Microsoft has just released the financial results for its third fiscal quarter, which runs from January to March 2023. While the company is doing well overall, some sectors are experiencing difficulties, including the Xbox division.
Microsoft continues to grow
With a turnover of 52.9 billion dollars, Microsoft recorded growth of 7% for a net profit of 18.3 billion dollars, up 9%. When the profit progresses faster than the turnover, it is because the costs are better controlled. Recall that Microsoft announced a reduction in its payroll at the start of the year. No less than 10,000 employees will have been made redundant this year, around 5% of the company’s payroll.
While textual or image-based artificial intelligences have been in the news a lot in recent months, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the Microsoft Cloud is “the platform of choice to help customers get the most out of their digital spend and innovate for this next generation of AI. »
Revenues from Microsoft’s key services are generally all green. For example, Office Commercial and related services are up 13%, LinkedIn is up 8%, and Dynamics 365 business services and Cloud services are up 17%.
Xbox is down again
On the downside, the More Personal Computing division lost 9% of revenue compared to last year, with a turnover of 13.3 billion dollars. This division includes Windows, down 28%, but also devices, down 30%. Only Xbox content and services are up 3%, driven by the growth of Xbox Game Pass, says Microsoft.
But if we take into account the entire gaming branch of Microsoft, the revenues of this division are down 4% compared to last year. Another notable fact, sales of consoles which are down 30%, a strong decline linked to a stock which was better last year.
While Microsoft seemed to be done with its supply issues, it’s clear that there are still a few holes in the racket even as Sony outperforms with its PS5 at the same time.
Microsoft never details its figures, but we also recall that part of the production of the Xbox Series X is used to provide Microsoft’s Cloud Gaming (the one used to run Game Pass games remotely), to the detriment of sales. of these consoles to consumers.
Overall, it’s an average quarter for the Xbox division, but far from catastrophic. Segment revenue Content and Services were also expected to decline by Microsoft in this quarter, but they finally experienced growth of 3% thanks to the Xbox Game Pass. It was still the second best 3rd quarter for the Xbox division, at around $3.6 billion.
