Modernising business applications.
IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker shows the worldwide server market grew 12.0 per cent year over year to US$20.9 billion during the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21). Worldwide server shipments grew 8.3 per cent year over year to nearly 2.8 million units in 1Q21.
Sales of volume servers were up 15.4 per cent to US$17.3 billion during the quarter, while midrange server sales declined 2.7 per cent to US$2.4 billion. High-end server sales grew 0.1 per cent to US$1.2 billion.
“The first quarter 2021 server market performance benefited from a comparison against the most difficult quarter of last year’s pandemic stricken year, but this fact doesn’t tell a complete story,” said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. “The considerable increase of server investments during the quarter was also buoyed by global economic tailwinds along with increased investments targeting the modernization of business applications, datacentre infrastructure, and IT operations.”
Overall Server Market Standings, by Company
Dell Technologies held the top worldwide server market ranking in 1Q21, accounting for 17.0 per cent of total revenue. HPE/H3C(a) was the second largest company, accounting for 15.9 per cent of total revenue. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems(b) and Lenovo were tied for third with 7.2 per cent and 6.9 per cent respective share of total revenue. The ODM Direct group of vendors accounted for 26.3 per cent of total server revenue during the quarter. The top suppliers of 1Q21 server unit shipments were Dell Technologies (17.5 per cent), HPE/H3C(a) (14.5 per cent), Inspur/Inspur Power Systems(b) (8.0 per cent), and Lenovo (6.1 per cent).
On a geographic basis, server revenue in China was up 29.1 per cent year over year while Asia/Pacific (excluding China and Japan) increased 16.6 per cent. Latin America declined 9.1 per cent and North America grew 10.6 per cent year over year.
Revenue generated from x86 servers increased 10.9 per cent in 1Q21 to US$18.7 billion. Non-x86 server revenue grew 23.0 per cent year over year to US$2.2 billion.
