Microsoft revealed their earnings in the last quarter that just passed by. The last quarter of 2015 includes October – December time-frame. Microsoft saw a major drop in Windows Phone and Windows OS segment. While these two sectors were on loss , there were some sectors like Surface, Gaming & Search (Bing + Advertising) that saw great profit for the company.
In the official blogpost, the company stated that personal computng business also saw decline in sales, “More Personal Computing revenue decreased $622 million or 5%, mainly due to lower revenue from Devices and Windows, offset in part by higher revenue from Gaming and search advertising. More Personal Computing revenue included an unfavorable foreign currency impact of approximately 3%”
The company saw decline in the Windows also because of lower revenue from patent licensing and Windows OEM. The ‘Free Upgrade to Windows 10″ was also a major reason in declination of Windows as well as PC sales running Windows.
“Windows revenue decreased $426 million or 8%, mainly due to lower revenue from patent licensing and Windows OEM. Patent licensing revenue decreased $161 million, due to a decline in units and patent revenue per license. Windows OEM revenue decreased $138 million or 5%, driven by declines in the business and consumer PC markets. Windows OEM Pro revenue declined 6%, driven by a decline in the business PC market. Windows OEM non-Pro revenue declined 3%, outperforming the consumer PC market, driven by a higher mix of premium licenses sold.”
Although Windows was struggling, the Sales volume of Surface devices including that of Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book generated revenue growth of 29 percent year over year.
“Surface revenue increased $248 million or 22%, primarily driven by the release of Surface Book and Surface Pro 4 in the second quarter of fiscal year 2016, offset in part by a decline in revenue from Surface Pro 3.”
Along with Surface, Gaming was also big bet for the company where company got great profit. The gaming revenue was increased by 5% YoY. The major contributor in the gaming section was Xbox Live and Video games.
“Gaming revenue increased $192 million or 5%, primarily due to higher revenue from Xbox Live and video games, offset in part by lower Xbox hardware revenue. Xbox Live revenue increased 24%, driven by both higher volumes of transactions and higher revenue per transaction. Video games revenue grew 47%, driven by the Halo 5 launch in October 2015 and sales of Minecraft. We acquired Mojang AB, the Swedish video game developer of the Minecraft gaming franchise, in November 2014. Xbox hardware revenue decreased 9%, mainly due to a decline in Xbox 360 console volume. Xbox One revenue decreased slightly, due to higher console volume, offset by lower prices of consoles sold”
In the search department which is totally held by Bing. Bing includes search as well as advertising through search results and MSN. We already reported about Bing gaining some market share in the last quarter. It was also reported that Microsoft was expandin it’s Bing division to 75 more countries. Finally search incleased by 17% .
“Search advertising revenue, excluding traffic acquisition costs, increased $109 million or 17%, primarily driven by growth in Bing, due to higher revenue per search and higher search volume”
