Gartner Says Worldwide Server Revenue Increased 8 Percent in Second Quarter of 2004
Server Shipments Grew 24 Percent in the Quarter
STAMFORD, Conn., August 25, 2004 — Worldwide server revenue surpassed $11.5 billion in the second quarter of 2004, a 7.7 percent increase from the second quarter of 2003, according to Gartner, Inc.
"Overall, each region showed positive year-over-year growth in terms of revenue," said Mike McLaughlin, principal analyst for Gartner. "We also saw increased activity in the x86-64 market, as well as continued strong sales in the low-end server market."
IBM held its lead based on server revenue, as its market share increased to 30.7 percent in the second quarter of 2004 (see Table 1). Consistent with sales in the first quarter of 2004, Dell experienced the strongest growth rate among top-tier vendors. Its revenue increased 20.1 percent from the second quarter of 2003.
Table 1
Worldwide Server Vendor Revenue Estimates for 2Q04 (Millions of U.S. Dollars)
Company
2Q04 Revenue
2Q04 Market Share (%)
2Q03 Revenue
2Q03 Market Share (%)
2Q03-2Q04 Growth (%)
IBM
3,539
30.7
3,195
29.8
10.8
Hewlett-Packard
3,151
27.3
3,022
28.2
4.3
Sun Microsystems
1,506
13.0
1,464
13.7
2.9
Dell
1,133
9.8
944
8.8
20.1
Fujitsu/FSC
518
4.5
484
4.5
6.9
Others
1,699
14.7
1,611
15.0
5.5
Total
11,546
100.0
10,720
100.0
7.7
Source: Gartner Dataquest (Aug 2004)
Worldwide server shipments in the second quarter of 2004 surpassed 1.6 million units, a 24.5 percent increase from the same period last year (see Table 2). Hewlett-Packard led all vendors with 463,489 units shipped in the second quarter.
While Dell has reported the strongest growth rate among the top-tier vendors for several quarters, Sun Microsystems exhibited the highest growth rate overall in the second quarter, with shipments increasing 38.4 percent from the same period last year. Sun benefited from an increase in demand from the telecom sector for its Netra product line, as well as increased sales of high-end servers to the financial sector.
Table 2
Worldwide Server Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q04 (Units)
Company
2Q04 Shipments
2Q04 Market Share (%)
2Q03 Shipments
2Q03 Market Share (%)
2Q03-2Q04 Growth (%)
Hewlett-Packard
463,489
28.9%
377,612
29.3%
22.7
Dell
337,994
21.1%
261,588
20.3%
29.2
IBM
238,721
14.9%
201,459
15.6%
18.5
Sun Microsystems
90,487
5.6%
65,382
5.1%
38.4
Fujitsu/FSC
47,072
2.9%
39,984
3.1%
17.7
Others
425,669
26.5%
342,237
26.6%
24.4
Total
1,603,432
100.0%
1,288,262
100.0%
24.5
Source: Gartner Dataquest (Aug 2004)
In server operating systems (OS), Linux continued to show strong double-digit growth in both revenue and shipments. Linux revenue grew 54.6 percent in the second quarter, and its unit shipments increased 61.6 percent. Linux represented 9.5 percent of the overall server OS revenue.
Microsoft Windows accounted for 34.4 percent of worldwide OS revenues. Unix continued its slow decline, as its revenue decreased 4.3 percent in the second quarter, and it lost more than 4 points of market share.
While Intel's Itanium still grew at strong rates, the industry saw the emergence of the x86-64 CPU space, which had a year-over-year growth rate of 2,183 percent. The largest segment is still the x86-32 CPU server market, which grew a healthy 10 percent year-over-year to revenues of more than $5.1 billion in the second quarter of 2004.
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