Microsoft’s revenue hits a record 25 percent, but is overtaken by Apple

31st October, 2010 by adina
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Microsoft announced a record in revenue for the summer quarter by reaching $16.2 billion. The figure is a 25 percent jump compared to last year and was supported by unbound Windows 7 sales accompanied by Office 2010 and the Xbox 360. Without giving numbers, the company sold 38 percent more console games than last summer, mainly thanks to the slim Xbox, the console being in the lead for about four months.

The growth could have been smaller, at 13 percent, but the company had to delay reporting revenue form pre-orders for Windows 7 last year as the operating system did not ship until October 22nd. The operating system was a proof that the PC industry was still healthy, according to Microsoft. About 240 million copies of Windows 7 have been sold in a year of availability and this was the fastest-selling release Windows ever had.

However, results were not positive uniformly for Microsoft. Bing gained market share and officially replaced Yahoo’s search engine, but the Online Services group of Microsoft lost $560 million, which was more than 17.4 percent, worse than it lost a year earlier. Traditionally, the company has had significantly smaller search share than the rival Google and has also had trouble in persuading companies to accept its cloud services over platforms like Google Apps.

These results would not reflect any immediate result of the launch of the Windows Phone 7, which began only on October 21st and would not reach the United States until November 8th. Microsoft has admitted that Windows Phone 7 was a reset of the platform and has been intended to allow Windows Mobile slip in favor of the newer operating system.

Despite the record, Microsoft’s performance was not enough to claim a revenue lead over its rival Apple. The maker of the Mac earned $20.34 billion over the same timeframe. Apple has been supported by dependence on its hardware, which is more expensive than Microsoft’s licenses for its software. It also defeated Microsoft in areas outside of the core Office and Windows fields. Currently, the iPhone has larger market share than Windows Mobile. The iPod has constantly outsold the Zune line.

Microsoft has lately been defeated in the tablet space too. The sales of the iPad have exceeded the total Windows tablet market by many times. The situation is not likely to change as far as new significant designs are not shipping until next year.


     

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