Growth at a cost
The third quarter of 2008 yielded year-on-year growth of 4.4 percent in worldwide server shipments, up to 2.3 million units.
However, it apparently took some serious cost cutting to bring about even this modest growth as global server revenues totalled $12.7 billion, which was a decline of 5.4 percent compared to the same period last year.
"Server shipments grew in the third quarter, but the spectre of constrained economies and tightened credit was felt in the revenue area," said Jeffrey Hewitt, research VP at Gartner.
"What we've seen is larger system purchases in the Unix area put in check. At the same time x86 servers were able to maintain some shipment momentum, but lower overall average x86 server selling prices resulted in a drop in revenue in the quarter for this server type as well.
"Evidence of a challenged RISC-Itanium Unix server area appeared in a fall of 16.1 percent in shipments and 10.8 percent in revenue."
Here are a couple of tables from Gartner showing the breakdown by vendor of server revenues and shipments respectively.
Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 3Q08 (U.S. Dollars)
Company |
3Q08 Revenue |
3Q08 Market Share (%) |
3Q07 Revenue |
3Q07 Market Share (%) |
3Q07-3Q08 Growth (%) |
IBM |
3,856,826,095 |
30.3 |
4,026,746,389 |
30.0 |
-4.2 |
Hewlett-Packard |
3,793,197,226 |
29.8 |
3,946,402,502 |
29.4 |
-3.9 |
Dell Inc. |
1,500,603,160 |
11.8 |
1,582,838,318 |
11.8 |
-5.2 |
Sun Microsystems |
1,158,251,731 |
9.1 |
1,341,466,786 |
10.0 |
-13.7 |
Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens |
616,753,331 |
4.8 |
665,460,127 |
5.0 |
-7.3 |
Other Vendors |
1,791,514,236 |
14.1 |
1,878,940,160 |
14.0 |
-4.7 |
Total |
12,717,145,779 |
100.0 |
13,441,854,282 |
100.0 |
-5.4 |
Source: Gartner (December 2008)
Table 2
Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipment Estimates, 3Q08 (Units)
Company |
3Q08 Shipments |
3Q08 Market Share (%) |
3Q07 Shipments |
3Q07 Market Share (%) |
3Q07-3Q08 Growth (%) |
Hewlett-Packard |
724,024 |
31.2 |
649,958 |
29.3 |
11.4 |
Dell Inc. |
500,470 |
21.6 |
484,650 |
21.8 |
3.3 |
IBM |
308,524 |
13.3 |
319,674 |
14.4 |
-3.5 |
Sun Microsystems |
81,522 |
3.5 |
79,237 |
3.6 |
2.9 |
Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens |
73,578 |
3.2 |
76,506 |
3.4 |
-3.8 |
Other Vendors |
629,863 |
27.2 |
610.704 |
27.5 |
3.1 |
Total |
2,317,981 |
100.0 |
2,220,729 |
100.0 |
4.4 |
Source: Gartner (December 2008)