Companies - October 30, 2020

Zoom is Now Worth More than ExxonMobil & Founder Eric Yuan’s Fortune Skyrockets

October 30, 2020

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As per a post by Forbes, Zoom, a high-flying video conferencing service that has seen demand surge during the coronavirus pandemic, is now worth more than ExxonMobil, one of the largest oil and gas firms in the world.

At 2:30 p.m. ET, Zoom had a market value of $139 billion, compared to $138.9 billion for Exxon. With a $19 billion market cap, Zoom started the year. In contrast, while Zoom reported $1.35 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, Exxon reported $213.8 billion in revenue over that period.

On Thursday, Exxon disclosed that it would lay off 1,900 U.S. workers, the latest move to minimize costs during the pandemic and increase productivity. Like other oil firms, Exxon has seen its activities under pressure from coronavirus, many of which have taken measures to boost balance sheets, cut personnel and, in some instances, suspend dividends. The U.S. oil standard, West Texas Intermediate, currently trades at about $36 per barrel, down from over $62 as recently as January.

READ ALSO: Apple’s Worth Hits $2 Trillion, More Than GDP of 48 African Nations, including Nigeria, South Africa

Zoom creator Eric Yuan, over the past three months, has seen his own fortune almost double. His net worth has nearly doubled since being on The Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people using stock prices as of July 24, growing from $11 billion to $21.3 billion as of 2:30 p.m. On October 29 ET.

Yuan’s fortune has soared alongside Zoom’s business, which has risen at a rapid rate as millions of people who work from home continue to depend on video conferencing, Zoom is one of the highest performing stocks in 2020 so far, weathering the sell-off caused by the pandemic in March to a large extent and increasing by more than 600 percent over the year.

In the second quarter, which ended August 31, the company easily beat earnings projections, with $663.5 million in sales (far outpacing the predictions of $500.5 million by analysts), and it plans to continue to expand at a rapid rate. Zoom now expects sales of up to $690 million for the current quarter (by the end of October); the company also increased its financial outlook for the full fiscal year through January 2021 to approximately $2.4 billion in revenue, up from $623 million for the year through January 2020, as it takes into account even greater demand for enterprise remote work solutions.