Cisco’s video conferencing platform Webex registers 324 million users in March

The explosion in demand has spurred a huge boom for what were often relatively small businesses while raising issues of privacy and abuse.

Cisco reported Webex video conferencing app registered a record 324 million attendees in March (AP)

Video Conferencing platforms are gaining a huge traction as people around the world are working remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Apps like Zoom have become immensely popular. Legacy apps like Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams are also seeing a big spike in usage. Cisco's old-school Webex has also seen a similar massive traction.

The company reported Webex video conferencing app registered a record 324 million attendees in March. The usage grew two-fold in some markets in the West. "Webex grew 2.5 times in Americas, four times in Europe and 3.5 times in the Asia Pacific. Our growth is sourced from enterprise expansion, education and telehealth," Sri Srinivasan, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Collaboration, told Reuters.

Srinivasan further revealed about 73 million meetings happened in the month of March. The platform saw more than 22 million meetings per week in the last two weeks. According to Cisco, these numbers are more than doubled since January.

As said earlier, Cisco's Webex and rival meeting platforms from Zoom and Microsoft Corp's Teams are being used worldwide to host everything from virtual classrooms and business meetings to church services. Zoom's daily users increased to more than 200 million in March from a previous maximum total of 10 million.

The explosion in demand has spurred a huge boom for what were often relatively small businesses while raising issues of privacy and abuse.

Zoom's share price has surged five-fold in value since going public in April last year, but the company has faced a backlash in the past week from users worried about the lack of full encryption of sessions and zoombombing, where uninvited guests crash meetings.

Cisco said its Webex system, which includes teleconferencing and is older, was fully encrypted.

(With inputs from Reuters)