A-brands pummelled as server ODMs march onwards

IBM's server revenues halve in western Europe as demand for hardware customisation plays into the hands of Asian ODMs, according to IDC

No-name server ODMs are continuing to give a pasting to their A-brand rivals, posting big gains in the EMEA market in the first quarter of 2017 at their expense.

Dell-EMC was the only major vendor to post growth in Q1 as overall server spending in the region fell 12.7 per cent year on year in dollar terms, IDC's figures indicate.

Standard multinode shipments, which fell 46.6 per cent, were behind the quarterly decline. In contrast, custom multinode servers actually doubled, according to the market watcher.

IBM was particularly badly hit as its western European server revenues dived 50.3 per cent during the quarter, which IDC said was due to falling non-x86 shipments and a continuing trend for extended refresh cycles.

In contrast, the ODM saw their revenues power up 72.5 per cent and doubled their marketshare in EMEA from 2.9 to 5.8 per cent year on year.

"The ODM market was the notable outperformer over the quarter," said Eckhardt Fischer, senior research analyst, European Infrastructure, IDC.

"Strong ODM growth is representative of the continued attraction of lower ASPs and greater flexibility in hardware customisation."

HPE remains the EMEA server market's goliath, despite seeing its share slip from 37 to 34.2 per cent on the back of a 19.3 per cent fall in revenues. Dell EMC held a 21.2 per cent share after growing shipments 4.9 per cent. Cisco and Lenovo are on 7.5 and 6.9 per cent marketshare after seeing shipments fall 6.2 and 6.8 per cent, respectively.

Ireland and Norway were the only western European countries to post revenue growth in Q1, albeit by a modest 0.2 and 1.1 per cent respectively. Meanwhile, revenues in France, the Netherlands and Switzerland all plunged by more than a fifth.