Michal Ždanský In the summer of last year, Microsoft introduced with fanfare its latest products that were supposed to change the perception of tablets - Surface RT and Surface Pro equipped with the new Windows 8 operating system. However, as recent numbers have shown, it was far from the hit that Microsoft had hoped for. The Redmond company said it generated 853 million in revenue (not profit) on the tablet in eight months of sales, with an estimated total of 1,7 million devices sold, both RT and Pro versions.
When you compare Surface sales to iPad sales, Microsoft's numbers look almost negligible. Apple sold three million iPads in just the last three days in November, when the Surface went on sale, which is almost double what Microsoft sold in eight months. In the last fiscal quarter, Apple sold 14,6 million tablets, and for the entire period that the Surface has been on sale, customers bought 57 million iPads.
However, Microsoft didn't actually make anything on the Surface. Two weeks ago, the company wrote off 900 million for unsold units (allegedly there is a surplus of some 6 million devices), and the marketing budget for Windows 8 and Surface was increased by about the same amount. The PC plus era according to Microsoft is clearly not happening yet...
hahaha