'Global server shipment up 1.9% in Q3 2013; rev falls 2.1%'

Worldwide server market remains in a relatively weak performance mode: Gartner

Despite a growth of 1.9% in shipment volumes, global server market revenues declined by 2.1% to $12.34 billion in July-September quarter this year against the year-ago period, research firm Gartner today said.

"The worldwide server market remains in a relatively weak performance mode as we move through the second half of the year," Gartner Research Vice President Jeffrey Hewitt said.

Only three regions exhibited positive vendor revenue growth, he added.

Canadian market grew at 6.5%, while Middle East and Africa grew at 12.1 percent and the US grew at 0.9%, Gartner said in a statement.

"x86 servers maintained low levels of growth at 2.1% in units year-on-year and 4.4% in revenue," Hewitt said.

RISC/Itanium Unix servers continued to decline at 4.5% and 31% in vendor revenue compared to the same quarter last year. The other CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed an increase of 7.8%, he added.

HP had the lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue, posting about $3.4 billion in server vendor revenue for a total share of 27.6% for third quarter of 2013, up 2.2% year-on-year.

HP and Cisco were the only vendors in the top five to have revenue increases in the third quarter of 2013, the research firm said.