 "Worldwide server shipments up 1.5% in 2012: Gartner")
“2012 was a year that definitely saw budgetary constraint which resulted in delays in x86-based server replacements in enterprise and mid-sized data centres. Application-as-a-business data centres such as Baidu, Facebook and Google were the real drivers of significant volume growth for the year,” Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice-president at Gartner, said in a release on Monday.
Geography-wise, the three highest growth rates were shown by North America (5.5%), Asia-Pacific (3.4%) and Latin America (0.2%) in terms of unit shipments. These were the only regions to experience an increase in shipments. These three regions grew at a rate of 16.3%, 15.5% and 6% respectively, Gartner said.
IBM led the league of companies in the worldwide server market based on revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012. IBM’s server revenue reached $5.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 to increase its global market share to 34.9%. This was up from 33.7% market share in the fourth quarter in 2011.
Three of the top five global server vendors experienced revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2012, with IBM showing the strongest growth rate of 8.9%, while Oracle had the steepest revenue decline of 18%.
In server shipments, HP remained the worldwide leader for the fourth quarter of 2012, as it accounted for 26.5% of the market. HP’s shipments declined 5.9%. The ProLiant brand remains as HP’s significant driver of server unit volume.
According to Gartner, of the top five vendors in server shipments worldwide, Cisco was the only vendor to experience an increase in shipments in the fourth quarter of 2012. Cisco’s worldwide server shipments increased 40.9% in the quarter.