Global server market plunges in second quarter, says IDC
Published:02-September-2009
By Staff Reporter
IBM holds top spot with 34.5% market share in factory revenue
Global server market continued to decline for the fourth consecutive quarter, and it is the lowest quarterly server revenue since 1996, according to research firm IDC.
The factory revenue in the worldwide server market declined 30.1% to $9.8 billion in the second quarter of 2009, compared to the same period last year.
Server unit shipments declined 30.4%, the largest year-over-year quarterly server unit decline as customers continued to defer server refresh activities, IDC said.
Revenue for all classes of servers weakened further in the second quarter, with volume systems declining 30% and midrange enterprise revenue down 28.1% year over year. The slowdown extended to the high-end enterprise segment where revenue declined 32% when compared to the same quarter one year ago.
Matt Eastwood, group vice president of enterprise platforms at IDC, said: "Over the past four quarters, the worldwide server market has experienced significant revenue deceleration in all geographic regions as the economic recession has deepened.
“In the weeks and months ahead, IDC believes that IT customers around the globe will begin to focus on the future once again, making strategic compute platform decisions for the next business cycle, and driving more predictable server demand as market conditions stabilise in the second half of 2009."
According to IDC, IBM held the top spot in the worldwide server market with 34.5% market share in the factory revenue in the second quarter of 2009, gaining 1.8 points of share in the quarter on the performance of System x and System p. Its revenue declined by 26.3% during the quarter.
Hewlett-Packard was in the second spot with 28.5% share, although revenue declined by 30.4% year-over-year. Dell and Sun held third and fourth market positions with 12.4% and 10% factory revenue share, respectively. Dell's factory revenue declined 26.8%, while Sun's factory revenue declined 37.2% year over year. Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens maintained its fifth-place in terms of factory revenue, with 3.5% market share in the quarter.
Microsoft Windows server revenue declined 27.7% to $3.7 billion, Linux server revenue declined 28.9% year-over-year to $1.3 billion in the quarter, and Unix servers experienced a 30.9% revenue decline, compared to the second quarter of 2008.
The x86 server market declined by 28.1% to $5.2 billion worldwide as unit shipments decreased by 30% to 1.4 million servers. Blade market was the best in the server market which only saw a 12.1% decline in revenue in the quarter, compared to the same period last year.
