EMEA server market shows best growth since recession as x86 dominates

Proceed with caution

It was the enterprise, rather than consumer, IT market that was hit heaviest by the global recession and it has also been slower to recover as businesses are still wary of poking their heads above the trench and committing to capital expenditure.

So the latest study from IDC, which reveals the first EMEA year-on-year growth gains since 2008, is a welcome sign that businesses are starting to loosen the purse strings, albeit cautiously. Year-on-year unit growth was 16.4 percent, while revenue growth was up 7.4 percent - having declined by double digit percentages every quarter last year.

These gains must be kept in context, however, as total revenues of $3.2 billion are still way short of the pre-recession peak of $5.4 billion in Q4 07. Such spending as there is is clearly very measured, as revenue was actually down nearly 20 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

"While it is encouraging that annual growth rates in EMEA are higher than trends recorded on a worldwide basis, the quarter-on-quarter growth data indicates this recovery is far from consolidated," said Beatriz Valle, senior research analyst in the Enterprise Server Group for IDC EMEA.

The market seems to be moving very much in the direction of x86-based servers, with them now comprising almost two thirds of the total market. As a consequence, Windows shifted almost twice as much volume as Unix. Blades were the fastest growing form-factor.

The dominance of x86 is reflected in the vendor stats below, which see HP consolidate its number one spot , while IBM and Sun lose share.

Top 5 Corporate Vendor Family, EMEA Server Factory Revenue, 1First Quarter of 2010 (Millions)