Dell crowned king of servers in Q3

Global server revenues powered up 38 per cent in Q3, according to IDC, with Dell taking top spot ahead of arch-rival HPE

Dell took the number one position in the worldwide vendor server market for the third quarter of 2018, according to IDC.

It had 17.5 per cent of market share, followed by HPE at 16.3 per cent. HPE had held top position for the same period in 2017.

Overall revenue in the global server market increased 37.7 per cent year-on-year to $23.4bn in Q3, marking its highest total revenue in a single quarter.

Volume server revenue grew by 40.2 per cent to $20bn, while midrange server revenue increased 39.4 per cent to $2bn and high-end systems grew 6.9 per cent to $1.3bn.

"The worldwide server market once again generated strong revenue and unit shipment growth due to an ongoing enterprise refresh cycle and continued demand from cloud service providers," stated Sebastian Lagana, research manager of infrastructure platforms and technologies at IDC.

"Enterprise infrastructure requirements from resource intensive next-generation applications support increasingly rich configurations, ensuring average selling prices (ASPs) remain elevated against the year-ago quarter. At the same time, hyperscalers continue to upgrade and expand their datacentre capabilities."

IDC combined the joint ventures between HPE and the New H3C Group, as well as that of Inspur and IBM, into its calculations.

Though Dell and HPE duked it out for the top spot, third-placed Inspur witnessed the highest growth among vendors for the period, with 156.5 per cent year-on-year growth.

The top five vendors in the server revenue space was rounded out by Lenovo, and a three-way tie of IBM, Cisco and Huawei in fifth place.

Dell also led the worldwide server market in terms of unit shipments, accounting for 17.6 per cent of all units shipped during the quarter. It was followed by HPE, Inspur, Lenovo and Huawei and Super Micro tied for fifth place.

Global server shipments increased 18.3 per cent year-on-year to 3.2 million units in the quarter.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Server Vendor Revenue, Market Share, and Growth, Third
Quarter of 2018 (Revenues are in US$ Millions)

Company

3Q18
Revenue

3Q18
Market
Share

3Q17
Revenue

3Q17
Market
Share

3Q18/3Q17
Revenue
Growth

1. Dell Inc. $4,093.0 17.5% $3,070.3 18.1% 33.3%2. HPE/New H3C Group a $3,809.9 16.3% $3,317.4 19.5% 14.8%3. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems b $1,711.9 7.3% $667.3 3.9% 156.5%4. Lenovo $1,437.9 6.2% $860.8 5.1% 67.0%5. IBM * $1,196.2 5.1% $1,093.7 6.4% 9.4%5. Huawei * $1,052.7 4.5% $599.4 3.5% 75.6%5. Cisco * $1,040.5 4.5% $992.5 5.8% 4.8%ODM Direct $6,257.2 26.8% $4,118.7 24.3% 51.9%Others $2,767.5 11.8% $2,255.0 13.3% 22.7%Total $23,366.8 100% $16,975.2 100% 37.7% Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, December 11, 2018.