Xbox One at 3.9 million shipped
Microsoft sales jump 14% during "great" holiday quarter as net profits edge up nearly 3%
Microsoft enjoyed some happy holidays, thanks in part to the launch of the Xbox One. The company today released its quarterly results for the three months ended December 31, 2013, revealing company-wide sales up 14 percent to $24.52 billion, with a net income of $6.56 billion, up a little less than 3 percent year-over-year.
As for the Devices and Consumer segment of which Xbox One is a part, sales were up 13 percent to $11.91 billion. The Xbox One played a significant part in that number, as Microsoft said it shipped 3.9 million units into the retail channel during the quarter. Earlier this month, Xbox corporate vice president Yusuf Mehdi confirmed 3 million Xbox One systems had sold through to consumers by the end of 2013. That puts the machine a bit behind the PS4, which had sold through 4.2 million systems worldwide by year's end.
While Microsoft's new hardware made its mark, its old hardware continued its decline. Microsoft shipped an additional 3.5 million units of its legacy console, down 40 percent from 5.9 million consoles in the holiday 2012 quarter. That number was in itself down 28 percent from holiday 2011. Despite that, Xbox Live is still going strong, with transactional revenue on the service up 25 percent for the three months.
"Our Commercial segment continues to outpace the overall market, and our Devices and Consumer segment had a great holiday quarter," outgoing CEO Steve Ballmer said. "The investments we are making in devices and services that deliver high-value experiences to our customers, and the work we are doing with our partners, are driving strong results and positioning us well for long-term growth."
But I would not say that the difference with PS4 in sales is "a bit behind". We know it's early but its still a 25% ahead for Sony here.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Alfonso Sexto on 24th January 2014 10:20am
I have heard anecdotally that there was more Xbox One stock in Europe in the last few weeks of December than PS4 so as an example region, this would support shipments being higher than consumer sell-through for Xbox.
And I know from friends in retail that the X1's you see on shelves are not the same every time. It's just much easier to replace them as they're shipped domestically. The PS4 has to be replaced from other regions of the planet, which is hurting their stocking of the console. MS was smart to do a smaller launch to restrict the supply to high-demand regions.
This was explained at Gamescom by Albert Penello and widely reported at the time e.g. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-15-microsoft-explains-how-xbox-one-importing-could-work
The tantalizing question is whether both consoles can keep the pace, or start to decline. Sony still seems to have the edge when it comes to consoles being sold out instantly. If you want an Xbox, you can pretty much buy it anywhere.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Nicholas Pantazis on 24th January 2014 5:42pm
Interesting as a question meaning 'how many buyers stopped playing (and buying) games already" on their XBox. It would be pretty frightening if that's >0: But it's hard to believe anyone bought such an expensive (and badly supported outside the US) device primarily for it's media features, with very capable dedicated connected media boxes at 20% of the price.
The media side is definitely where MS want to position XB1 but it's a short term (and largely imaginary) sales differentiator with PS4. It's reasonable to assume all current sales are from gamers.
@David and Paul
I think it's safe to say that virtually no one who is buying X1 at this point in time is buying a media box. That likely will change this coming Fhristmas however, as they start bundling the system with cable and internet subscriptions
Anyone who thinks that the media side isn't going to be big isn't versed in the media side. There are literally millions of idiots paying $60 a year to watch Netflix, and. Media is pulling more hours than gaming. With Verizon starting up an IP based cable network, you can bet MS is going to be all over that.