Microsoft’s search engine revenue growth, which has already been slowing, has run into a brick wall due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs decreased by 18% (down 17% in constant currency) or $353 million, meaning the Bing Revenue was around $1,608 million, around the same size as the Surface division.
Search Revenue was negatively impacted by reductions in advertising spend due to the ongoing pandemic-related economic crisis.
The numbers dragged down the Performance of the More Personal Computing division, which still however overall saw $12.9 billion in sales, up 14%.
With the crisis still far from over we will have to see how long Microsoft can tolerate this poorly performing business.
See Microsoft’s full earnings results here.