Worldwide server shipments increase by 5.5pc


24 Nov 2004

Global shipments of servers increased 5.5pc year-over-year to US$11.5bn during the third quarter of the year, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of overall revenue growth. Linux server revenues surpassed US$1 bn in quarterly factory revenue for the first time

Volume server revenue grew 18.2pc year over year and continues to represent the primary growth engine for the server market overall. Revenue for midrange enterprise servers declined 10.2pc year over year marking the third consecutive quarterly decline as traditional midrange workloads continue to migrate to volume systems. Buoyed by renewed enterprise spending, the high-end enterprise server market grew 1.9pc year over year, its forth consecutive quarter of positive revenue growth.

“IT spending remained strong overall in the third quarter as customers continued to refresh and expand their IT infrastructures,” said Matt Eastwood, program director of Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC. “Although customers continue to target data center simplification initiatives, investment in strategic IT initiatives – including new workloads – are also growing significantly once again.”

IBM held on to its number one spot in the worldwide server systems market with 31.7pc market share in factory revenue while growing factory revenue by 6.3pc compared to the third quarter last year.

In terms of unit shipments, HP was the number one vendor worldwide. HP maintained the number two spot in terms of factory revenue with 26.8pc share, growing revenue 2.9pc compared to last year.

Sun and Dell tied for third place in factory revenue with 10.2pc and 10.1pc share respectively. Dell experienced strong 14.1pc year-over-year revenue growth while Sun’s revenues were flat, growing 0.1pc when compared to the third quarter last year.

Linux server revenues surpassed US$1bn in quarterly factory revenue for the first time. Linux server revenues showed 42.6pc growth, while unit shipments grew 31.7pc, reaching 9.2pc of overall quarterly server revenue. Worldwide investment in Linux servers for both technical and commercial workloads remains strong as the platform continues to expand its presence in data centers around the world. HP maintained its number 1 spot in the Linux server market, with 26.9pc market share in terms of revenue, while IBM was second with 20.5pc. Dell maintained the third spot with 17.4pc of Linux server spending.

The server blade market showed continued growth in the quarter, with shipments increasing by 44.0pc year over year and factory revenue gaining 22.5pc sequentially. Overall, bladed servers accounted for US$287m in the third quarter, representing 2.5pc of quarterly server market revenue. IBM maintained the number 1 spot in the server blade market, with 44.2pc market share.

Microsoft Windows servers, based on x86 server hardware, showed strong growth, as revenues grew 13.3pc and unit shipments grew 19.1pc year over year. Quarterly revenue of US$3.9bn for Windows servers represented 33.9pc of overall quarterly factory revenue, essentially equal in size to the Unix market.

Unix servers experienced 8.3pc unit growth year over year and a 2.3pc revenue decline over the third quarter of 2003 with total Unix revenues of US$4bn for the quarter.

By John Kennedy