Gartner: Server Sales Continue To Plummet
Gartner said on Monday that nearly 1.9 million servers were shipped worldwide in the third quarter of 2009, down about 17.1 percent from the 2.3 million servers sold during the third quarter of 2008.
Those shipments resulted in total revenue of nearly $10.7 billion, down about 15.5 percent compared to the $12.6 billion in server sales during the same period last year.
While server sales are still way down from a year ago, there is cautious optimism in the report in that the drop is less severe than in the second quarter of 2009.
For the second quarter of 2008, Hewlett-Packard was the No. 1 server vendor in terms of shipments, and accounted for about 615,694 units sold, down 15 percent compared to the same period last year.
HP was followed by Dell, which sold 437,447 servers during the third quarter, down 12.6 percent from last year.
IBM was third, with sales of 246,493 units, down 20.1 percent, followed by Fujitsu with 66,953 units, down 9.0 percent, and Sun Microsystems, which saw its server shipments plunge 38.1 percent to 50,453 units as customers and partners await the results of Oracle's proposed acquisition of the company.
IBM was the server revenue leader during the third quarter with sales totaling $3.4 billion, down 12.3 percent from last year but still enough to give it a 31.7 percent share of the total market, Gartner said.
HP was second, with sales of $3.2 billion, down 15.1 percent from last year, giving it a market share of 30.2 percent.
They were followed by Dell, with revenue down 5.1 percent to $1.4 billion; Sun, with revenue down 32.2 percent to $785 million; and Fujitsu, with revenue down 10.8 percent to $550 million.