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 Popular video-conferencing company Zoom Video Communications (ZM) far outpaced sales expectations in the first quarter as millions of users flocked to use its technology to host business and social meetings during the coronavirus pandemic.First-quarter revenue surged 169% to $328.2 million year-on-year, beating analysts' estimates of $202.7 million. Zoom now has about 265,400 customers with more than 10 employees, up about 354% from the same quarter last fiscal year."The COVID-19 crisis has driven higher demand for distributed, face-to-face interactions and collaboration using Zoom," said Zoom founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan. "Use cases have grown rapidly as people integrated Zoom into their work, learning, and personal lives. We also supported an unprecedented number of free participants, including over 100,000 K-12 schools."Commenting on the earnings, five-star analyst Ittai Kidron at Oppenheimer, said that while Zoom reported "exceptional" results, "its gross margin significantly contracted (-1,480bps QoQ and -1,149bps YoY) due to high levels of free meeting minutes (K-12 schools) and increased public cloud hosting costs". Indeed, cost of revenue in the first quarter skyrocketed 330% to $103.7 million year-on-year.Shares rose 1.9% to close at $208.08 ahead of the earnings release on Tuesday and dropped 1.7% in after-market trading.Looking ahead, the company raised its full-year revenue forecast to a range of $1.78 billion to $1.80 billion from $905 million to $915 million. This compares w
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 Shares of Dunkin' Brands Group Inc. rose 1.7% in premarket trading Wednesday after the coffee and ice cream seller provided a mid-quarter sales update, which showed improvement over the last month in its U.S. Dunkin' and Baskin-Robbins sales, helped by strength in drive-thru sales and a jump in midday sales. For the eight weeks ended May 23, same-store sales for open Dunkin' U.S. stores fell 23%, but improved to a decline of 15% for the week ended May 23 from a drop of 25% for the week ended April 25. The company said the improvement was driven by strong sales at drive-thru stores, double-digit percentage year-over-year same-store sales growth during the 11 a.m to 2 p.m. time period and increased sales through the Dunkin' app, delivery and curbside. For open Baskin-Robbins U.S. stores, quarter-to-date same-store sales fell 10.5%, with sales improving to flat for the week ended May 23 from down 10% for the week ended April 25. AS of May 23, about 650 of 9,637 Dunkin' U.S. stores were closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The stock has declined 4.4% over the past three months through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 has gained 2.6%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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U.S. stock-index futures Wednesday morning added to solid gains after a private-sector labor-market report came in much cooler than expected. Data from Automatic Data Processing Inc. showed that 2.76 million jobs were lost in May, but that figure was far weaker than consensus expectations for a loss of jobs 8.663 million, compared with April's tally for a loss of 20.236 million. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 230 points, or 0.9%, at 25,930, those for the S&P 500 index were up 0.6% at 3,096, while Nasdaq-100 futures were gaining 0.4% at 9,685. The ADP data come ahead of U.S. unemployment figures in the nonfarm private sector that will disclosed on Friday, and will likely show that unemployment in the U.S. for May has approached 19% amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
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Zoom won't encrypt free calls because it wants to comply with law enforcement The Next WebZoom CEO confirms video calls by free users will not be encrypted to allow law enforcement easy access - MSPoweruserFree Zoom meetings won't be getting this privacy feature any time soon TechRadarZoom reveals the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on its earnings Siliconrepublic.comView Full Coverage on Google News
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