Microsoft announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year 2023, including details about the performance of its Xbox business.
The related press release and presentation provide an overview of the quarterly results of the More Personal Computing segment of Microsoft's business, which includes the company's Xbox gaming business. You can find the relevant slides below.
Gaming revenue growth was essentially flat showing $36 million or 1% growth year-on-year, while Xbox Content & Services grew 5% year-on-year driven by third-party content and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. On the other hand, Xbox hardware revenue declined by 13% year-on-year due to the lower volume of consoles sold.
This is below the expectations spelled at the previous financial conference call, which mentioned overall revenue growth for gaming to be in the mid-to-high single digits and Xbox content and services to grow in the low to mid-teens driven by third and first-party content and Xbox Game Pass.
Moving on to Microsoft as a whole corporation, revenue grew 8% year-on-year, while operating income grew 18% year-on-year, as you can see in the table below.
As usual, we should clarify that the data is related to the quarter between April 1, 2023, and June 30, 2023. Unlike most other corporations in this industry, Microsoft doesn't use a fiscal calendar that represents the year from April to March. Its fiscal year goes from July to June, so the April quarter is identified as Q4 instead of Q1.
You can find the full presentation slides on the company's investor relations website and check out our dedicated article for the previous quarter to compare with historical data.
In other Microsoft news, the company has recently extended its deadline for the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, showing confidence about its ability to close the deal. The FTC has at least temporarily paused its opposition proceedings following defeats at a federal district court and at the court of appeals.
In the meanwhile, negotiations with the British regulator CMA are ongoing.
