Microsoft just revealed its latest financial results, with a strong performance in the cloud arena, and Surface devices also witnessing a big jump in revenue.
In Q3 of financial year 2019, Microsoft made $1.329 billion (around £1 billion, AU$1.9 billion) from Surface sales, which was an impressive increase of 21% compared to the same quarter the previous year.
This also represents the seventh quarter in a row where sales of the hardware have topped the magic billion dollar mark – coming close to two billion, in fact, in Q2 2019, when revenue hit $1.86 billion (around £1.45 billion, AU$2.65 billion). That was a seasonally strong quarter anyway, buoyed further by the fresh launch of new devices including the Surface Pro 6 and Surface Laptop 2.
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Clearly, there are plenty of folks out there keen to join the world of Surface users, and recent fiscal progress certainly seems to put paid to any chatter of Microsoft moving away from making its own hybrid devices.
It’s also worth noting that late in 2018, for the first time ever, Microsoft became one of the top five PC makers on its home turf of the US.
The next iteration of the Surface Pro could feasibly emerge later in 2019, but 2020 is probably a more realistic timeframe. That model will likely see the introduction of Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, finally, or at least USB-C (with possibly a magnetic USB-C charging system), which has been long overdue. USB-C really should have been incorporated with the Surface Pro 6.
Cloudy future
In terms of overall revenue for the quarter, Microsoft raked in $30.6 billion (around £23.7 billion, AU$43.6 billion), an impressive boost of 14% year-on-year.
Commercial cloud revenue was particularly strong, reaching $9.6 billion (around £7.5 billion, AU$13.7 billion), representing a huge 41% leap compared to the previous year.
Windows OEM revenue was up 9% as well, with gaming revenue witnessing a 5% increase mainly driven by Xbox software and services (which managed 12% growth).
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Via MS Power User
