A recent study by Gartner shows that IBM topped the server market in revenue for 2011 while HP led the market in server shipments.
The worldwide
server market ended 2011 with mixed results, as worldwide revenue
in this space declined 5.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 while shipments increased
4.5 percent, according to Gartner.
For the year,
worldwide server revenue grew 7.9 percent, and server shipments increased 7
percent, with IBM taking the revenue crown and HP leading in shipments.
The shortage
of hard-disk drive inventory because of the Thailand floods in October 2011
provided supply issues, and many providers could not meet the demand in the
last weeks of 2011, said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner, in
a statement. We expect the negative impact of these drive supply issues to
continue into 1Q12.
From a
geographic perspective, all regions saw year-on-year growth in shipments for the
quarter, except for Western Europe, which posted a 3.1 percent drop for the
period. In vendor revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011, the Asia-Pacific
region, Eastern Europe, Japan and the Middle East/Africa all posted mid-high-single-digit
to low-double-digit year-on-year growth, while Canada, Latin America, the
United States and Western Europe all posted high-single-digit to
low-double-digit declines.
IBM was the
market leader in the worldwide server market based on revenue. The company
ended the year with $4.7 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011 for
a total share of 33.7 percent. IBMs
revenue was down 10.2 percent, compared with the same quarter in 2010. IBMs
growth was fueled by its Power Systems product line.
Of the top five
global vendors, Dellwith 7.3 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2011was
the only vendor to experience an increase in worldwide server revenue.
In server
shipments, HP remained the worldwide leader for the fourth quarter of 2011. HP
accounted for 28.1 percent of global shipments in the fourth quarter of 2011,
despite a shipment decline of 8.1 percent.
Of the top
five vendors in server shipments worldwide, Lenovo and Dell were the only
vendors to post shipment increases. Lenovos shipments grew 51 percent, and
Dell increased 11.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2010.
Fourth-quarter
results centered on demand for x86 servers, which saw a 5 percent increase in unit
shipments and a 2.6 percent gain in revenue for the quarter. In 2011, the
server market was fueled primarily by x86 servers, which are the predominant
platform used for large-scale data center build-outs, particularly in North
America, while emerging regions like the Asia-Pacific and Latin America also
added to the growth for the year.
2011 was a
year that saw worldwide server growth driven by mega data centers and the
explosion of client devices such as smartphones and tablets accessing Web
content, Hewitt said in a statement. We have definitely seen a more pronounced
segmentation between hyper-scale data centers and the traditional enterprise
and midsized customer.
Hewitt added,
Ongoing blade server and skinless server growth in the x86 segment also
helped push 2011 results in spite of ongoing constraints in other segments,
such as RISC/Itanium Unix platforms.
Blade servers
posted a revenue increase of 14.5 percent and a shipment increase of 4.2
percent for the year. HP was the 2011 leader in blade servers, accounting for
44 percent of shipments, with IBM in second place at 21 percent. In the form
factor, Cisco grew to an 8 percent shipment share to end the year in fourth
place, just behind Dell, which had 9.3 percent.
The outlook
for 2012 suggests that growth will continue, Hewitt said. These increases
continue to be buffered by the use of x86 server virtualization to consolidate
physical machines as they are replaced, but the introduction of new processors
from Intel and AMD is likely to help fuel and initiate a new round of server
replacement cycles.
Darryl K. Taft covers the development tools and developer-related issues beat from his office in Baltimore. He has more than 10 years of experience in the business and is always looking for the next scoop. Taft is a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and was named 'one of the most active middleware reporters in the world' by The Middleware Co. He also has his own card in the 'Who's Who in Enterprise Java' deck.
Email
Print
