Global computer server shipments surge in second quarter – research

Global shipments of computer servers surged 27 per cent to more than 2.1 million units in the second quarter as economic conditions improved, research firm Gartner said.

Revenues from server sales in the April-June quarter were slightly over $11 billion, a 14.3 per cent jump from the same period in 2009, it said in a statement.

“As in the first quarter, the second quarter again demonstrated strong year-on-year growth,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “There remained some regional variations, but all geographies demonstrated improving market conditions,” he said in the statement. Almost 400,000 servers, valued at $1.93 billion, were shipped to the Asia-Pacific region.

“Asia-Pacific server shipments went up 24 per cent year-on-year due to the strengthening economy almost everywhere in this region during the quarter,” said Erica Gadjuli, an analyst with Gartner.

She said that “global recovery encouraged business confidence even more, and therefore investment is flowing back”. For the US market, computer makers sold 908,536 servers worth $4.33 billion, Gartner said. During the same period last year, they sold 653,946 servers valued at $3.51 billion.

Hewlett-Packard was the top vendor during the second quarter with 644,172 units sold, giving the world’s largest computer manufacturer a market share of 30 per cent. It earned revenues of $3.54 billion from server sales.

US arch-rival Dell, with a market share of 25.3 per cent, placed second with 542,799 units sold and revenues totalling $1.80 billion.

Rounding out the top five vendor list was third ranked IBM, which sold 267,614 units, followed by Japan’s Fujitsu, with 60,974 units shipped and another US maker, Oracle, with 47,968 units, Gartner said.