Zoom reached 300 million daily meeting participants

Zoom video conferencing app's popularity has skyrocketed by another 50 percent to 300 million in the last three weeks, as the company fought to quell a backlash around security and safety that has seen a number of governments and firms ban its applications.  

Chief Executive Eric Yuan gave the numbers in an update on the platform's 90-day security plan, while also outlining the rollout next week of a new version of the app with more encryption features.

Zoom shares closed up nearly 5 percent in New York, and at $150.25 (roughly Rs. 11,400) are now back close to peaks close to $160 (roughly Rs. 12,100) hit last month before the security row erupted. German carmaker Daimler was the latest company on Thursday to say it had banned use of Zoom for all corporate content until further notice.

The coronavirus-driven lockdown of millions of people globally has driven huge growth in use of platforms like Zoom, Skype or Microsoft's Teams application, with Zoom already reporting last month a 2,000 percent surge in user numbers compared to its best days last year.

It said on Wednesday growth had continued over the past three weeks, driving user numbers to 300 million daily, even as it faced a barrage of criticism from cyber security experts and users alike over bugs in its codes and the lack of end-to-end encryption of its chat sessions.

Zoom has appointed former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos and a number of other experts to attack these concerns and security researchers say it has responded robustly to the issues.

Researchers say "Zoombombing" incidents, where uninvited guests crash meetings, were caused by simple choices made by some of the millions of new users of the app and that the company has taken sensible steps including giving hosts the ability to lock meetings and restrict what attendees can do.