Microsoft ships 1.2 million Xbox Ones and earns more with Surface and Windows

Microsoft is struggling with declining Windows sales to consumers, but the number of licenses sold for business systems grew. In addition, Surface sales were up 50 percent and the company sold 1.2 million Xbox Ones in the past quarter.

Windows license sales for consumer systems declined 15 percent year-on-year, but business sales made up for it with 19 percent growth. The growth is likely due to the fact that many companies are replacing their old Windows XP machines with versions with a newer Windows version. About 90 percent of enterprise PCs currently run Windows 7 or 8, according to Microsoft. Microsoft does not give details about Windows Phone in its quarterly results

The company did say that it sold more than 2 million Xbox consoles in the past quarter. Of those, 1.2 million were Xbox One systems. In recent weeks, it has become clear that Microsoft is selling fewer new-generation consoles than rival Sony, but the Xbox One is more expensive and available in fewer markets.

Surface tablet sales were $494 million, up 50 percent from the same period a year ago. It’s also significantly less than the $893 million Microsoft brought in last quarter from Surface sales, but that was in the lucrative December quarter.

One of the prominent growth drivers was Office 365 Home: Microsoft was able to add 1 million new customers in the past quarter, for a total of 4.4 million. In business terms, the Commercial Cloud business performed well with revenue growth of 101 percent, with Office 365 business revenue doubling and Azure revenue growing by 150 percent.

Total revenue came in at $20.4 billion, slightly down from $20.48 billion in the same quarter last year. Its profit was $5.66 billion, which is also less than last year, when it made $6.05 billion in profit.