Zoom Zooms in the IPO Market
The 2019 IPO class delivered some charlatans but Zoom Video Communications (ZM) is by far and away the valedictorian of this cohort.
It’s not even close.
Sadly, the rest of the IPO class of 2019 is littered with failures and overhyped companies dumped onto the retail investors by the venture capitalists.
Let’s explore why Zoom Video Communications is a best of breed firm in their sub-sector.
Zoom Video is a video conferencing service headquartered in San Jose, California and founded by Eric Yuan.
Eric was previously vice president of engineering at Cisco for collaboration software development and realized there was no high-end video conferencing software at the time.
He took his show on the road and was able to nab 1 million users within the first 2 years after starting Zoom.
This is a real tech company with legitimate proprietary technology and unique source code.
The revaluation from growth to value has hit the entire class of software growth stocks who over-rely on growth as a mechanism to boost shares.
Some have been unfairly punished like Zoom in the downgrade even though the company delivered a strong second-quarter earnings report.
Revenue exploded 96% to $145.8 million, which destroyed expectations of $130.3 million, and management boasted that the number of customers spending more than $100,000 annually on the cloud-based platform more than doubled, a signal that customers are juicing up their use of the service.
Most of the carnage from the rerouting out of growth stocks were specifically in loss-making, high cash burn stocks with the absence of sensible unit economics.
Well, Zoom easily passes this acid test as they have been profitable since the day they went public and even before then.
Even though Zoom has yet to tap the profitability Gods, the $5 million of profits last quarter is just the beginning and as they scale up, the bottom line will beef up.
Therefore, Zoom will not be reliant on outside capital to survive.
In another harbinger of a higher future stock price, adjusted earnings per share rose from $0.02 to $0.08, which also easily beat estimates of $0.01.
Zoom audaciously hiked their outlook for the year at a time when many companies of its ilk are guiding lower to insulate themselves from the global uncertainty permeating throughout the global corporate landscape.
The consolidation in this best of breed software stock will only be temporary aided by the fact that We Company has bottomed out and found a value after its horrendously botched IPO.
I am impressed with Zoom's superior products, growth prospects, and scalable business model, and the stock’s near-term risk/reward trade-off is attractive after the recent sell-off.
There is an obvious and manageable clear path to a $2 billion revenue run rate with strong margin expansion potential and with its flagship product growing around 100%, its next growth driver in Zoom Phone could translate well into a meaningful revenue stream.
Companies are increasingly allowing remote workers to traverse into a mobile lifestyle and Zoom Phone slots seamlessly into this equation.
Anyone that has used Zoom as a product can verify its superior performance standards which is head and shoulders above any competition.
If shares float down to the low 60s, it would be a great buy and hold stock, since actively trading new IPOs are often too volatile to lock in proper entry points.
