A week back, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) reported terrible sales for its Surface tablet and now, in a sort of expected move, have lowered the price of Surface Pro tablet in the United States by $100 (about £60), says a report from The Telegraph.
Microsoft said in a statement “We’ve been seeing great worldwide success with Surface RT pricing and keyboard-cover promotions over the past several months and are proud to offer Surface Pro at more affordable prices.”
On the company’s website, the discounted price is listed as $899 and will be available until August 29. Prices of the tablet have also been slashed in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In UK, the discount has not been offered, presently.
Surface RT price also slashed earlier
In July, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) lowered the price of its ARM-based Surface RT tablet by 30 percent. The device is currently available at £279, (down from £399) in Microsoft Surface Store and other key retailers such as John Lewis.
Windows RT from Microsoft is powered by Nvidia Tegra 3 Quad-Core processor and runs on stripped-back Windows RT operating system while the Pro version is powered by Intel i5 processor and runs the full Windows 8 operating system. When compared to Pro tablets, Surface RT has less RAM and storage capacity.
Surface tablets earned less money
Microsoft’s Surface tablets have earned less money than what has been spent by the company to write off the unsold stocks of the device, revealed a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. For the last year ending June 30, revenues from the Surface tablets came in at $853 million, however, in the recent quarterly earnings call; CEO Steve Ballmer told that the company will write-off $900 million on its Surface tablets.
According to the data from IDC, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) shipped only 900,000 Surface tablets during the first quarter and holds a meager 1.8 percent of the tablet market while Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) holds almost 40 percent of the market and shipped 19.5 million iPads. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) is at the second spot with 18 percent share followed by Asus with 5.5 percent and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) with 3.7 percent share. Even after including shipments of Windows 8 and Windows RT from other vendors, the total comes to 1.8 million.
Microsoft to come up with updated versions
However, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is making efforts to push its Surface tablets deep into the markets. The software giant is expected to come up with updated versions of its Surface pro and Surface RT, which will be powered by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s ‘Haswell’ chip and QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) Snapdragon 800 processor respectively.
