IBM and Fujitsu both claim server market share

A rising tide

Market researcher Gartner has published its numbers for the worldwide server market and they reveal healthy revenue growth of almost 20 percent across the industry, on shipment growth of just eight percent - further evidence of a rising average selling price (ASP) for servers.

But within those figures there's some significant movement regarding market share. HP has held onto the number one spot in terms of revenue, but only just (IDC begs to differ), and lost 2.2 percentage points of market share. The main beneficiaries of this were IBM and Fujitsu - the latter managing to more than double its revenue year on year.

The reason for this is ASP. If you compare the first two tables below (note the spreadsheet seems to have gone mad in the first one and shifted all the figures in the ‘2Q10-2Q11 Growth (%)' column down a row) you can see that HP's volume market share actually went up a percentage point year-on-year. So if it's losing revenue share to IBM and Fujitsu it's because their ASPs are increasingly higher than HP's.

"The second quarter produced solid growth on a yearly basis, as the recovery that started in 2010 continues to eke out slow improvements," said Jeffrey Hewitt, VP at Gartner. "All regions showed yearly growth in both shipments and vendor revenue, although in both measures the market is again below the pre-downturn levels we saw in the corresponding quarter of 2008.

"x86 servers forged ahead and grew 8.4 percent in units for the quarter and 17.7 percent in revenue. RISC/Itanium Unix servers declined 8.5 percent in shipments but showed a revenue increase of 4.3 percent compared with the same quarter last year. The 'other' CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a strong growth of 48.8 percent."

Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 2Q11 (U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (August 2011)



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

Source: Gartner (August 2011)

This pattern was more or less replicated in EMEA, although HP has more of a lead over the rest here. "Against a backdrop of ongoing economic concerns, the server market continues to recover across the EMEA regions," said Adrian O'Connell, director at Gartner. "Revenue growth outpacing shipment growth shows the strength in some high-end platforms which, having longer sales cycles, have taken longer to return to growth mode.

"As we have cautioned before, current growth rates may look positive but in absolute terms the market remains quite some way below the levels that we saw prior to the downturn. Total server revenue across EMEA is only just over three quarters of the level that it was in the second quarter of 2008.

"The RISC/Itanium Unix and Other CPU systems are even worse - both around 50 percent of those pre-downturn levels. With that in mind, and the ongoing economic concerns, there is a real need for vendors to focus on driving competitive wins to maximize the available market opportunity, particularly in these non-x86 segments."

Table 3
EMEA: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 2Q11 (U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (August 2011)

Table 4
EMEA: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 2Q11 (Units)

Source: Gartner (August 2011)