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Dell and HPE fight for server supremacy

Dell led the worldwide server market in terms of unit shipments
Michael Dell (CEO - Dell) and Antonio Neri (CEO - Hewlett Packard Enterprise)

Michael Dell (CEO - Dell) and Antonio Neri (CEO - Hewlett Packard Enterprise)

Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are locked in battle at the top of the server market, as the tech giants edge clear of closest competitor IBM.

According to IDC findings, citing fourth quarter of 2018 numbers, Dell, at 18.7 per cent revenue share, and HPE at 17.8 per cent revenue share, increased footprint by 20.4 per cent and 10.5 per cent year-to-year respectively.

HPE is also represented by New H3C Group, the exclusive provider of the vendor’s servers and storage products in China.

Meanwhile, IBM was the third-ranked server supplier during the quarter capturing 8.3 per cent of total server revenues, which excluded sales generated through the company's recently established partnership with Inspur Power Systems.

Further down the list, Inspur/Inspur Power Systems and Lenovo tied for fourth with revenue shares of 6.6 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively.

In addition, Dell led the worldwide server market in terms of unit shipments, accounting for 19.4 per cent of all units shipped during the quarter.

Credit: IDC

Such findings come as vendor revenue in the worldwide server market increased 12.6 per cent year-over-year to US$23.6 billion during the fourth quarter of 2018, with shipments growing five per cent year-over-year to just under three million units.

"Reduced demand from hyper-scale companies created downward pressure on worldwide server market growth rates during the quarter," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager at IDC. “This was offset by increased server sales to enterprise customers and higher average selling prices (ASPs).

“Enterprises are buying richly configured servers to support resource intensive workloads, resulting in higher ASPs and pushing revenue growth higher than growth from unit shipments.”

Lagana also noted that overall, the server market continues to experience “robust demand” with the final quarter of 2018 marking the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth and its highest total revenue in a single quarter ever.

“Volume server revenue increased by 17.8 per cent to US$19.0 billion, while midrange server revenue grew 30.3 per cent to US$2.5 billion,” Lagana added. “High-end systems declined 28.3 per cent to US$2.1 billion.”

From a geographic perspective, Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) was the fastest growing region with 25.5 per cent year-over-year revenue growth.