Server market seeing signs of post-COVID recovery - Context

Market watcher Context outlines which country markets are seeing growth return to the server sales

The European server market is recovering from the COVID-19 crisis with double-digit growth returning in some countries, according to the latest figures from channel analyst firm Context.

Although Europe has a whole has seen revenues from the server market, which includes server systems and upgrades, return to pre-COVID-crisis levels in the last four weeks, Context's latest data shows that the difference between the server markets across the continent has widened.

Germany, Italy and Spain have all logged positive growth for servers at 10.6, nine and 2.4 per cent, respectively

However, distributors in France and the UK have reported no signs that transactions have picked up, reporting declines of 37.9 per cent and 34 per cent in the same period.

Context analysts did highlight that the figures reflect that traditionally, a smaller proportion of infrastructure business in these markets goes through the distribution channel.

However, Context's data on resellers does show strong server sales over the last month in both countries.

In contrast, around 80 per cent of reseller business in Spain goes through distribution.

"As lockdown eases, larger organisations are back to business whereas smaller companies have been slower to resume operations and this could go some way to explaining the difference in sales pick-up between distribution and tier-one corporate channels", Context business enterprise analyst Gurvan Meyer said.

"If, therefore, we take a multichannel perspective, we can say with confidence that the server market in Europe is in a post-COVID phase," Meyer added.

"Distributors in France and the UK still have some catching up to do but this should happen in the next few weeks as lockdown measures are eased further and the market continues to see the positive impact of projects put on hold being resumed.

"However, since industries such as retail, hospitality and tourism will be working at only half capacity for the next few months, we should not expect a boom in infrastructure sales any time soon."