Some new financial comparisons performed by industry analyst Horace Dediu reveal two very interesting tidbits about Microsoft and Apple: Apple’s Mac business now generates more revenue that Windows, and Apple’s iOS devices generate more revenue than all of Microsoft’s products combined.
Dediu first explains that Apple and Microsoft are organized in different ways, with Apple having product lines where Microsoft has business divisions. He then proceeds to share some very interesting revenue charts. First, Microsoft’s chart:
Microsoft’s chart shows that the release of windows 7 had a significant impact of their revenues for the launch quarter, but those sales numbers failed to exceed the previous version’s run. The chart also strongly suggests that much of Microsoft’s total revenue volume is closely related to their Windows sales numbers.
Apple’s chart, on the other hand, shows incredible gains in both iPhone and iPad sales that don’t seem directly tied to sales of the Mac and OS X. The chart also shows that Apple’s Mac revenues actually exceed Microsoft’s Windows revenues.
To be fair, the comparison isn’t quite as authentic as it seems, considering that Apple’s Mac revenues reflect the sales of both OS X and Mac hardware (as they are most often sold together), whereas Microsoft’s numbers reflect only the sales of Windows licenses.
Nevertheless, these are some very interesting findings, and they demonstrate that the strength of the Mac against the industry continues to grow. Other notable bits that Dediu extracts from the charts are that iOS-powered devices generate more revenue than all of Microsoft’s products put together, and that Apple’s growth has come mainly from new business, whereas Microsoft has simply expanded existing businesses.
Dediu’s full observations are available over at MacDirectory.
