According to Gartner, worldwide server shipments grew by 1.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2014, while server revenue declined by 4.1 per cent year over year. In the quarter under review, server shipments totaled 547,900 units witnessing a decline of 6.1 per cent over the first quarter in 2013. The revenue for the server market reached $3.0 billion, registering an increase of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2014.
Further, for the quarter under review, all regions witnessed a decline in either shipments or revenue except for Asia-Pacific. The research firm states that Asia-Pacific posted a 3.3 per cent increase in revenue and an 18 per cent growth in shipments. In Japan shipments increased by 13.5 per cent, but revenue declined by 9.2 per cent while in Western Europe shipments declined by 4.8 per cent and revenues increased by 6.7 per cent.
The research firm points out that in the first quarter of 2014, HP led the worldwide server market with revenue of $2.9 billion and a market share of 25.5 per cent. IBM was ranked second with revenue of $2.2 billion and a market share of 19.8 per cent. Dell was place third in the worldwide server market with revenue of $2.0 billion and a market share of 17.7 per cent. Further, of the top five vendors in server shipments worldwide, only Huawei and Inspur Electronics increased shipments in the first quarter of 2014, witnessing growth of 61 per cent and 288.7 per cent, respectively. This is the first time that Inspur Electronics made it to the list of top five vendors in worldwide server shipment market.
In terms of server form factors, x86 blade servers reported a decline of 3.9 per cent in shipments, but its revenues increased by 5.2 per cent. The rack-optimised form factor witnessed shipments growing by 1.4 per cent with revenues increasing by 1.7 per cent.
