Skype boosts Xbox division quarter by 20%

According to Microsoft, which released its quarterly results earlier today, the Xbox division has increased its revenues by 20%, but the credit goes entirely to the Skype acquisition that became official in May (that’s a huge number for Skype). The Xbox business suffered a small decline in fact: during the past quarter, Microsoft has shipped 1.1M Xbox consoles which is not bad at all – however, if you compare that to the 1.7M shipped during the same period last year, it’s significantly down (almost 40%).

Still, Microsoft Xbox is a $9.6B business which generates more than $360M in profits, which is about 1.5X Yahoo or 2X Facebook. Also, Microsoft is not the only player to see hardware sales go lower. Pretty much everyone in the business experienced it, so despite the negative number, Xbox can still claim to the top-selling console for the 18th consecutive month.

If you wonder why Skype falls into the Xbox division, it’s simple: that organization inside Microsoft handles most of the “consumer” stuff.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: General
Tags: business, Microsoft, Skype, Xbox