Server market still shows weakness

For the fifth consecutive quarter, factory revenue in the worldwide server market has slipped again.

But according to market research organization IDC, things are showing signs of promise in this quarter and beyond.

IDC said that the server market was worth $10.4 billion in the third quarter of this year, a decline of 17.3 percent compared to the same quarter last year. But IDC said that the market grew sequentially for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2008.

“The worldwide server market exceeded expectations in the third quarter with impriving X86 server demand leading the way, which was driven in part by the infrastructure refresh momentum,” said Matt Eastwood, group VP of enterprises at IDC.

IBM and HP tied with each other in the quarter statistically, with 31.8 percent and 30.9 percent of factory revenue market share. HP showed a 16.8 percent decline in the quarter year on year. Dell is in third place with 13.5 percent overall market shre.

MS Windows server revenue amounted to $4.5 billion in Q3 2009 – that’s 43 percent of server revenue. Linux server revenue was worth $1.5 billion, and that’s 14.8 percent of server revenue. Unix fell by 23.4 percent compared to the same period last year.

Here are IDCs figures for the top five representing worldwide server systems factory revenue, expressed in millions.

Vendor Q309
revs
Share Q308
revs
Share QonQ
rev %
1.
IBM
$3,315 31.8% $3,806 30.2% -12.9%
2.
HP
$3,224 30.9% $3,876 30.8% -16.8%
3.
Dell
$1,412 13.5% $1,515 12% -6.8%
4.
Sun
$778 7.5% $1,197 9.5% -35%
5.
Fujitsu
$594 5.7% $647 5.1% -8.2%
Others $1,104 10.6% $1,563 12.4% -29.4%
All $10,428 100% $12,603 100% -17.3%