Microsoft wants to be transparent, will report Surface revenue every quarter

Ron

Surface

During a conference call with analysts, Microsoft outlined a new format for reporting its quarterly financial results. This new format is designed to offer “more transparency, greater accountability and better execution.” Part of that transparency includes a quarterly revenue disclosure of Surface devices and accessories.

“Starting in Q1 we will report quarterly the revenue derived from our Surface products and related accessories,” Microsoft’s Chris Suh stated during the conference call. Microsoft faced a lawsuit back in August of this year, claiming that Microsoft issued “materially false and misleading statements” regarding the company’s financial performance and the Surface RT’s performance.

That particular lawsuit alleged that Microsoft apparently did not disclose that the Surface RT was experiencing poor customer demand and lackluster sales. The lawsuit also states that Microsoft’s Surface RT inventory experiences a material decline in value during the quarter ending March 31st of 2013 and the financial statements for that quarter were false and misleading.

Microsoft first disclosed revenue from the Surface brand back in July. Microsoft has revealed that the Surface brought in $853 million in revenue since the launch of the device, which ended up being less than the $900 million write-off the company had to bite.

We still wont know how many Surfaces are being sold, but thanks to this new transparency, we will only get quarterly revenue data from “Surface products” which includes the device and accessories.