Zoom Video Communications Inc shares tumbled nearly 17 percent on Tuesday after the video conferencing company signalled a faster-than-expected drop in demand and analysts questioned its future plans as people return to the office.

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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 USD 14.7 billion bet on Five9 in July to bolster its contact centre business.

Analysts said it would take a few quarters for Zoom to return to its true underlying growth rate.

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"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 USD 1.015 billion and USD 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 USD 100 to USD 369.

Shares of the company fell by the most in more than nine months to close at USD 289.50 on Tuesday.

The company's shares rallied to stratospheric highs since February last year, with its valuation touching USD 175 billion in October. Since then, the shares have eased and Zoom's current capitalization is half of the October peak.