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Worldwide Server Market Continues to Show Growth Across Major Sectors in Second Quarter, Says IDC FRAMINGHAM, Mass. --(Business Wire)-- Aug. 27, 2004 -- According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, factory revenue in the worldwide server market grew at 6.9% year over year to $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2004, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of positive overall revenue growth.Volume server revenue grew 21.0% year over year and continues to represent the primary growth engine for the server market overall. At the opposite end of the computing spectrum, high-end enterprise servers showed 6.1% year-over-year revenue growth, due to demand for powerful systems for server consolidation and mission-critical data-center processing. It was the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth for high-end enterprise servers, while midrange enterprise servers declined 11.7% year over year. "IT spending remained strong overall with server consolidation activities continuing to drive demand for high-end systems," said Matt Eastwood, program director of Global Enterprise Server Solutions at IDC. "The pattern in spending during the quarter demonstrates the bifurcation of the server marketplace, with growth at both the high and low ends of the computing spectrum." Top Server Market Findings -- Strong year-over-year unit shipment growth of 22.7%, reflecting strong unit growth in the volume server segment. -- IBM's OS/390 servers continued to show very strong growth in the second quarter of 2004, with 40.6% revenue growth and 35.2% unit growth compared with the second quarter of 2003, reflecting strong IT demand. -- Linux servers posted their eighth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth with year-over-year revenue growth of 48.9% and unit shipments up 38.2%. This was slightly slower than the 1Q04 revenue growth rate of 57.0% and 1Q04 unit growth of 46.6%. -- Unix servers experienced 20.2% unit growth year over year and sequential revenue growth of 1.8% over 1Q04. However, Unix server revenue declined slightly in the quarter, dipping 3% year over year. -- Microsoft Windows servers, based on x86 server hardware, showed strong growth, as revenues grew 13.2% and unit shipments grew 25.3% year over year. Quarterly revenue of $3.6 billion for Windows servers represented 31.0% of overall quarterly factory revenue. Overall Server Market Standings, by Vendor -- IBM held on to its number 1 spot in the worldwide server systems market with 32.5% market share in factory revenue while growing factory revenue by 11.7% compared to 2Q03. -- In terms of unit shipments, HP was the number 1 vendor worldwide. HP maintained the number 2 spot in terms of factory revenue with 27.1% share, growing revenue 4.6% compared to 2Q03. -- Sun experienced strong unit shipment growth with 33.8% growth year-over-year, the largest increase for a top 5 server vendor in the second quarter. Sun also experienced sequential and year-over-year revenue growth, regaining its number 1 position in the worldwide Unix server market. IBM's zSeries Maintains its Momentum Factory revenue for the IBM OS/390 server market grew 40.6% year over year, reaching nearly $1.5 billion. This marks the third consecutive quarter of significant revenue growth for IBM's zSeries platform, following a steady stream of hardware enhancements and cost-related changes in the past eighteen months. "These IBM OS/390 results show that IBM's customers are maintaining their enterprise server investments," said Steve Josselyn, research director in IDC's Global Enterprise Server Solutions group. "IBM's attention to providing functional improvements and applying cost reductions to this platform is paying dividends." x86 Industry Standard Server Market Dynamics The x86 server market dynamics continued to be strong. Factory revenue grew 13.0% to nearly $5.0 billion worldwide - exceeding the revenue generated by RISC-based servers worldwide for the second consecutive quarter. Unit shipments grew 22.4% to more than 1.3 million servers worldwide. Dell and HP both outpaced the category's growth rate, posting year-over-year unit shipment growth of 29.4% and 24.2%, respectively. "Driving the strong growth of x86 servers were dual-processor servers and blade servers," said John Humphreys, research manager of IDC's Global Enterprise Server Solutions. "Blade servers, which are rapidly being adopted for server consolidation projects, are on pace to exceed a billion dollars in sales in 2004." Additionally, 64-bit-capable x86-64 servers continued to ramp in volume. "Server units based on AMD Opteron processors grew 81.1% sequentially in the quarter, and the introduction of Intel's x86-64-based chips in August continues to buoy our expectation that the market will see volume deployments of 64-bit-capable processing in 2005." Linux Servers Near the $1 Billion Mark in Quarterly Revenue This is the third consecutive quarter in which Linux servers have posted more than $900 million in worldwide factory revenue, nearing the $1 billion mark in quarterly revenue. Linux server revenues showed 48.9% growth, while unit shipments grew 38.2%, reaching 8.4% of overall quarterly server revenue. "Worldwide investment in Linux servers for both technical and commercial workloads remains strong, and the push of Linux servers into the enterprise is well underway," said Jean S. Bozman, research vice president, IDC Global Enterprise Server Solutions. "With the introduction of the Linux 2.6 operating system, we expect to see Linux servers grow beyond their initial role as a foundation for IT infrastructure and Web-centric workloads, becoming a mainstream platform for enterprise IT server solutions." Unix Market Shows Strong Shipment Growth, Posts Revenue Gain The Unix server market showed renewed growth in the quarter, with shipments increasing by 20.2% year over year and factory revenue gaining 1.8% sequentially. Overall, Unix servers accounted for $4.2 billion in the second quarter, representing 36.6% of quarterly server market revenue. Sun regained the number 1 spot in the Unix market, with 33.6% market share in terms of revenue, while HP was second with 30.3%. IBM followed with 24.4% revenue share. -0- *T Top 5 Corporate Family, Worldwide Server Systems Factory Revenue, Second Quarter of 2004 (Revenues are in Millions) Q2 2004 Market Q2 2003 Market Revenue Growth Vendor Revenue Share Revenue Share 2Q04/2Q03 IBM 3,738 32.5% 3,348 31.1% 11.7% Hewlett-Packard 3,118 27.1% 2,980 27.7% 4.6% Sun Microsystems 1,440 12.5% 1,438 13.4% 0.2% Dell 1,052 9.1% 980 9.1% 7.3% Fujitsu/FSC 575 5.0% 517 4.8% 11.2% Other 1,590 13.8% 1,504 14.0% 5.7% All Vendors 11,513 100% 10,767 100.0% 6.9% IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, August 2004 *T IDC's Server Taxonomy IDC's Server Taxonomy maps the eleven price bands within the server market into three price ranges: volume servers (servers priced less than $25,000), midrange enterprise servers ($25,000 to $499,999), and high-end enterprise servers ($500,000 or more). The revenue data presented in this release is stated as factory revenue for a server system. IDC presents data in factory revenue to determine market-share position. Factory revenue represents those dollars recognized by multi-user system and server vendors for ISS and upgrade units sold through direct and indirect channels and includes the following embedded server components: Frame or cabinet and all cables, processors, memory, communications boards, operating system software, other bundled software and initial internal and external disk shipments. IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly shipments (both ISS and upgrades) and revenues (both customer and factory), segmented by vendor, family, model, region, operating system, price band, CPU type, and architecture. For more information, please contact Hoang Nguyen at 508-935-4718 or [email protected]. About IDC IDC is the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunications industries. We analyze and predict technology trends so that our clients can make strategic, fact-based decisions on IT purchases and business strategy. Over 700 IDC analysts in 50 countries provide local expertise and insights on technology markets. Business executives and IT managers have relied for 40 years on our advice to make decisions that contribute to the success of their organizations. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. Additional information can be found at www.idc.com All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. |
