Gartner says worldwide server shipments grew 2.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2017; revenue grew 2.8 per cent

STAMFORD, Conn., September 12, 2017

In the second quarter of 2017, worldwide server revenue increased 2.8 percent year over year, while shipments grew 2.4 percent from the second quarter of 2016, according to Gartner, Inc.

"The second quarter of 2017 produced some growth compared with the first quarter on a global level, with varying regional results," said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. "The growth for the quarter is attributable to two main factors. The first is strong regional performance in Asia/Pacific because of data center infrastructure build-outs, mostly in China. The second is ongoing hyperscale data center growth that is exhibited in the self-build/ODM (original design manufacturer) segment.

"x86 servers increased 2.5 percent in shipments and 6.9 percent in revenue. RISC/Itanium Unix servers fell globally for the period — down 21.4 percent in shipments and 24.9 percent in vendor revenue compared with the same quarter last year. The 'other' CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a decline of 29.5 percent in revenue," Mr. Hewitt said.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) continued to lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue. Despite a decline of 9.4 percent, the company posted $3.2 billion in revenue for a total share of 23 percent for the second quarter of 2017 (see Table 1). Dell EMC maintained the No. 2 position with 7 percent growth and 19.9 percent market share. Huawei experienced the highest growth in the quarter with 57.8 percent.

Table 1 - Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 2Q17 (U.S. Dollars)

Source: Gartner (September 2017)

In server shipments, Dell EMC maintained the No. 1 position in the second quarter of 2017 with 17.5 percent market share (see Table 2). HPE secured the second spot with 17.1 percent of the market. Inspur Electronics experienced the highest growth in shipments with 31.5 percent, followed by Huawei with 26.1 percent growth.

Table 2 - Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 2Q17 (Units)

Source: Gartner (September 2017)

Additional information is available to subscribers of the Gartner Servers Quarterly Statistics Worldwide program. This program provides worldwide market size and share data by vendor revenue and unit shipments. Segments include: region, vendor, vendor brand, subbrand, CPU type, CPU group, max CPU, platform, price band, operating systems and distribution channels.

Gartner analysts will provide additional analysis data center and IT operations trends at the Gartner Global Infrastructure & Operations events November 27-28, 2017 in London , December 4-7, 2017 in Las Vegas and May 15-17, 2018 in Orlando . Follow news and updates from these events on Twitter using #GartnerIO .