Global server sales decline in Q3

Dell is the only vendor to enjoy sales growth despite shipments continuing to rise

Ongoing global economic weakness has been blamed for a decline in Q3 server market revenues, according to Gartner.

Total year-on-year server sales dropped by 2.8 per cent to $12.6bn (£7.9bn), despite shipments growing 3.6 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Dell was the only top-five vendor to enjoy revenue growth in the last quarter, with the firm's sales rising 10.3 per cent to $2.1bn. Oracle fared the worst, according to Gartner, with its revenues slashed by 22.5 per cent to $592m.

IBM inched further ahead of HP in the battle for the number-one spot in the market-share rankings, claiming 27.6 per cent compared with HP's 26.4 per cent, even though both posted revenue declines of 9.5 per cent and 12.4 per cent respectively.

Despite the Q3 decline in server sales, total shipments rose by 3.6 per cent. Cisco enjoyed the highest growth at 40.4 per cent, shipping 55,973 servers worldwide. HP shipped the highest total number of servers – 634,793 – despite suffering the largest shipment decline of 8.4 per cent.

Gartner blamed the poor global figures on "ongoing economic weakness and market segment differences", and according to Adrian O'Connell, research director at Gartner, the outlook for Q4 does not look much better.

He said: "The outlook for the fourth quarter in EMEA looks similar to what we have witnessed in the year so far, with constraints on demand limiting the market opportunity.

"Vendors are under constant pressure to deliver the most effective execution. With limited overall demand, they will have to consider competitive migrations as their best opportunities for growth and market share gains. This year's fourth quarter might not be an especially festive period for every server vendor."