Microsoft Will Finally Make Its Mark In Mobile: Analyst

After missing out on much of the boom, the software giant is in prime position to make up for lost time.

Buying “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard affords Microsoft as much opportunity in smartphones as it does to upgrade its Xbox division. I Photo: Tarcil Tarcil Flickr

CEO Satya Nadella’s two latest deals provide a useful boost, but engaging in-app wars also carries great risk, Jennifer Saba stressed in an analysis for Reuters Breakingviews.

Buying “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard affords Microsoft as much opportunity in smartphones as it does to upgrade its Xbox division. One of the company’s most valuable assets, and a big contributor to its $3.5 billion 2022 mobile revenue, is “Candy Crush Saga.”

Released in 2012, the addictive tile-matching video game, which has been downloaded some 5 billion times, keeps topping the charts more than a decade later, according to research outfit Sensor Tower.

Artificial intelligence gives Microsoft another way to dial into the market. Its $10 billion capital injection into ChatGPT owner OpenAI should help Nadella expand further beyond its primary business customers.

The chatbot racked up more than 100 million users within two months of its release, making it the fastest rollout UBS analysts had seen in two decades of following the industry.

Together, these two investments increase Microsoft’s ability to gauge consumer behavior, using data collected from in-app purchases and cloud gaming subscriptions. It also ratchets up the competition with other technology titans fiercely competing to match or surpass human intelligence.

WEEKLY FEATURE : Jose Mari Chan And The Christmas Anthem