It took a while, but Microsoft has now finally become a successful premium tablet manufacturer. The Surface is selling unbelievable well these days, both according to reports and numbers.
Redmond launched the original Surface RT back in October 2012 — as their first attempt in the tablet industry, the ARM based slate failed to ignite the market due to availability and perception issues, as well as software problems.
Problems that were corrected via firmware updates.
However, this first venture into the tablet domain did not go all too well for Microsoft, and the company was forced to do a $900 million write down for the first generation Surface in order to adjust inventories because of unsold units.
But that did not stop Microsoft from improve the Surface tablet on a regular basis. So much so that sales of the Surface lineup are finally increasing every single quarter.
The numbers Redmond revealed yesterday for Q4 FY2015 show Surface revenues of $888 million, which is a very welcome increase of 117%. This increase, Microsoft says, was possible due to the introduction of the Surface 3, as well as a health assortment of accessories for the tablets.
But even more impressive is the fact that for the full fiscal year 2015, revenue exceeded $3.6 billion, and this represents an overall increase of around 65%.
What’s more, CEO Satya Nadella has hinted that more premium devices are on the way:
“We more than doubled Surface revenue to nearly $900 million this quarter, capping off a year in which it delivered more than $3.6 billion in revenue. Both consumers and enterprise customers love this device. Surface is clearly a product where we have gotten the formula right, earned fans, and can apply this formula to other parts of the hardware portfolio.
We clearly are going to have premium first-party portfolio, and you’ve seen some of the numbers, some of the progress we have made in Surface.”
Anyone for the Surface Pro 4?
All things considered, Microsoft seems to have pulled the impossible here, managing to become a premium tablet manufacturer, without actually competing with its own partners.
Now we just need something similar on the smartphones end too.
source:windows10update
