EMEA server sales slide 5.6 per cent in 2013

But rest of world sees slight rise of 2.1 per cent by volume

Shipments of servers to the EMEA region in 2013 shrank 6.3 per cent by value and 5.6 per cent by volume, Gartner has found.

That compares with global annual figures of 2.1 per cent growth by volume – and 4.5 per cent shrinkage in revenue terms.

Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner, said 2013 saw "some pronounced differences" across server market segments, however.

"We've seen ongoing growth in web-scale IT deployments, while the enterprise remained relatively constrained," Hewitt said.

"In terms of hardware platform types, mainframe and RISC/Itanium Unix platform market performance kept overall revenue growth in check."

HP led the worldwide server market in revenue terms in Q4 of 2013, making $3.8bn (£2.3bn) in revenue and comprising 28.1 per cent of the market. In the top five, only HP and Cisco enjoyed quarterly growth, and IBM experienced the biggest slide, shrinking 28.9 per cent in Q4.

Quarterly global server volumes expanded 3.2 per cent on Q4 2012, with revenue sliding 6.6 per cent year on year, Gartner found. Asia-Pacific was the fastest-growing region.