Server market sees revenue and shipment increases

Figures have been released throwing more light on the increase in server revenue and shipments in the first quarter.

According to Gartner’s stats the first quarter of 2011 saw an 8.5 percent increase in shipments year on year, while revenue increase broke into double digits with an impressive 17.3 percent rise.

This means an increase on recent IDC stats which reported a 12.1 percent rise in revenues, with just 2.5 percent increase in shipments.

Jeffrey Hewitt, vice president at Gartner, said that the positive results were the continuation of a trend year on year growth for both shipments and revenue, with all regions benefitting with the exception of Japan.

HP remained top of the charts in terms of revenue, posting $3.8 billion to account for 30.2 percent of the worldwide market as all of the top five firms reported revenue increases aside from Fujitsu.

HP was also the leader again for server shipments, with a 2.3 percent increase on last year, thought to be attributable to the firm’s ProLiant brand.

In terms of share of overall shipment share however this meant a 1.8 percent drop to 29.8 percent as compared to last year, with Dell in second place with 22.0 percent.

The only other firm to record year on year increase in shipment units in the first portion of 2011 was IBM, see below tables for more info.

It was a good quarter for x86 which saw an increase in average selling price mean that an 8.6 percent rise in shipments raked in extra cash with a 17.5 percent revenue increase noted.

Meanwhile RISC/Itanium Unix servers were said to have bounced back and seen a 5.2 percent increase in shipments leading to a 20.7  jump in revenues for vendors, while other forms of server such as mainframes showed 19.6 percent growth as compared to the same period last year.

As for form factor, there was a 6.1 percent rise in x86 blade servers for shipments and 24.6 percent for revenue, while rack-optimised servers saw revenues and shipments jump 19.6 and 11.2 respectively.

And it was in Eastern Europe where the most significant increases were found with 21.1percent rise in shipments, as well as leading with 36.0 percent increase in revenues.

Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 1Q11 (U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (May 2011)

Table 2
Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 1Q11 (Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2011)