Earlier this week, Microsoft launched its new 'By The Numbers' site, featuring a broad range of impressive statistics from across its sprawling empire. But one much-anticipated figure wasn't included: sales of its Surface tablets. In fact, there's not even a mention of Surface on the new site.
Microsoft's continued silence on that front is certainly telling, particularly in view of the $900m write-down associated with its tablets, some of which results from the company's recently revealed price drops, which have seen Surface RT models reduced in price by up to 30%.
After last week's release by IDC of tablet shipment figures for Q2 2013, CITEworld's Matt Rosoff noted that Microsoft had dropped out of the top five tablet OEMs since the first quarter. He spoke with IDC researcher Tom Mainelli to gain some insight on the situation.
Mainelli revealed that Microsoft shipped just 300,000 Surface tablets last quarter and further confirmed that this figure included both the Surface RT and Surface Pro versions. Detailed breakdowns of IDC's figures by operating system show that a total of 200,000 Windows RT tablets shipped during that period. Most, though not all, of these will have been Surface RT; if we conservatively assume that half of all Windows RT tablets were Surfaces, that would point to roughly 200,000 sales of the Surface Pro last quarter.
These figures pre-date the more recent price cuts, of course, which have also seen the Surface Pro get a temporary $100 price reduction. Whether this will give Surface sales the boost that they need remains to be seen.
Source: CITEworld
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