Gartner afirma que o mercado global de vendas de servidores aumentou 1,4% no primeiro trimestre de 2014; Faturamento caiu 4,1%

In terms of server form factors, x86 blade servers decreased 3.9 per cent in shipments, but increased 5.2 per cent in revenue for the quarter. The rack-optimised form factor climbed 1.4 per cent in shipments and 1.7 per cent in revenue in the first quarter of 2014.

In Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), while server shipments continued to decline in the first quarter of 2014, revenues grew for the first time after 10 consecutive quarters of year-over-year declines. Server shipments totalled 547,900 units, a decrease of 6.1 per cent from the first quarter of 2013 (see Table 4). Server revenue totalled $3.0 billion, an increase of 2.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 (see Table 3).

“Although shipments contracted, the fact that the server market has finally shown revenue growth will be a welcome relief for server vendors,” said Adrian O’Connell, research director at Gartner. “The business environment in EMEA remains challenging, but the severe declines that we’ve witnessed in the non-x86 product segments have abated, at least in the first quarter of 2014.”

From a regional perspective, Eastern Europe experienced the largest revenue decline of 14.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2014. Server revenues in the Middle East and Africa region declined 3.6 per cent, but Western Europe achieved an increase of 6.7 per cent in revenue.

In the first quarter of 2014, x86 server revenue increased 3.4 per cent, while RISC/Itanium UNIX revenue declined 3.4 per cent and the Other CPU segment revenue increased 8.6 per cent. “Platform migrations continued to be a factor but the rate of these declines has slowed and the worst rates of decline may be behind us,” said Mr O’Connell.

In the first quarter of 2014 HP extended its revenue share lead with 5.1 per cent growth, despite experiencing a slight decline in server shipments. HP continued to improve its execution and also benefited from its competitors’ difficulties. Second-ranked IBM continued to suffer from cyclically weak product lifecycles, but its 8.7 per cent decline was also compounded by additional weakness for its x86 business. Third-placed Dell suffered when compared to a particularly strong first quarter in 2013.

“After some challenges in 2013, vendors will be relieved to see 2014 get off to a relatively good start,” said Mr O’Connell. “The demand environment is stabilising but challenges remain. We expect users will continue to be conservative in their investments for some time and platform migrations will remain a challenging factor. We are likely to see revenue growth in 2014, but the reality is that the market is operating from a significantly lower level than it was prior to the downturn in 2008.”

Table 3
EMEA: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 1Q14 (US Dollars)