Servers See Mild Growth in Q3
The number of servers shipped in the third quarter of 2014 grew 1 percent, with North America and Asia/Pacific driving the mild upward swing.
According to a new report released by market research firm Gartner, 2.53 million units shipped in the third quarter, up from 2.5 million in the same period last year. Revenues for manufacturers grew 1.7 percent in the period, from $12.35 billion in Q3 2013 to $12.56 billion in Q3 2014.
"The third quarter of 2014 produced modest growth on a global level, highlighting positive but constrained demand," said Errol Rasit, research director at Gartner, in a prepared statement. "Only North America and Asia/Pacific exhibited shipments growth, largely driven by demand from hyperscale organizations located there. These results support the continued bifurcation of enterprise and consumer services server demand."
X86-based servers saw an overall increase of 1.2 percent in unit shipments and 7.4 percent in revenues, which RISC/Itanium Unix-based systems experienced significant declines.
"x86 servers managed to grow 1.2 percent in units and 7.4 percent in revenue in the third quarter of 2014," Rasit said. "RISC/Itanium Unix server shipments declined 17.1 percent globally for the period and declined 8 percent in vendor revenue compared with the same quarter last year."
HP continued to lead the pack in both shipments and revenues, though unit shipments were down by double digits. The company shipped 569,426 units in the quarter and captured 22.9 percent of the overall worldwide server market. That's off 14.9 percent from the same period last year, when the company held 26.7 percent of the market. In terms of revenues, however, HP was off by only 0.9 percent on revenues of $3.37 billion, or 26.9 percent of the market.
Dell was second in unit shipments at 490,752 units, up 1.3 percent from he previous year, representing a 19.4 percent market share (up 0.1 percentage points from last year). Revenues were also up for Dell, 9.6 percent, at $2.22 billion. In terms of revenues, Dell landed in third place behind IBM. Dell's revenues represented 17.7 percent of the market, up more than a full percentage point from the same period last year.
IBM came in third in unit shipments and second in revenues. Its unit shipments were 171,419, off 15 percent from last year, while its revenues were $2.32 billion, off 17.7 percent.
Rounding out the top 5 in unit shipments were Huawei (93,421 units, up 34.3 percent) and Inspur Electronics (91,244 units, up 81.9 percent).
All others totaled 1.11 million units, up 8.1 percent from the same period last year.
In terms of revenues, Cisco was No. 4 ($783.76 million), up 30.8 percent. Oracle came in fifth at $500.4 million, essentially flat. Revenues for all other manufacturers totaled about $3.36 billion up 11.9 percent.
Further information can be found at gartner.com.