Microsoft reportedly shipping double its expected number of Surface Studios

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

Surface Studio
Surface Studio (Image credit: Windows Central)

According to a report, interest in Microsoft's Surface Studio is running pretty high. Microsoft's suppliers indicate that while the company initially expected to ship around 15,000 Surface Studios in their debut quarter, it may end up shipping around 30,000 units, reports DigiTimes (via Business Insider).

The report further adds that Microsoft expects to ship another 30,000 units throughout the first quarter of 2017. And given the lull in interesting new releases from Apple, it's not hard to see why some creative types might be eager to check out Microsoft's latest Surface offering, ultimately pushing demand past what was expected. Still, with the hefty starting price of the premium Studio PC and its limited availability, demand reaching double of what was expected would be pretty impressive.

As always, it's best to take these reports with the requisite grain of salt. However, since we'll likely never get unit breakdowns directly from Microsoft, this report offers a pretty interesting peek into how the Surface Studio may be doing.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

36 Comments
  • It's like doctor strange..warning ⚠ is written at the end of the page.
  • At least they are honest here. unlike imore where every thing apple is taken as gospel!
  • And than taking into account that it is only on sale in a ridiculously small number of markets....
  • Supremely frustrating the way MS keeps p*ss*ng on customers by limiting availability of lots of products to the same handful of markets ALL THE TIME... Do you wanna sell products? Earn some money? Gain some market foothold? Then sell your products to all the people that want to buy them, instead of saying "Look what we can do, and by the way sorry, you can't have it..."
  • Maybe you weren't aware of the surface RT write downs and Windows phone market. I think they're smart for doing this. They're cautious and ensuring no money is wasted.
  • Maybe you werent aware of the momentum and hype that Microsoft has created like Apple. Starting a whole new Brand (and a really bad one like Surface RT) ofc you will flop. If you put 30k sold units as a success story then you also flopped.
    In long term the Surface Line is still a success, even if they had lost so much money in the beginning. Making Surface Studio a success will be a lot harder now because noone is buying it (because they cant). And the most important advertisement is still "word by mouth".
  • I dont believe MS put out a story about 30k and boasting. Info is from another source via supplier. But agreed, their hardware and even their software doesn't reach other areas quick enough
  • 30k satellites in a quarter sold would be great numbers. Unbelievable numbers really. Who would have thought 30k people wanted to spend $3000 dollars on a computer to draw on and stays put? This is a new idea, a new market, and a hefty price tag. You have to look at the whole thing and not just the numbers.
  • Of course, the price tag is very high. But so were the development costs and the amount of sold Surfaces, even at their current price will barely earn MS enough money to cover the development costs in one year. After that they will already have a new Surface Studio ready for release. They need to use their momentum and turn their engines on. If they hadn't pushed their Surface RT so hard and made so much loss in the first two years, their current Surface line would not be as successful as it is now. They had losses until the "car" started moving and now it is on the highway and they just built a big roundabout in the middle of it.
  • At its premium price point and low distribution costs, this makes 30000 units massively profitable. That's pure cream and it jolts the OEM market into doing better. But nice try on the negative comment because with a name like El Mac we can see where your loyalties lay. I think you would do better to go to a Mac thread and try to jolt Apple into actually advancing their product instead of apps on a keyboard.
  • Read my answer above and stop being so emotional. By the way, my name El Mac is an acronym of my name and family name. I added the Bing link so you can go Bing the meaning of that word quicker.
  • The whole Surface line was never really meant to go against the OEM's.  They said from the beggining that is was to provide a template for the OEM's to give them fresh new ideas.  And judging by all the 2-in-1's being released by multiple manufacturers, the plan is working like a charm.  I don't think Microsoft wanted to deal with the headaches of worldwide distribution.  I mean, why bother when OEM's like HP, Lenovo and Dell is already set up to do so.
  • El Mac
    Acronym.....Camel??
  • Lame C ?
  • They dont want to ever experience another 900B loss overproducing a new product line.... and the only way to stop leaks before announcement is to build the initial units yourself and not have it on a factory line in China, after the announcement you ramp up production in China for next quarter availability. That surface mini tablet never leaked, we know they built thousands of them and we still have no idea what it looked like.
  • 900B loss? I don't think even Apple has that kind of money.
    MS said before several times that they only want to create new hardware to inspire the OEM. They are making software mainly and the the stuff OEMs will produce will also have Windows 10. With the new mobile device on the Surface line it'll be the same
  • Hell yeah !
  • OEMs to follow...
  • Word of advise....... never quote digitimes as a credible news source ever again
  • well, that doesn't bode well. It was already crazy expensive and they are selling 2x the number expected. Now they are just going to charge more for them... *sigh*
  • How do you figure?  The MSRP is already set.  It's the 3rd party sellers that are seizing the opportunity by jacking up the prices because people are too anxious to get one in their hands.
  • I'm going to be in line for one. Going to be a boon for doing all my work related stuff, 3d design, photography and video editing etc. SHAWEEEEETT! Doing custom motorcycle/atv/Utv/snowmobile design on this machine is going to be great for business. I can provide 3d "vision" of what the clients rides will look like before we ever start on the build. Then we can work together make changes if they don't like something they see on the 3d model.
  • You are the target audience.  I'm sure there are others that are buying this just for show.  They'll probably use it to check emails and watch cat videos.
  • Those cat videos will look friggin fantastic tho! ha ha. The dial is awesome too!
  • Surprised people are buying it when it does not even come with pascal gpu's, but the over a year old cards.
  • Artists don't need a faster GPU than what's in the device. It suffices for what it's made for.
  • Artists don't need gaming GPUs in the first place.
     
  • That's what I just said.....
  • Nah, it isn't, faster != gaming. Surface Studio comes with GeForce GTX -series, which is gaming-oriented. Professionals would be better off with a Quadro. So clearly MS is trying to tap into both entertainment and creation markets a bit, and Pascal would have made sense there.
  • That would have cost more and created a much higher price point than it already is. This PC can do light gaming and can be used for creative software that requires 3D. Why does it need more than it has? If you don't like it go get an ASUS Zen AIO
  • At least on graphics cards, equally performant Pascal cards are cheaper. Might be an availability issue though.
  • If this gets a gtx10xx card later this year, or AT LEAST thunderbolt 3, I'm in. Add the surface book 2 to that and I'll have the set ;)
  • 30000 of these for an average of $3500 ea means $105,000,000 in gross sales. Holy crap.
  • It's a gorgeous piece of hardware and I'm glad the sales figures are reflecting this. Quality stuff needs to be appreciated. And what better way than selling good amount of product.
  • Whats funny is that nobody bats an eyelash when apple sells a $3000 **** like the imac. But when windows does it with an amazing piece of kit like the studio....that turns graphics creation on its end.....people are like WOW that's expensive.
  • Still waiting for my $4000 version to ship.