Total worldwide server market revenues for the fourth quarter declined by 4% from the year-ago period, according to figures just released by International Data Corp. The slight drop left the market with a total value of $16.2bn for the quarter despite a 22% increase in unit shipments year-over-year, pointing to intense pricing pressure in the market. Geographically, the European market grew 12.9% in revenues to just over $5.0bn and Japan rose 1% compared to a weak year-ago quarter. Server factory revenues in the US, meanwhile declined 7.5% to $5.6bn, down from $6.1bn one year ago. From a price standpoint, IDC said machines selling for under $6,000 saw unit growth of 62% and revenue growth of 76% year-over-year.
IBM Corp led all vendors with $4.55bn in worldwide revenues and a 28% market share, but still saw a decline of 13% from last year. Second place Compaq Computer Corp saw 45% growth year-over-year to $2.07bn and grew its market share from 8% to 13%. Hewlett- Packard Co slipped to third place with $1.89bn in sales and a 12% market share. Sun Microsystems Inc saw 18% growth to $1.51bn but remained in the fourth spot with 9% market share. Fujitsu Ltd rounded out the top five with $776m and 5%. Hitachi Ltd suffered through a poor quarter, with worldwide revenues falling almost 28% compared to what was already perceived to be a very weak quarter last year. The Japanese company fell from sixth to ninth place as a result.
Sales of Intel-based servers rose by 29% in unit volume and 15% in revenues, while sales of RISC-based machines increased 3% in unit volume over last year and saw revenue fall by 3% over the same period. Total revenue for servers running Windows NT rose 28% over last year’s quarter.
