Gartner Says Worldwide Server Revenue Grew 16 Percent in the Third Quarter of 2017; Shipments Grew 5.1 Percent

In the third quarter of 2017, worldwide server revenue increased 16 percent year over year, while shipments grew 5.1 percent from the third quarter of 2016, according to Gartner, Inc.

“The third quarter of 2017 produced continued growth on a global level with varying regional results,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “A build-out of infrastructure to support cloud and hybrid-cloud implementations was the main driver for growth in the server market for the period.”

“x86 servers increased 5.3 percent in shipments for the year and 16.7 percent in revenue in the third quarter of 2017. RISC/Itanium Unix servers declined globally, down 23.5 percent in shipments and 18.3 percent in vendor revenue compared with the same quarter last year. The ‘other’ CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed a decline/increase of 54.5 percent,” Mr. Hewitt said.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) continued to lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue. Despite a decline of 3.2 percent, the company posted $3.1 billion in revenue for a total share of 21 percent for the third quarter of 2017 (see Table 1). Dell EMC maintained the No. 2 position with 37.9 percent growth and 20.8 percent market share. Inspur Electronics experienced the highest growth in the quarter with 116.6 percent, driven by ongoing sales into China-based cloud providers, as well as global expansion efforts.

Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 3Q17 (U.S. Dollars)

Company

3Q17

Revenue

3Q17 Market Share (%)

3Q16

Revenue

3Q16 Market Share (%)

3Q17-3Q16 Growth (%)

HPE

3,144,197,027

21.3

3,247,173,253

25.5

-3.2

Dell EMC

3,070,405,586

20.8

2,227,185,685

17.5

37.9

IBM

1,130,618,441

7.7

889,723,595

7.0

27.1

Inspur Electronics

1,085,706,835

7.4

501,144,279

3.9

116.6

Cisco

996,248,000

6.8

929,440,000

7.3

7.2

Others

5,317,865,262

36.1

4,920,169,892

38.7

8.1

Total

14,745,041,151

100.0

12,714,836,704

100.0

16.0

Source: Gartner (December 2017)

In server shipments, Dell EMC maintained the No. 1 position in the third quarter of 2017 with 17.8 percent market share (see Table 2). HPE secured the second spot with 16.4 percent of the market. Inspur Electronics was the only vendor in the top five to experience positive growth in the quarter.

Table 2
Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 3Q17 (Units)

Company

3Q17

Shipments

3Q17 Market Share (%)

3Q16

Shipments

3Q16 Market Share (%)

3Q17-3Q16 Growth (%)

Dell EMC

502,845

17.8

452,383

16.8

11.2

HPE

462,777

16.4

492,273

18.3

-6.2

Inspur Electronics

203,306

7.2

119,943

4.5

69.5

Lenovo

151,575

5.4

228,097

8.5

-33.5

Huawei

145,441

5.1

163,355

6.1

-11.0

Others

1,362,727

48.2

1,234,567

45.9

10.4

Total

2,828,617

100.0

2,691,618

100.0

5.1

Source: Gartner (November 2017)