Microsoft's Surface tablet sold a total of one million units during the fourth quarter of 2012.
The figure was revealed by UBS analyst Brent Thill, which represents a million less from a prior forecast of 2 million.
Within an investors note, the analyst referred to two reasons for his projection: "Surface RT is a consumer device with [fourth-quarter] sales suffering from the difficult iPad compare and narrow distribution."
During early December last year, IHS iSuppli analyst Rhoda Alexander said she expected Surface sales of 1.3 million for the quarter, stating that she "would be surprised to see it much above that."
Thill, meanwhile, has projected a more positive launch for Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet, which delivers a more complete Windows 8 experience when compared to the tablet's current Windows RT variant. The upcoming model is expected to launch on January 26.
Branding the Surface Pro "more promising," Thill believes it's a commendable alternative to Apple's iPad for enterprises users. For Microsoft's fiscal 2013 that ends this June, the analyst estimates sales of 2.5 million units. For fiscal 2014, he foresees sales upwards of 8 million.
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Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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stickmansam I feel that the flagship MS devices are priced to high to truly get large amounts of salesReply
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esrever Surface is cool but it really doesn't draw people in like that apple effect. Maybe MS will actually price it on par with other non apple tablets using the same kind of hardware.Reply -
Pinhedd stickmansamI feel that the flagship MS devices are priced to high to truly get large amounts of salesReply
Microsoft is not a company that is known to engage in a price war. The $200-$500 tablet market is extremely saturated right now. -
DjEaZy ... in other news...Reply
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/iPhone-Units-Sold-Apple-Analyst,20528.html -
memadmax A million units is not that bad, especially coming from a company that normally does not make hardware....Reply -
halcyon DjEaZy... in other news... http://www.tomshardware.com/news/i 20528.html and a kazillion Android devicesBasically.Reply -
killerclick It's been reported (http://blog.adduplex.com/2013/01/adduplex-windows-8rt-device-statistics.html) that Surface comprises 7.5% of all Windows 8 / RT devices.Reply
That would mean how many total Windows 8 devices being used?
Also, there's the $400M advertising budget for Surface, when gauging the device's market performance, this should be taken into account as well.