30 November 2004 Worldwide sales of servers continued to grow in the third quarter of 2004, the sixth consecutive quarter of rising sales, with customers increasingly focusing on high- and low-end products.
Analyst firm Gartner reported that sales hit $11.8 billion during Q304, a 6% increase on the same period a year ago. Meanwhile IDC estimates sales for the period were $11.5 billion – 5.5% higher than its estimates for the same quarter a year ago.
Sales of mid-range servers priced between $25,000 and $500,000 declined due to customers increasingly opting for high-end performance or low-end prices.
“The server market is still being primarily driven by the x86 segment,” said Gartner analyst Mike McLaughlin. “That, along with the acceptance of Linux in additional application areas in the enterprise space will continue to drive demand,” he added.
Linux servers surpassed $1 billion in quarterly revenue, a 42.6% growth since the third quarter of 2003, accounting for 9.2% of overall quarterly server revenue, according to IDC.
IBM held on to the top spot with 31.7% market share of factory revenue, while HP was close behind with 26.8% share. Dell grew by 14.1% since the same quarter last year to share third place with Sun, which continues to struggle, losing market share, said IDC analysts.
