SINGAPORE – Server shipments in the Asia Pacific region expanded by 17.7 per cent for the fourth quarter of 2007 over the same quarter in the previous year, according the latest figures.
Gartner reported that server revenues totalled US$2.24 billion (S$ 3.1 billion) for the quarter, while revenue for the same period was up by 22 percent.
It says the healthy increase in shipments and revenue during the fourth quarter contributed to the full year 2007 performance which showed overall shipment growth of 11 percent and revenue growth of 18 percent. Overall server shipments in 2007 totalled 1.37 million units and revenue reached US$7.73 billion.
The sub-regions in Asia Pacific showed positive year-on-year revenue growth during the fourth quarter with Greater China continuing to be the largest revenue contributor with 55 percent share of Asia Pacific revenue and a 22 percent increase over the same quarter last year, Gartner added. The consultancy firm reported that the top five vendors by revenue in China were IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems and Lenovo. In Hong Kong it was a similar picture with IBM leading the way, followed by Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Dell and Acer.
According to Gartner, in both markets, IBM maintained a considerable revenue lead over its nearest competitor.
“As we expected, the demand for x86 blade servers remained strong during the fourth quarter,” said Erica Gadjuli, principal analyst, server markets at Gartner. “Stiffer price competition in tower and rack x86 servers caused overall x86 revenue growth to expand faster than unit shipments. Revenue from RISC-Itanium Unix servers continued its positive growth at 22.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, fuelled by healthy demand in India and Greater China.”
Based on shipments, Hewlett Packard (HP) maintained its number one position by growing 23.8 per cent in the fourth quarter 2007. IBM and Dell remained in their respective second and the third positions, recording 22 per cent and 20 per cent market share respectively.
In revenue terms, IBM was the overall market leader in the Q4 2007 Asia Pacific server market, accounting for 40.8 per cent of the total revenue, trailed by HP in second position with year-on-year growth of 16 per cent.