Gartner: Worldwide server shipments up 3.6%, revenue down 2.8%

In the third quarter of 2012 worldwide server shipments grew 3.6 percent year-on-year, while revenue decreased 2.8 from the third quarter of 2011, according to Gartner, Inc.

“The third quarter of 2012 again produced shipment growth on a worldwide level, but server revenue was weak due to ongoing economic weakness and market segment differences,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “Only the North America and Asia/Pacific regions managed any revenue growth, and even those were essentially flat year to year, with North America showing a 1.1 percent increase and Asia/Pacific a 0.7 percent increase. The picture in terms of shipments was slightly more positive with North America, Latin America and Asia/Pacific all growing, but both EMEA and Japan continue to struggle and both saw shipments contract, compared to the same period last year.”

“x86 server shipments grew 4.3 percent in the third quarter of 2012, and revenue increased 4 percent from the third quarter of 2011. RISC/Itanium Unix servers continued to fall globally for the period – a 31.1 percent decline in shipments and a decrease of 16.4 percent in revenue compared to the same quarter last year. The ‘other’ CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a decline of 17 percent in terms of revenue,” Hewitt said.

From the regional standpoint, North America grew the most in shipments with a 7.4percent increase. The region also posted the highest vendor revenue growth at 1.1 percent for the period.

Four of the top five global vendors had revenue decreases for the third quarter of 2012. Dell was the only vendor among the top five to have its revenue increase in the third quarter. IBM had the lead for the quarter in the worldwide server market based on revenue (see Table 1)–the company posted $3.5 billion in server vendor revenue for a total share of 27.6 percent. IBM’s revenue was down 9.5 percent year-on-year. Most of IBM’s revenue contribution came from its Power Systems brand with some contribution by System x as well.

Table 1

Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 3Q12 (U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (November 2012)

In server shipments, HP remained the worldwide leader in the third quarter of 2012 (see Table 2) in spite of an 8.4 percent decrease in shipments for the quarter. This decline was driven primarily by declining revenue in HP’s ProLiant and Integrity brands. HP’s worldwide server shipment share was 25.8 percent.

Of the top 5 vendors in server shipments worldwide, Dell and Cisco were the only vendors to experience an increase in shipments.

In terms of server form factors, x86 blade servers declined 7.1 percent in shipments but increased 2.3 percent in revenue for the quarter. The x86 rack-optimized form factor declined 0.2 percent in shipments and decreased 0.3 percent in revenue for the third quarter of 2012.

Table 2
Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipment Estimates, 3Q12 (Units)

Source: Gartner (November 2012)