Worldwide Server Revenue and Shipments Posted Historically Low Declines in First Quarter of 2009

05. 10. 2009 | Comments [0]

Worldwide server revenue declined 24 per cent in the first quarter of 2009, and shipments dropped 24.2 per cent, compared to the first quarter of 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. These were the most significant declines the server industry has experienced on a year-on-year basis.

“The significant decline that occurred in the fourth quarter of last year has extended into the beginning of this year,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “While this was not unexpected, the severity of the decline was greater than predicted on a worldwide level.”

“The ongoing weakness of the global economy affected all server segments. x86-based servers fell 23.9 per cent in units and 27.1 per cent in revenues. UNIX servers also were impacted in quarterly results with drops of 31.3 per cent in units and 20.4 per cent in vendor revenues,” Mr Hewitt said.

The server market was negatively impacted in all geographic regions. Asia/Pacific felt the least downward pressure in terms of revenue and units with a 13.5 per cent and 12.7 per cent declines, respectively. The US had shipment declines of almost 27 per cent for the quarter. In server vendor revenues, the US dropped 21.2 per cent.

Of the top five global vendors, IBM, HP, Dell, Sun and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens all had double-digit revenue declines for the first quarter of 2009. IBM continued to lead the worldwide server market based on revenue (see Table 1)—the company posted just over $3 billion in server revenue, and its market share reached 30.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. This share was up 1.4 per cent year-on-year. While IBM retained the No. 1 position, it sustained a 20.4 per cent revenue decline, with all of its server brands posting year-on-year decreases.

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