A rather interesting rumor has come up today regarding Microsoft’s Surface tablet business. Apparently the company is not very “aggressive” about developing a next-generation Surface tablet because sales of existing models, including the Surface Pro 3, have been lower than expected. The rumor claims that Microsoft may even be mulling over existing the tablet business altogether.
The rumor comes via Taiwanese trade publication DigiTimes which claims to have heard this from sources in the upstream supply chain. The sources reportedly claimed that the first and second generation Surface tablets have ended up costing Microsoft roughly $1.7 billion in losses which is probably why the company isn’t too interested in developing a successor.
It is further claimed that there’s concern about upcoming demand for the Surface Pro 3 because smartphones with large displays are impacting tablet demand. This may be why the sources don’t expect sales of Surface Pro 3 to pass one million units.
Rumor has it that Microsoft is “likely to terminate the product line,” but at the same time there are conflicting reports about upcoming models, including the Surface Mini. Microsoft is yet to make its future Surface plans public so it is too soon to say right now if Redmond really is going to bow out of the tablet market. We’ll have to wait and see what the company’s official response is on this.
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