Eastern Europe blots server market copybook

Global market enjoys buoyant third quarter but eastern Europe endures double-digit decline

Eastern Europe was among the only regions where server sales declined, during an otherwise buoyant third quarter for the market across the globe.

Data from Gartner reveals that global unit shipments in Q3 2015 rose 9.2 per cent year on year to 2.76 million. Revenue did not expand quite so rapidly, but still rose 7.5 per cent to $13.5bn (€12.5bn). The analyst noted that all regions saw growth in both revenue and shipments, with the exception of Latin America, Japan, and Eastern Europe.

The former endured the biggest annual fall in revenue, which dropped 24.2 per cent, while Japanese sales shrunk by 5.8 per cent. The server market in eastern Europe declined 11.7 per cent in Q3, and Gartner research vice president Jeffrey Hewitt claimed that "currency exchange rates are one of the main reasons for the disparity in regional server market performance".

The world's two leading vendors kept pace with other in Q3, with HP topping the leaderboard with a 27.3 per cent share of global server revenues, ahead of Dell on 17.9 per cent. Both grew about nine per cent.

IBM was second in the corresponding period last year, but has now moved down a place as the sale of its x86 business to Lenovo has cut its market share - which now stands at 9.8 per cent - almost in half. The Chinese vendor now accounts for 7.9 per cent of the market, up from just 1.3 per cent in 2014. Cisco completes the top five with a market share of 6.6 per cent.