Microsoft expects to sell 12 million Xbox 360s by June 2007

26 January 2007

Posted by:Ferry

Microsoft today announced record revenue of $12.54 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, a 6% increase over the same period of the prior year. While it’s not surprising a huge company like Microsoft has a lot of revenue. What was a turnaround last year was that during the same period almost a quarter of that was from the Xbox 360 in the Entertainment and Devices Division.

Their press release can say less loss is good, but it’s still losses resembling Microsoft’s past reports that by September 15, 2005, they booked a four billion dollar loss in selling the Xbox. It’s starting to look like the Xbox 360 isn’t doing much better financially after another $1.26 billion loss launching the Xbox 360. But better none the less when they announced today that revenues rose 76% to $2.96 billion, but operating loss increased slightly from $286 million to $289 million. For the six-month period that ended December 31, 2006, revenue was similarly up 74% to $3.99 billion, and the division’s operating loss actually narrowed 17% from a $459 million to $383 million loss the last half year of selling Xbox 360′s 2006.

Clearly Microsoft’s goal still stands: for them to sell as many Xboxes as possible and that seems to be working. They sold about 4.4 million Xbox 360 units the last three months of 2006! Since the Xbox 360′s launch in November 2005, 10.4 million units have been shipped to stores. And in that shipped number and Microsoft’s goal of selling 10 million Xbox 360s lies the difference thatâ€™s now catching up with them…

Following the release of Microsoft’s Q2 fiscal results, Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell told Reuters that Microsoft aims to ship a total of 12 million Xbox 360s by the end of its fiscal year on June 30, 2007, down from a previous target of 13 million to 15 million. He said: “We are just being cautious about the second half. It was always going to be a slow half. We’ve done very well in the first half. There is a reasonable amount of inventory in the channel.”