Server market grows -- but not by much
The second quarter of 2014 saw server shipments grow by 1.3 percent and revenue by 2.8 percent according to the latest figures released by Gartner.
Most regions showed some growth with the exception of Eastern Europe, Japan and Latin America. Eastern Europe fell 5.6 percent in units shipped and 1.6 percent in vendor revenue, Japan declined 4.3 percent in units and 2.5 percent in revenue, and Latin America dropped 16.5 percent in units but managed to produce a vendor revenue increase of 6.7 percent.
The highest shipment growth came from the Middle East and Africa with a 6 percent increase, while Asia Pacific, North America, and EMEA grew by 5 percent, 1.6 percent and 0.8 percent respectively in the second quarter.
"The second quarter of 2014 produced relatively weak growth on a global level, with mixed results by platform", says Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. "x86 servers managed to produce an increase of 1.4 percent in units in the second quarter of 2014, and an 8.1 percent increase in revenue. RISC/Itanium Unix servers fell globally for the period, a 23.2 percent decline in revenue and 7.9 percent decrease in shipments compared with the same quarter last year. The 'other' CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a decline in vendor revenue of 2.2 percent".
Looked at by vendor, HP continues to lead with 22.9 percent of worldwide shipments followed by Dell on 19.6 and IBM on 7.7 percent. Analyzed by revenue, however, HP stays on top with 25.1 percent but IBM moves into second place with 22.4 percent, reflecting its place in the mainframe market, with Dell third on 17.4 percent.
Splitting things by form factor shows blade servers falling 4.3 percent in shipments but rising 7.2 percent in revenue for the quarter. The rack-optimized form factor climbed 2.9 percent in shipments and 3.6 percent in revenue.
The results are gathered from the Gartner Servers Quarterly Statistics Worldwide program which monitors the global market.
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