LONDON: Zoom Video Communications Inc. shares tumbled nearly 17 percent on Tuesday, after the video conferencing company signaled a faster-than-expected drop in demand and analysts questioned its future plans as people return to office.
Zoom and other video conferencing services such as Cisco , Microsoft’s Teams and Salesforce’s Slack raked in millions of new users as the pandemic forced people to work, study and communicate with friends and family remotely.
With easing pandemic curbs, Zoom will need to find new avenues for growth. The company already made a $14.7 billion bet on Five9 in July to bolster its contact center business.
Analysts said it would take a few quarters for Zoom to return to its true underlying growth rate.
“There are significant questions outstanding regarding how new customer demand and customer churn rates will stabilize in the core business following the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions,” analysts at Daiwa Capital wrote in a note.
Zoom forecast current-quarter revenue between $1.015 billion and $1.020 billion on Monday, indicating a rise of about 31 percent, compared with multiple-fold growth rates in 2020.
At least six brokerages cut their price targets on Zoom, according to Refinitiv data, with Piper Sandler being the most bearish — slashing its price target by over $100 to $369.
Shares of the company fell by the most in more than nine months to close at $289.50 on Tuesday.
The company’s shares rallied to stratospheric highs since February last year, with its valuation touching $175 billion in October. Since then, the shares have eased and Zoom’s current capitalization is half of the October peak.
Zoom shares record worst day in 9 months as searing growth tapers off
https://arab.news/z3p55
Zoom shares record worst day in 9 months as searing growth tapers off
- Zoom shares tumbled nearly 17 percent after the video conferencing company signaled a faster-than-expected drop in demand
Israeli court overturns conviction of officer who assaulted Palestinian journalist, citing ‘Oct. 7 PTSD’
- Judge sentenced Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service, saying officer “devoted his life to Israel’s security” and conviction was “disproportionate to severity of his actions”
- Footage shows Sofer throwing photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque
LONDON: An Israeli court overturned the conviction of a border police officer who assaulted a Palestinian journalist, ruling his actions were influenced by post-traumatic stress disorder from serving during the Oct. 7 2023 attacks.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced officer Yitzhak Sofer to 300 hours of community service for assaulting Anadolu Agency photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf in occupied East Jerusalem in December 2023.
Footage shows Sofer and other officers drawing weapons, throwing Alkharouf to the ground, and repeatedly beating and kicking him while he covered Palestinian gatherings near Al-Aqsa Mosque amid heavy restrictions.
Alkharouf was hospitalized with facial and body injuries. His cameraman, Faiz Abu Ramila, was also attacked.
Anadolu photojournalist Mustafa Alkharouf violently attacked by Israeli army in occupied East Jerusalem while covering Palestinian prayers near Al-Aqsa Mosque
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) December 15, 2023
Incident highlights ongoing restrictions on Friday prayers and press freedom in region https://t.co/exT6XqjEaA pic.twitter.com/pqugK9HnOt
Sofer had been convicted in September 2024 of assault causing bodily harm (acquitted of threats) and initially faced six months’ community service, as recommended by Mahash, the Justice Ministry’s police misconduct unit.
Judge Amir Shaked accepted the defense request to cancel the conviction, replacing it with community service.
He cited Sofer’s PTSD from responding to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, noting the officer had “no prior criminal record” and had “devoted his life to Israel’s security.”
“The court cannot ignore this when considering whether the defendant’s conviction should stand,” he said, adding that while the incident is “serious and does cross the criminal threshold,” the conviction in place could cause Sofer harm “disproportionate to the severity of his actions.”
The ruling comes amid surging attacks on journalists in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since Israel’s war on Gaza began.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported Israel responsible for two-thirds of the 129 media workers killed worldwide in 2025, the deadliest year on record, citing a “persistent culture of impunity” and lack of transparent probes.
Reporters Without Borders called the Israeli army the “worst enemy of journalists” in its 2025 report, with nearly half of global reporter deaths in Gaza.
Foreign journalists face raids, arrests and intimidation. In late January 2026, Israel’s Supreme Court granted a delay on ruling a ban on foreign media access to Gaza.
