Specialist
Former Regional Director at Shanghai BizConf Telecom Co Ltd
Agenda
- Video conferencing SaaS market size, plus impacts from the coronavirus pandemic and office automation companies’ entry into the market
- Major video conferencing companies’ market positioning, market shares and core competencies
- Zoom’s (NASDAQ: ZM) entry into China, cooperation model with domestic software and hardware companies, licensing model and commercial relations
- Major players including BizConf (SHE: 300578) and Suirui – business models, revenue growth trends, sales and client development strategies
Questions
1.
Generally, what do you think were the video conferencing software market size and the video conferencing hardware market size in 2019? How will you estimate the market sizes? In the past three years, what do you think were the growth rates and development trends in the software market and the hardware market?
2.
Video conferencing software has various architectures. SaaS is based on scalable video coding (SVC), while other software is based on advanced video coding. What are their proportions in the software market? What do you think of the growth potential of SaaS? What will be the SaaS market size in the future? What is the ceiling of the market size?
3.
What are the major domestic and foreign companies in the video conferencing SaaS market? How would you rank Zoom, XYLink, BizConf, Suirui, Fastmeeting, Yealink and G-Net? What are the differences in their market positioning? What do you think were their annual revenues in 2019?
4.
Could you share with us some more information about the companies that you are familiar with? What are their major sales channels and client types? In the past 2-3 years, which companies had more advantages in terms of the renewal rate, the number of new clients and the overall revenue growth? Which companies are above the average performance level of the industry? Why can they be above the average?
5.
What are the client personas of XYLink and Yealink?
6.
Zoom advertises itself as the vendor of the most advanced video conferencing SaaS software, what are your views on this? Compared with products offered by other suppliers, do Zoom’s products have more diverse functions? In which aspects does Zoom differ from other software suppliers? Are there any differences between the aforementioned players in terms of technological level?
7.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, an increasing number of companies engaging in developing video conferencing software have emerged in the market. How will these new entrants affect the overall video conferencing SaaS market? Will the market share of players solely focusing on developing video conferencing software be encroached on by these newly-emerging companies, say, Tencent Meeting? How do you expect the competitive landscape of this market to change in mid- and long-term?
8.
According to an overseas analysis report, due to the coronavirus crisis, Zoom is said to have attracted more active users in January-February 2020 compared with 2019. How will this pandemic affect the video conferencing SaaS market in the short to medium term and in the medium to long term? We know that when the coronavirus spread across China, many suppliers offered their video conferencing software free of charge. Will companies still have demand for this software after the coronavirus pandemic is over? How many of these companies will pay for this software at a later stage?
9.
Recently, people are concerned about the news that Zoom, without getting any permission, has leaked clients’ videos in overseas markets. Because of this, users are now worried about the information security problems brought by the use of video conferencing software so how do you see this issue? What strategies have domestic software suppliers adopted to strengthen surveillance over internet security?
10.
Can you introduce to us Zoom’s entry into China? You mentioned earlier that in 2019, Zoom planned to officially enter the Chinese market but before 2019, Zoom started expanding its reach out to China by selling its underlying technologies to domestic software and hardware companies. Can you elaborate on the changes in Zoom’s business and profit models before and after 2019?
11.
What are the differences in function, service, convenience, security, and pricing between products of BizConf and Zoom?
12.
Can you elaborate more on the specific charging model and pricing model? What’s the difference between the aforementioned standard products and customised products? Will Zoom only sell standard products or will it sell customised products with services?
13.
What is the range of customer lifetime value (CLV) for mainstream video conferencing software companies? What is the cost of acquiring a single client? What is the ARPU and churn rate?
14.
What do you think of the overall profitability of the cloud-based video SaaS industry? What are the future trends in profitability?
15.
I’d like to know more about renewal rates. You mentioned that the average client life cycle is 3-5 years. What are the reasons for client churn? Do the clients use other vendors’ software or do they have less need for the video conferencing service?
