Windows revenue growing for the software giant

Jan 27, 2017 05:52 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft revealed in the earning reports covering financial results for the fiscal second quarter that its More Personal Computing division, which also includes Windows, dropped 5 percent from the previous quarter, with revenue totaling $11.8 billion.

But despite this negative performance, there’s also something that’s really worth mentioning: Windows revenue is on the rise, and it’s all because of Windows 10.

Microsoft revealed that Windows OEM revenue increased 5 percent during the quarter, while Windows commercial products and cloud services also experienced a 5 percent increase in revenue.

The company hasn’t provided any updated figures regarding Windows 10 adoption, but the firm sticks with its plan of bringing 1 billion users on the operating system by the end of the next fiscal year.

Strong performance in consumer and enterprise markets

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella praised Windows 10 in the earnings call with analysts, also highlighting that in addition to consumers, more enterprises choose the operating system these days.

“Windows 10 commercial customers are rapidly adopting Windows 10, driven by their need for a secure and trusted platform. In fact, this quarter enterprise and education deployments increased 52%,” he said. “Accenture, Broward County School District and United Healthcare Group […] alone have already deployed more than 300,000 seats, with commitments to deploy over half a million.”

As far as the consumer market is concerned, Nadella says Windows 10 is growing strong, but again without any specifics. Third-party market research firms put Windows 10 at nearly 24 percent share, while Windows 7 keeps dominating the desktop market with a market share that’s close to 50 percent.

“The consumer PC market is also stabilizing. Gamers are increasingly turning to Windows 10 premium PCs for the best gaming experience, logging more than 26 billion hours of game play on PCs and tablets this year,” Microsoft’s CEO explained.

Microsoft praised the premium Windows device category in particular, which it says continues growing given that more manufacturers launch new models running its operating system, explaining that inventory levels continue to be normal. Windows OEM Pro grew 6 percent, it revealed.