Worldwide server revenue hit US$18.6 billion during the three months ending December 2017, with Dell EMC edging to the front of pack after coming in second during the same period in 2016.
The latest figures by Gartner show that the global server market continued to grow through 2017, as worldwide server revenue increased 25.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2017, while shipments grew by 8.8 per cent year-over-year.
The latest figures confirm that worldwide sever shipments increased by 3.1 per cent in 2017, while revenue grew 10.4 per cent year-on-year.
"Server growth was driven by relatively strong economies for the quarter across the globe," Gartner research vice president, Jeffrey Hewitt, said. "This was a somewhat surprising quarter because the strength was exhibited in a variety of positive server shipment and revenue mixes in almost all geographies."
The Asia Pacific region, along with North America both experienced solid double-digit growth in revenue during the period, according to Gartner, growing year-on-year by 35.1 per cent and 27.6 per cent, respectively.
In terms of shipments, meanwhile, the Asia Pacific region grew by 21.2 per cent, with North America growing by 9.7 per cent compared to the same period the year prior.
The period saw Dell EMC take the top spot, pulling in US$3.6 billion over the three-month period and taking 19.4 per cent market share in terms of revenue. However, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) came in at a very close second, claiming US$3.58 billion and 19.3 per cent of global market share.
Dell EMC and HPE were followed in global revenue tally by IBM, Inspur Electronics and Huawei. Inspur Electronics experienced the strongest growth in the fourth quarter of 2017 with 127.8 per cent growth.
In terms of global shipments, Dell EMC also led the pack, with 582,720 shipments during the period, claiming 18.2 per cent market share. HPE, meanwhile, recorded 439,936 shipments and 13.8 per cent market share.
"Both enterprises and hyper-scale data centres produced positive results globally for the year as end users seek to implement more digital business solutions," Hewitt said. "The outlook for 2018 suggests that modest growth will continue, with enterprise end users taking an ongoing hybrid approach to both on-premises and public cloud choices based on their server application objectives."
In December last year, Gartner said that worldwide server revenue had recorded 16 per cent growth in what was the second consecutive quarter of growth in the market.
The third quarter of 2017 saw worldwide server revenue reach US$14.7 billion, or 16 per cent compared to the same period in 2016, which recorded US$12.7 billion.
