Microsoft's Surface Generated Only $400 Million In Revenue, Even With Unit Sales Doubling

The Surface is Microsoft's first home-made PC. It's a tablet-laptop hybrid that tries to compete with the iPad.

According to the data Microsoft revealed today, it's not much competition for Apple.

Microsoft says Surface revenue was $400 million during the quarter. It didn't say how many Surfaces it sold, but it said its unit sales doubled from the previous quarter. (At $400 million in revenue, it seems likely unit sales were less than 1 million.) During the previous fiscal year, Microsoft did $853 million in revenue for Surface, so the business is growing.

Microsoft attributes the growth of Surface to better marketing, increased awareness of the product, better positioning of the Surface, and price cuts.

While growth is good, Surface sales are tiny compared to the iPad. For the same period, Apple should generate over $6 billion in iPad sales, on 14 million units. Apple reports earnings on Monday, so we see how the iPad is really doing.

For further context, Microsoft generated $18.53 billion in revenue for the quarter overall, so $400 million is not much to the company.