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![TMCNet: Surface tablets sale misses estimates [Times of Oman]](http://images.tmcnet.com/siteart/invisible.gif)
Surface tablets sale misses estimates [Times of Oman]
(Times of Oman Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) San Francisco: Microsoft has sold about 1.5 million Surface devices, people with knowledge of the company's sales said, a slow start in its bid to crack the fast-growing tablet market to make up for slumping personal-computer demand.
Microsoft has sold little more than a million of the Surface RT version and about 400,000 Surface Pros since their debuts, according to three people, who asked not to be named because sales haven't yet been made public.
The company had ordered about 3 million Surface RTs, they said. Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS, had initially projected that Microsoft would sell 2 million Surface RT devices in the December quarter alone.
The poor reception for Surface, unveiled last year, adds to challenges facing Microsoft's Windows unit, which brings in a quarter of the company's revenue.
The devices are Microsoft's first direct attempt to grab a slice of the surging market for tablets, seeking to take on Google and Apple and prove that Windows has a place in a world of touch screens and smartphone applications. That hasn't happened so far, said Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities.
"It's pretty clear that things were bad entering the year, and at least for the moment they're getting worse," Gauna said. "The path to a successful Surface, in the same way that they were successful with Xbox, is not very clear to me right now." Catherine Brooker, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, declined to comment on Surface sales.
By contrast, Apple sold 22.9 million iPads in the quarter that ended in December. Worldwide tablet shipments reached 128.3 million units in 2012, according to IDC. Apple's iPad accounted for 51 per cent of the market.
Microsoft's Surface RT, its first-ever computer hardware product, went on sale October 26.
The more expensive Surface Pro, which is built on an Intel computer chip and can run older PC software, arrived last month. While Microsoft's newest version of its operating system, Windows 8, runs on PCs and tablets from other computer makers, the company decided to gamble on tablets itself, trying to emulate Apple's and Google's strategy of delivering their own flagship devices.
(c) 2013 Muscat Press and Publishing House SAOC Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
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