By Nathalie Voit

Video conferencing platform Zoom will continue to be relevant even after the COVID-19 pandemic, an executive from the company said on Dec. 17. 

“We’re more than a single product, we’re a platform that includes things like Zoom Phone, Zoom Events, Zoom Rooms, and Zoom Apps,” Ricky Kapur, head of Asia Pacific at Zoom, told CNBC.

According to Kapur, the world is undergoing three major shifts driving more and more customers towards the platform.

First, the executive said workers are demanding more flexibility from their employers. “Employees are demanding flexible work arrangements and the ability to work frictionless, irrespective of where they are.”

Second, companies are reinventing the rules of customer engagement. More than ever, consumers want to actively interact with brands and have access to the same in-store services they were used to before the pandemic. 

“Whether it’s a retail experience, the ability to live feed into the store and speak with a live person — see a product, have a real conversation, and then make a purchase decision. Consumers are expecting that from companies,” he said.

The final major shift is Zoom’s expansion into other unconventional areas, like Zoom for Home and OnZoom. According to Kapur, these will cater to existing customers along with helping drive new ones towards the platform.

The company posted its financial results for the third quarter on Nov. 22. According to the report, revenue rose 35% year-over-year to settle at $1,050.8 million in the quarter ending Oct. 31. The company said that growth was driven by acquiring new customers and expanding across its existing customer base.

Still, growth was down 54% from the previous quarter, driven by declining customer growth rates and reports of Microsoft Teams cutting into the video communications market space. 

For perspective, in the third quarter of 2020, still in the midst of the COVID-19 nationwide lockdowns, Zoom’s number of large customers skyrocketed 485%. In the first quarter of 2021, the increase was just 87%, Bloomberg reported.

However, Kapur remains confident hybrid work will continue to spur growth in the platform.  

“The numbers tell us that customers are still investing and continuing to invest in Zoom post-pandemic,” he said.