In Microsft’s “annual 10-K report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), published on Tuesday, the software giant reported actual Surface revenue figures for the first time – and they’re not good,” Neil McAllister reports for The Register. “According to the report, Microsoft’s total Surface revenue for all of fiscal 2013 amounted to just $853m. That’s nearly $50m less than the $900m charge Redmond took when it discounted its remaining Surface RT inventory by $150 per box.”
“And that’s not all. That $900m writedown was related to Surface RT only, but the $853m revenue figure includes sales of Surface RT and Surface Pro combined,” McAllister reports. “Further down in its 10-K filing, Redmond reports that it upped its sales and marketing budget for the Windows Division in 2013 by a jaw-dropping $1bn, which included an $898m increase in advertising costs ‘associated primarily with Windows 8 and Surface.’ Got that? Microsoft spent more in a single year advertising the Windows 8 and Surface launches than it took in from Surface sales that same year.”
McAllister reports, “It’s cruel to compare the struggling Surface to Apple’s iPad line, but the numbers don’t lie. Apple sold 57 million iPads in the same period, meaning it could have sold them for just $15 apiece and still matched Microsoft’s tablet revenue figure.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s not cruel, it’s luscious schadenfreude! Click!
Oh, yeah: Rounding error.
For as long as it takes!
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Tayster” and “psydocdwennis” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Microsoft earnings, sales badly miss expectations; $900 million inventory writedown on Surface tablet flop – July 18, 2013
Gartner: Apple to overtake Microsoft in total OS sales in 2015 – June 25, 2013
Apple Macintosh owns 45% of PC market profits – April 16, 2013
Steve Jobs’ revenge – April 12, 2013
Apple Macintosh on the rise as Windows PC market plummets – April 11, 2013
Gartner: PC Market posts 11.2 percent decline in Q113; Apple Mac sales up 7.4 percent in U.S. – April 10, 2013
IDC: PC shipments post the steepest decline ever in a single quarter, down 13.9% in Q113 – April 10, 2013
It couldn’t have happened to a better company. I mean it really could not have.
What’s a ‘Surface RT’???
“Apple sold 57 million iPads in the same period, meaning it could have sold them for just $15 apiece and still matched Microsoft’s tablet revenue figure.”
LOL
Harsh!
Revenues of almost 900 million are a disaster ? No, spending that much on marketing was the disaster.
INVASION OF THE APPLE KILLERS ! ! !
Well, so far we’ve had the MacOS Killer (aka MS Windows Vista), the iPod Killer (aka MS Zune), thr iPhone Killer (aka MS Civic), and most recently. . . the iPad Killer, in 2 ‘malicidal’ flavours (MS Surface RT and Pro). Apart from the letters ‘MS’, what do all these ‘killers’ have in common?
Yep! They all committed hari kiri, rather than killing their designated targets. In other words,they’re all dead (or dying), while their intended victims are alive and kicking MS arse.
Lovely, lovely fate of the self-destructive.
It’s what you deserve, Microsoft.
It’s your karma.
The latest MS figures prove that the horrid Win8 kills everything it touches. The Surface without a touchscreen and instead using Win7 & a permanently attached soft keyboard, priced properly, would likely outsell all the garbage netbooks on the market today.
MDN should not be disparaging the least competitive tablet maker while the iPad continutes to lose ground (profit, market share, etc) to Android makers. Apple’s tablet future is certainly not an easy road. Defeating Android is going to take a sustained effort with MUCH more timely product updates than Cook has shown. Retina displays across the board would help, colors and differentiation would be nice, and yes, an A4 page size display device wouldn’t hurt either. None of these things are particularly difficult, but they would keep Apple fresh in the consumer mind while the market waits for the promised iOS7.
MDN, stop looking in the rear view mirror. Gloating over Surface failure only takes Apple’s eyes off the real threats from Korea and China.