The server market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
(EMEA) showed strong volume growth in the second quarter of this
year, fuelled by pent-up demand for upgrades and replacements, new
technologies and a weak US dollar, according to market researcher
Gartner.
Server shipments grew 21.3% in the second quarter to 373,000
units, while revenue increased by 5% to $3.7bn compared with the
same period last year.
The spike in shipments came mainly from the sale of low-end
Intel based servers, which is part of the reason why revenue growth
was not as strong as the volume implied, according to Gartner
analyst Jon Hardcastle.
IBM showed the strongest shipment growth during the quarter,
delivering 41.4% more servers than in the second quarter of last
year, Gartner said. It captured 16.9% of the market during the
period, thanks to demand for its xSeries and pSeries lines.
The EMEA market leader was Hewlett-Packard, however, with 39.2%
of the market and a 20.9% growth rate in shipments during the
quarter. Dell logged a 29% growth rate and Fujitsu Semens reported
a 22.9% growth in shipments.
Sun Microsystems was the only major supplier to experience a
shipment decline, shipping 18.4% fewer servers than in the second
quarter of last year.
Though the rise in sales was boosted by companies' need to
upgrade and replace old servers, the second-quarter shipment
increase also appeared strong compared with last year's
particularly weak second quarter.
Last year's second quarter was marred by confusion and channel
problems surrounding the merger between HP and Compaq. Hardcastle
said these issues have now been resolved.
Gartner predicted that shipment growth would remain positive,
although not as strong as in the second quarter.
Scarlet Pruitt writes for IDG News Service