Microsoft"s Surface tablets seem to be gaining traction among consumers, even though the company still stubbornly won"t reveal specific unit sales numbers. Today, as part of its financial report for its last fiscal quarter that ended December 31st, Microsoft said that it generated $893 million in revenues from Surface tablet sales between October and December 2013.
Those numbers are over double the $400 million that Microsoft said Surface tablets brought in for the previous quarter. In a separate PowerPoint presentation, the company said that Surface unit sales went up over twice as much compared to the last quarter. Also, keep in mind that from the launch of the Surface in October 2012 to the end of June 2013, it only brought in $853 million in revenue.
All of this is good news, but one has to wonder how much more revenue might have been brought in if supplies of Surface tablets had been able to keep up with the demand last quarter. As we have reported before, Microsoft and other online retailers suffered from shortages of Surface tablets since the launch of the new Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 models in late October. Indeed, a quick check of the Microsoft Store website tonight shows only the 32GB Surface 2 and the 128GB Surface Pro 2 models are currently on sale; all the other four versions are out of stock.
One more thing to keep in mind: Microsoft also listed its Surface costs at $932 million for the quarter, which means despite the revenue surge, the division is still losing money. Hopefully the company can change that soon.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft