EMEA server market bounces back in Q1

On the up: EMEA server sales rose 7.4 per cent year on year

After a wretched 2009, the EMEA server market returned to growth in 2010's opening quarter, with HP and Dell capitalising on the rebound.

IDC's EMEA Quarterly Server Tracker reports that Q1 shipments across the region were up 16.4 per cent annually to 560,000, while revenue rose 7.4 per cent to $3.2bn (£2.2bn). Last year the market endured double-digit annual sales declines in every quarter.

Growth in Q1 was entirely fuelled by the buoyancy of volume server space, which covers sub-$25,000 systems. Volume sales rose 31 per cent year on year, while the mid-range and high-end markets posted declines of 24.7 and 18.5 per cent respectively.

IDC stressed that the overall figures still compare unfavourably to pre-recession levels. In Q4 2008 the EMEA server market was worth $4.4bn, which in itself was well down from the $5.4bn sales posted in Q4 2007.

Beatriz Valle, senior research analyst for IDC EMEA's Enterprise Server Group, said: "This quarter marked the first incursion into positive annual growth rates by the EMEA server market since the second quarter of 2008. While it is encouraging that annual growth rates in EMEA are higher than trends recorded on a worldwide basis, the quarter-on-quarter growth data indicates this recovery is far from consolidated."

HP strengthened its position as the region's leading manufacturer in Q1 2010, with sales up 21.6 per cent to $1.3bn. The vendor now holds 41.5 per cent of the market, up almost five points on Q1 2009. IBM is in second, with 25 per cent market share, down 3.2 points annually. Big Blue's EMEA server sales slipped five per cent year on year in Q1 to $790.6m.

Dell, in third, enjoyed a stellar quarter, with sales up almost 30 per cent to $372.7m. The Texan manufacturer's market share rose two points on last year to 11.8 per cent, allowing it to overtake fourth-placed Sun in the process.

Sun was the market's laggard, with sales down 15.8 per cent annually to $304.1m and market share down almost three points to 9.6 per cent. Fujitsu, in fifth, performed solidly, with revenue up 8.1 per cent to $209.5m and market share steady at 6.6 per cent.

Nathaniel Martinez, research director of IDC's EMEA Server Group, said: "The server market is currently undergoing a silent revolution, whose main drivers are technology developments that are driving seismic changes in customer usage patterns.

"European organisations are currently evaluating at technologies such as scale-out environments, virtualisation and cloud computing, which are all promising to run IT infrastructure more efficiently."