Microsoft who is currently laying off staff despite a record increase in revenues, is prepping a new premium Surface Laptop Studio notebook in an effort to get the brand relegated from “others’ in the ranking of PC brands.
When it comes to notebook market share Microsoft struggles with the local entity that operates via tax havens failing to break out their consumer products revenue.
In the PC market where Microsoft is pitching their Surface PC’s, Lenovo is the global leader with total shipments in the last quarter of 12.7 million units and a market share of 22.4%. HP came in second with 12 million shipments and a 15.8% market share while Dell rounding out the third spot with 9.5 million shipments amounting to 13.7% of the market.
Apple came in fourth place with 4.1 million shipments and a 7.2% share of the market while Asus was fifth with 3.9 million shipments and a 6.8% market share.
Microsoft was delegated to “other” by IDC.
Their Surface Laptop Studio with its unique design is targeted at creatives and gamers who up until now have been buying other brands.
The new model is rumoured to get Nvidia’s RTX 40-series graphics which is a major step up from previous models.
A leaked GeekBench report was posted on Twitter earlier this year that showed a configuration with the RTX 4060, which likely represents the most powerful option available.
The RTX 40-series also comes with DLSS 3 and Frame Generation, which boosts frame rates further a move that will appeal to gamers.
Also coming is a more powerful processor which users claim “was needed “after Microsoft only invested in a 35-watt Intel Core i7-11370H.
The new model is tipped to use the 45watt Core i7-13800H which has 14 cores consisting of six performance cores and eight power efficiency cores.
Observers claim that this could give the struggling surface notebook a big boost.
Also coming is a larger memory configuration.
The previous model only had 32GB, with the new tipped to get 64GB.
In comparison the 14-inch MacBook Pro has 96GB.
The new Surface Laptop Studio 2 is expected to make an appearance in September and get ranged in Australia in the last quarter.
The new offering has been code-named “Ersa” internally according to sources.
The recent sackings of Microsoft staff in Australia comes after a big fall in annual profit to $132.4 million for the 2022 financial year, from $148.8 million the previous year.
Microsoft Australia is structured around tax havens and despite a $1 billion dollar jump in revenues to $6.3 billion the Company still managed to only report $132M in profits.
The AFR recently reported that Microsoft’s Australian operations, along with its UK, New Zealand and Singapore arms are set up as subsidiaries of Microsoft Ireland Research, which is in turn a subsidiary of an Irish division called “Microsoft Round Island One,” which resides in Bermuda.
These in turn are listed in Microsoft’s structure under a subsidiary known as RI Holdings, which is based in Hamilton, Bermuda, where the corporate tax rate is 0 per cent.
It’s not known how much revenue their consumer division contributed to revenues in Australia.
