding support for AES 256-bit GCM encryption, Zoom will provide increased protection for meeting data and resistance against tampering.

“I am proud to reach this step in our 90-day plan, but this is just the beginning. We built our business by delivering happiness to our customers. We will earn our customers’ trust and deliver them happiness with our unwavering focus on providing the most secure platform,” said Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom.

“When faced with questions over security and privacy, Zoom reacted quickly and very publicly to the challenges, including their CEO holding weekly public security briefings,” said Wayne Kurtzman, IDC Research Director for Social, Communities, and Collaboration.

“Zoom was also quick to take actions on changing the defaults that helped address meeting privacy concerns, as well as setting a 90-day plan for deeper actions, and communicating it publicly.”

“We take a holistic view of our users’ privacy and our platform’s security,” commented Oded Gal, CPO of Zoom.
“From our network to our feature set to our user experience, everything is being put through rigorous scrutiny.

On the back end, AES 256-bit GCM encryption will raise the bar for securing our users’ data in transit. On the front end, I’m most excited about the Security icon in the meeting menu bar. This takes our security features, existing and new, and puts them front and center for our meeting hosts. With millions of new users, this will make sure they have instant access to important security controls in their meetings.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in Zoom Video Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: ZM) and have not been compensated for this article.