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IBM poised to overtake HP for number one in server revenues

by Scott Bicheno on 27 May 2011, 14:31

Tags: IBM (NYSE:IBM), Gartner (NYSE:IT)

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Market researcher Gartner has released its figures for the global server market in Q1 and they look a lot healthier than those for the PC market. Shipments grew by 8.5 percent year-on-year, but revenue jumped an impressive 17.3 percent.

"x86 servers forged ahead and grew 8.6 percent in units for the year and 17.5 percent in revenue. Following earlier trends, the x86-based server market provided an increase in average selling prices that pushed revenue higher than shipments, and this was the case in the first quarter for all regions," said Gartner veep Jeffrey Hewitt.

"RISC/Itanium Unix servers finally exited their slump and grew 5.2 percent in shipments and 20.7 percent in vendor revenue, compared with the same quarter last year. The ‘other' CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a growth in vendor revenue of 19.6 percent."

Clearly the trend is towards higher value servers and this is reflected in the vendor figures. HP is still number one in terms of both volume and value, but in the latter category it's not far off losing the top spot to IBM.

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

Company

1Q11

Revenue

1Q11 Market Share (%)

1Q10

Revenue

1Q10 Market Share (%)

1Q10-1Q11 Growth (%)

HP

3,826,499,365

30.2

3,389,508,530

31.4

12.9

IBM

3,761,762,079

29.7

3,052,091,123

28.3

23.3

Dell

1,892,881,243

14.9

1,673,579,438

15.5

13.1

Oracle

798,599,723

6.3

597,935,146

5.5

33.6

Fujitsu

591,959,434

4.7

645,299,697

6.0

-8.3

Other Vendors

1,798,809,376

14.2

1,440,384,216

13.3

24.9

Total

12,670,511,219

100.0

10,798,798,151

100.0

17.3

Source: Gartner (May 2011)

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

Company

1Q11

Shipments

1Q11 Market Share (%)

1Q10

Shipments

1Q10 Market Share (%)

1Q10-1Q11 Growth (%)

HP

687,502

29.8

672,094

31.6

2.3

Dell

508,650

22.0

510,452

24.0

-0.4

IBM

272,238

11.8

268,010

12.6

1.6

Fujitsu

76,648

3.3

77,613

3.6

-1.2

Oracle

36,795

1.6

42,528

2.0

-13.5

Other Vendors

725,654

31.4

556,231

26.2

30.5

Total

2,307,486

100.0

2,126,928

100.0

8.5

Source: Gartner (May 2011)

 



HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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HEXUS
Big Blue is selling fewer servers but making more money.
According to those figures they aren't the only ones. Oracle seems to have had a dramatic fall in the number of servers they ship, but a correspondingly large increase in revenue. Either I'm reading the data wrong, or else Oracle are really over-pricing their hardware.

Although, I'll cheerfully admit to be confused by that top table - e.g. can't see how HP could have falling market share but still apparently have quarter-vs-quarter growth. Likewise for Dell.

Still, at the end of the day, I suppose it's not how many servers you ship, but how much money you make from each sale, either directly or indirectly. And on that metric all vendors (apart from Fujitsu) are doing okay.
crossy
…Oracle are really over-pricing their hardware.
Oracle? Overcharging for their wares? But that's so unlike them! ;P
aidanjt
Oracle? Overcharging for their wares? But that's so unlike them! ;P
Yes, crazy isn't it - next thing you know folks'll be accusing them of screwing over Solaris customers and managing to alienate just about the entire open-source community …

oops! :surprised:
crossy
Although, I'll cheerfully admit to be confused by that top table - e.g. can't see how HP could have falling market share but still apparently have quarter-vs-quarter growth. Likewise for Dell.
.

If another rival company has stronger quarter-vs-quarter growth relative to them, then their market share will decline?
crossy
Although, I'll cheerfully admit to be confused by that top table - e.g. can't see how HP could have falling market share but still apparently have quarter-vs-quarter growth. Likewise for Dell.

The whole market grew by 17.3 percent, so HP's growth was below the average, hence the loss of market share.