Server sales up; revenues down

IDC server revenues

Server revenues declined 4.4% in Q4 to $14.2 billion – making it the fourth quarter in a row that server revenues have shown y-o-y declines, says IDC.

However unit shipments were 2.5 million going up 8.2% in Q4 2013 compared to Q4 2012.

For the full year, worldwide server revenue was $49.7 billion representing a 4.4% decline over 2012, although full year unit shipments increased 3.2% to 9 million.

The ‘volume’ segment, driven by an expansion of x86-based servers, had 8% revenue growth to $10.2 billion in 4Q13. The mid-range and high-end systems had y-o-y revenue declines of -19.6% and -28.5% to $1.2 billion and $2.8 billion, respectively, in 4Q13.

White-label server sales, referred to by IDC as ODM Direct, grew 47% y-o-y and now make up 6.4% of industry revenue. “Density-optimized” server sales, which include white-label gear and OEM offerings, grew 70%.

“While a record number of servers shipped in 4Q13, the market was constrained by weak demand for midrange and high-end systems,” says IDC’s Matt Eastwood, “the market continues to be impacted by enterprise focus on 2nd platform workload consolidation, which at this point in time is only partially offset by 3rd Platform hyperscale server deployments around the globe. 2nd Platform workloads continue to represent a healthy profit pool for server vendors targeting consolidation opportunities across the market. However, new profit pools in the 3rd Platform are emerging that create new market opportunities for OEMs and ODMs. IDC believes this market transformation requires increased focus from vendors in order to best capitalize on these diverging market

HP and IBM were statistically tied* for the number 1 position in the worldwide server systems market. HP had 26.9% market share in factory revenue for 4Q13, as revenue increased 5.7% year over year to $3.8 billion.

HP experienced improvements in demand for its x86-based ProLiant servers, particularly in the U.S. IBM had 26.8% market share for the quarter as revenue decreased -28.5% year over year to $3.8 billion in 4Q13. IBM experienced significant year-over-year declines in quarterly revenue for all three families of systems – System x, POWER Systems, and System z mainframes.

Dell server revenue declined -2.4% year over year to $2.1 billion, maintaining third place with 14.5% factory revenue market share in 4Q13. Cisco and Oracle ended the quarter in a statistical tie for the number 4 market position with 4.5% and 4.1% factory revenue share, respectively.

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