With the coronavirus wreaking havoc, teleconferencing has become big business. And that’s great news for teleconference stocks.
Demand is only likely to increase with “stay at home” and “work at home” orders throughout the country. In fact, as noted by Tech Republic contributor Macy Bayern, “Mid-March witnessed a major spike in remote work across the world. Now, the majority of employees in North America (85%), Europe (79%), China and Hong kong (64%), APAC (59%), and the Middle East and Africa (53%) are working from home.”
Additionally, Warren Buffett said, “The supply and demand for office space may change significantly. A lot of people have learned that they can work at home, or that there’s other methods of conducting their business than they might have thought from what they were doing a couple of years ago. When change happens in the world, you adjust to it.”
In fact, working at home has been found to have a positive effect on productivity for people.
According to a YouGov survey, some of the reasons included “time saved from commuting (71%), fewer distractions from coworkers (61%) and fewer meetings (39%).”
In addition, according to a Gartner survey, about 74% of organizations will move 5% of their on-site workforce to remote positions even after the coronavirus.
Therefore, with millions now working from home, here are some of the top teleconference stocks for folks working from home:
So with all of that in mind now, let’s dive in.
Top Teleconference Stocks: Zoom Video Communications (ZM)
The last time I weighed in on Zoom Video Communications, I noted it was one of the “most explosive social distancing stocks.” At the time, it traded at a low of $119 on March 19. It’s now up to $147.24 per share, and is booming. From here, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the stock revisit a high of $181.50 with plenty more upside.
Moreover, as of the end of April 2020, the company said it was up to 300 million daily participants — up from 200 million at the start of the month,
Analysts are just as bullish with Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Drew Kootman noting, “We believe the current COVID-19 environment presents significant upside potential not currently assumed in the stock. We note we do not expect a material impact from recent privacy/security issues as we believe the company is taking appropriate steps to improve the problem.”
Overall, these are all good things for ZM stock — making it one of the great teleconference stocks available.
Slack Technologies (WORK)
Since mid-March 2020, shares of Slack Technologies exploded from a low of $15.10 to a current price of $27.86. However, it appears the boom has only just begun in the “work at home” era.
Over the last few weeks, Slack has seen impressive growth.
In fact, between March 10 and March 25, CEO and co-founder Stewart Butterfield noted that growth has been off the charts. Also, according to Butterfield, the company was up to 12.5 million “simultaneously connected” users from 10 million.
The CEO also noted:
- “Returning teams, an internal metric that measures the growth and progression of newly-created work teams, had, by around March 10, 2020, increased by more than 120% in Italy, 34% in Japan, and 33% in Korea”
- The creation rate of new Slack workspaces (which the company believed to be created by businesses) increased by hundreds of percent from March 12, 2020 to March 25”
So with millions working from home, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the WORK stock double.
RingCentral (RNG)
Shares of RingCentral have also been wildly explosive. After bottoming out at $134.85 in March 2020, the stock is now up to $243.69 and could retest a high of nearly $255, near-term.
Also, in recent weeks, the company jumped into video conferencing.
“The world is experiencing the largest work from home demand ever,” RingCentral CEO Vlad Shmunis said. “Today, we’re taking the next step in delivering a world-class seamlessly integrated MVP [Message, Video and Phone] experience to further enhance employee productivity as they work from anywhere.”
In addition, the company “has seen a 250% jump in app downloads in recent weeks with video meetings on the platform growing 50% week-over-week,” as reported by Barron’s contributor Eric J. Savitz.
Overall, RingCentral is making headway in the video conference sector of the work from home lifestyle. And that makes it a great option for investors looking for teleconference stocks.
Ian Cooper, a contributor to InvestorPlace.com, has been analyzing stocks and options for web-based advisories since 1999. As of this writing, he did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
