It's a running joke here at Windows Central that when Surface Pro 12 and Surface Laptop 6 come out, we can already anticipate reader comments moaning that they're too expensive.

I don't think I have ever written a single review of a Microsoft Surface product where people didn't complain about the price being too high. It's a bump not a tsunami The pandemic rush is about low-cost devices, not high-end One of the reasons PC sales were above-average in 20 had nothing to do with the pandemic, but rather End of Support for Windows 7 (opens in new tab), where enterprise scooped up new hardware. It's a bump in a market that has been flat or declining for years. The takeaway, though, is significant: Windows PC sales were up in 2020, but it is not a massive resurgence (and Chromebooks played a large role, too). Of course, I just established that comparing an estimate of yearly PC shipments to quarterly revenue is a non-starter making the point moot anyway. Going by rival firm Gartner's numbers, which does not count Chromebooks, it is estimated that 275 million PCs shipped in 2020, a 4.8 percent increase year over year. Chromebooks do compete against Windows PCs, but it is a separate argument if you are challenging Surface PC sales compared to the rest of the Windows PC segment. Second, IDC's numbers are not appropriate for this assessment anyway because it includes Google Chromebooks. We do not know because Microsoft never breaks those figures out to the public. Microsoft could have sold fewer but more expensive Surfaces (like Surface Studio 2) or many lower-cost ones (Surface Go 2). Revenue can vary depending on the product's price point and volume mix. This comparison is strange for a few reasons.įor one, Microsoft is reporting revenue, not shipments, which is what IDC is estimating. I've seen some people toss around IDC's 'up 13 percent' number for year-over-year shipments (302 million) in PCs as a reference point, suggesting Microsoft's 3 percent increase seems low.

Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Daniel Rubino / Windows Central)

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