MS Excel uses the timestamp value for dates, and then disguises it for display; unformatted string.
02types.php /Examples:
$dateTimeNow = time();
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
->setCellValue('A9', 'Date/Time')
->setCellValue('B9', 'Date')
->setCellValue(
'C9',
PHPExcel_Shared_Date::PHPToExcel( $dateTimeNow )
);
$objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()
->getStyle('C9')
->getNumberFormat()
->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_DATE_YYYYMMDD2);
PHPExcel_Shared_Date::PHPToExcel() Unix ( , strtotime()), MS Excel; setFormatCode() , MS Excel, , /