Record revenue for Microsoft after selling 60 million copies of Windows 7

9th February, 2010 by Adina
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Microsoft has claimed its best-ever quarter for revenue thanks to Windows 7. The revenue of the company has jumped 14 percent year-over-year to over $19.02 billion as a consequence of the 60 million copies of the new operating system sold and helped Microsoft to come back after three consecutive drops in revenue in 2009. The net income jumped 60 percent versus late 2008 and reached $6.66 billion.

This number is partly padded by $1.71 billion in deferred revenues, because the pre-sales of Windows 7 to PC builders and upgraders were not counted as a part of the summer results. After transferring the difference, however, the quarter has still represented a net increase compared to the prior season.

Microsoft considers the 60 million copies as the best-ever for any operating system related to a single quarter, significantly bigger than Windows Vista. Its earlier release took only four months for reaching 40 million copies sold from the late January 2007 release. It continued to slow down as Vista developed a bad reputation for poor hardware support and incompatibility, as well as frequent security prompts.

Poor results in a pair of categories also clouded the performance. Microsoft estimations show Windows PC sales to home users up 20 percent, but business sales were almost flat due to many companies’ wait-and-see approach and also compatibility problems impossible to solve before the release of Windows 7. At the same time, the Entertainment and Devices group, which handles the Xbox and Zune, has seen a drop in revenues of almost 11 percent. It shipped only 5.2 million Xbox 360s, showing a drop of 13 percent compared to the end of 2008.

The number of Zune HD players sold is not known, but the fall has been the first full quarter of sales for the device. The sales of Windows 7 do not reflect the whole PC industry, some of its sales still being copies of Windows XP for devices like older netbooks or nettops.


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