Microsoft Windows And Surface Growth Affected Due To Chip Shortage

The crisis in the deliveries of the chip manufacturers is now also clearly noticeable in Microsoft’s balance sheets. The company can no longer achieve growth where it profits from the sale of new computers.

This is of course particularly painful in the Windows business. After all, the operating system is traditionally one of the economic pillars of the Redmond-based company. In the OEM area, i.e. the transfer of licenses to PC manufacturers, sales have now fallen by 3 percent. At -4 percent, the revenues in the private customer area fell somewhat more sharply than in the case of pro users.

The problems from the lack of available semiconductor components in the business with surface systems became even clearer. Here Microsoft posted a 20 percent drop in sales – which was not due to consumer demand, but to the quantities that could be delivered at all. However, this segment only makes up a smaller part of the overall balance sheet of the group, so that the development here is even easier to cope with than in the Windows area.

With these troubles aside, Microsoft continues to do great. The other departments easily compensated for the weaknesses of the two business areas mentioned. In particular, there are of course continued strong growth rates in cloud offerings and the office department.

Gaming Department Rocks

And the games department is also on the rise. “The Xbox Series S and X are our best-selling game consoles of all time,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Hardware sales climbed 172 percent year-on-year, although it should be noted that the new generation was not on the market a year ago. The entire division posted an increase in revenue of 11 percent.

If you add everything up, Microsoft is still doing better than ever before in the company’s history. Compared to the previous year, the group’s sales climbed by a further 21 percent to $46.2 billion. This resulted in a net income of $16.5 billion, 47 percent more than last year.