Zoom Communications, Inc.

Zoom started as a video conferencing company and has grown into a full unified communications platform. Eric Yuan, a former Cisco WebEx executive, founded it in 2011 in San Jose, California. He built Zoom around one simple idea: make video meetings that actually work well. And it did. The product was more reliable and easier to use than anything else on the market.

Zoom Meetings is the flagship product, supporting HD video and audio with screen sharing, recording, breakout rooms, and virtual backgrounds. During COVID-19, remote work sent Zoom to over 300 million daily meeting participants at its peak. Growth has normalized since then, but Zoom kept a large enterprise customer base and expanded far beyond video calls.

The platform now includes Zoom Phone, a cloud phone system replacing traditional office phones. Zoom Rooms modernizes conference rooms with hardware and software. Zoom Webinars and Zoom Events handle large-scale virtual and hybrid events. Zoom Team Chat provides persistent workplace messaging. Zoom Contact Center brings the platform into customer experience operations with video, voice, and chat support.

Zoom sells to everyone from individual professionals on the free tier to large enterprises with tens of thousands of seats. Enterprise customers contributing over $100,000 in annual revenue represent a growing share, showing strong upmarket expansion.

The subscription-based model generates gross margins around 78-79%. Operating margins are notably strong at roughly 25-30%, reflecting a capital-efficient approach and clear focus on profitability.

AI is a major investment area. Zoom AI Companion is a built-in assistant that provides meeting summaries, real-time transcription, smart scheduling, email drafting, and chat summaries at no extra cost for paid users. The company uses a federated AI approach, combining its own models with third-party large language models.

Zoom has acquired Solvvy for conversational AI and Workvivo for employee experience. These position Zoom as a comprehensive work platform, not just a video tool. With roughly $4.6 billion in annual revenue and strong free cash flow, Zoom is navigating its post-pandemic chapter by deepening its platform and expanding in enterprise communications.