Worldwide server revenue declined 0.8 per cent year over year, while shipments grew 2 per cent from the second quarter of 2015, according to Gartner, Inc.

There was some shuffling among the top vendors in the second quarter, as Dell moved into the top spot in shipments, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) remained the worldwide leader in server revenue.

“The second quarter of 2016 produced some continued growth on a global level compared with the first quarter, although there were some varied results regionally,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “All regions showed a decline in shipments except Asia/Pacific and North America, which posted growth of 5.6 per cent and 3 per cent, respectively. In terms of revenue, all regions except for Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe exhibited a decline. Asia/Pacific grew by 6.1 per cent and Eastern Europe posted 1 per cent growth. Variations of growth by data centre segments and exchange rate issues are the main reasons for these results.

“x86 servers grew 2.1 per cent in shipments and 5.8 per cent in revenue in the second quarter of 2016. Dell garnered 19.3 per cent of the market and moved into the No. 1 position in worldwide server shipments due primarily to growth resulting from programmes it has in place in the Asia/Pacific region, most notably in China. However, HPE continued to lead the x86 market in revenue with 26 per cent of the market,” said Mr Hewitt.

Despite a decline of 6.4 per cent, HPE remained the leader in the worldwide server market, based on revenue, with 23.7 per cent market share (see Table 1). Dell grew 9.9 per cent and maintained the second spot in the market with 19.1 per cent market share. IBM secured the third position with 9.1 per cent of the market but experienced the largest decline among the top five vendors.