Apac server shipments up 13.4 percent, revenue up 25.7 percent in Q3-2010

SINGAPORE: Asia Pacific server shipments grew 13.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2010, while revenue expanded 25.7 percent year on year, according to new market share data from Gartner Inc.

Active IT spending across various market segments led to vibrant server demand in most of Asia Pacific’s major countries such as Korea (up 21 percent in shipments and 24.3 percent in revenue), China (up 18 percent in shipments and 26.7 percent in revenue), Hong Kong (up 18.9 percent in shipments and 37.2 percent in revenue) and Singapore (up 41.4 percent in shipments and 27.7 percent in revenue).

Although server shipments in Australia only grew 2.9 percent year-on-year, vendor revenue was up strongly by 37.3 percent, due to a surge in mainframe investment. Revenue from mainframe sales, which are dominated by IBM, was up 154.5 percent from Q3 2009 in the Asia Pacific region.

“Asia Pacific registered as the third strongest region in vendor revenue growth after Eastern Europe and Latin American in third quarter 2010. Investment in mainframes helped to drive robust revenue growth in Asia Pacific during the period along with continued strength in the x86 segment, which has consistently grown in double digits for four consecutive quarters,” said Erica Gadjuli, principal research analyst at Gartner.

Shipments of x86-based servers increased 13.7 percent year-on-year. This was outpaced by revenue, which grew at 30.6 percent. Increased adoption of blades and richer configurations of rack-based servers helped to push the average selling price up during the quarter.

The vendor revenue derived from RISC/Itanium Unix servers showed a slight improvement with 2.3 percent growth and unit shipments were up 5.4 percent from the same quarter last year, in which both performed better than the worldwide decline trend of 9.5 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

“Virtualization projects in mature countries helped drive average selling prices up, however they slightly dampened server shipment demand,” said Ms. Gadjuli. “Meanwhile, awareness, acceptance and investment of virtualization in emerging countries continued to improve.”

The positive overall trend in the server market during third quarter of 2010 is reflected in the performance of the top five vendors as they all posted double digit growth year-on-year in both shipments and revenue. IBM led the Asia Pacific server market based on revenue with 43.1 percent market share, an increase of 3 percent from 40.5 percent share in 3Q 2009, totaling $928.4 million.

All three server platforms from IBM (System x, Power System and System z) supported its overall year-on-year revenue growth of 33.8 percent.

Table 1: Asia Pacific: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 3Q10 (US Dollars)Source: Gartner (November 2010).

HP continued to dominate the Asia Pacific server market based on unit shipments with 29.7 percent share, growing year-on-year at 11.7 percent in this quarter, driven solely by its x86 based ProLiant server.

Blade servers (x86 and non-x86) represented less than 10 percent of total server shipments and 10.5 percent of total revenue in Asia Pacific this quarter. However, their year-on-year growth of 20.0 percent in shipments and 64.6 percent in revenue outpaced the other form factors, namely tower and rack servers, for the period and HP continued to be a leader in both shipment and revenue terms.

Table 2: Asia Pacific: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 3Q10 (Units)Source: Gartner (November 2010).