Credit: Blair Hanley Frank

Four years after the introduction of Office 365 for consumers, Microsoft last week said subscriptions to the productivity software had reached nearly 25 million.

Subscribers, however, were harder to find last year than in 2015, according to the numbers Microsoft reported: Additions to Office 365’s rolls were down 62% in 2016 compared to the year before.

During an earnings call with Wall Street analysts last week, CEO Satya Nadella touted revenue increases for the Office products aimed at consumers — which include Office 365 — and of the latter said that the company had, “continued to see an increase in … subscriber base.”

That it did.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), Microsoft pegged the number of consumer Office 365 subscriptions in the December quarter at 24.9 million, an increase of 900,000 from the September quarter and 4.3 million more than a year earlier.

Microsoft launched Office 365 for consumers in January 2013. The initial subscription — dubbed “Home Premium” — was a five-user deal that cost $100 annually or $10 monthly. Fifteen months later, Microsoft unveiled a one-user subscription called “Personal” for $70 a year or $7 a month. Since then, Microsoft shortened the original subscription’s name to just “Home;” prices have not changed.

Read More from computerworld.com

http://www.computerworld.com/article/3162708/enterprise-applications/new-office-365-subscriptions-for-consumers-plunged-62-in-2016.html