Worldwide Server Market Revenue Declined 2.5% Year Over Year in the Second Quarter of 2021, According to IDC

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, worldwide server market revenue declined 2.5% year over year to $23.6 billion during the second quarter of 2021 (2Q21). Worldwide server shipments surpassed 3.2 million during the quarter, an increase of just 0.1% over the previous year.

Volume server revenue was up 5.6% to nearly $20.0 billion. Midrange server revenue declined 30.0% to $2.4 billion, and high-end servers declined by 32.7% to $1.3 billion.

"Broadly speaking, server market performance was muted in the second quarter as the market shifted slightly towards single socket server configurations," said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. "While servers purchased directly from ODMs declined year over year, some past backlog recovery within the hyperscale datacenter community contributed to a large jump in this segment when compared to the first quarter of this year."

Overall Server Market Standings, by Company

HPE/H3C^a ended the quarter in a statistical tie* with Dell Technologies for the top position in the worldwide server market. The revenue shares for the two companies were 15.7% and 15.6% respectively. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems^b ranked third with 9.4% revenue share. Lenovo was in fourth place while IBM came in at fifth, with 7.0% share and 5.0% share respectively. The ODM Direct group of vendors accounted for 26.7% of total server revenue and declined 8.8% year over year to $6.3 billion while accounting for 32.2% of all units shipped during the quarter.

Notes:

* IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide server market when there is a difference of one percent or less in the share of revenues or shipments among two or more vendors.

(a) Due to the existing joint venture between HPE and H3C, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for HPE and H3C as "HPE/H3C" starting from 2Q 2016. Per the JV agreement, Tsinghua Holdings subsidiary, Unisplendour Corporation, through a wholly owned affiliate, purchased a 51% stake in H3C and HPE has a 49% ownership stake in the new company.

(b) Inspur revenues include revenues and server units for Inspur Power Systems. Inspur is reported as a separate company with revenues including Inspur OEM systems and Inspur Power Systems locally developed and branded systems revenue. Per the JV agreement, Inspur Power Commercial System Co., Ltd., has total registered capital of RMB 1 billion, with Inspur investing RMB 510 million for a 51% equity stake, and IBM investing RMB 490 million for the remaining 49% equity stake.

In addition to the table above, a graphic illustrating the worldwide market share of the top 5 server companies in 2Q21 and 2Q20 is available by viewing this press release on IDC.com.

Top Server Market Findings

On a geographic basis, Asia/Pacific (excluding China and Japan) revenue was up 8.6% year over year. Server revenue in China grew 3.4% over the previous year, while Japan declined 21.2% year over year. Latin America revenue grew 4.6%, North America revenue declined 5.7%, and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) revenue declined 2.3% year over year.

Revenue generated from x86 servers decreased 2.2% in 2Q21 to $21.4 billion. Non-x86 server revenue declined 4.5% year over year to around $2.3 billion.

IDC's Server Taxonomy

IDC's Server Taxonomy maps the eleven price bands within the server market into three price ranges: volume servers, midrange servers and high-end servers. The revenue data presented in this release is stated as vendor revenue for a server system. IDC presents data in vendor revenue to determine market share position. Vendor revenue represents those dollars recognized by multi-user system and server vendors for ISS (initial server shipment) and upgrade units sold through direct and indirect channels and includes the following embedded server components: Frame or cabinet and all cables, processors, memory, communications boards, operating system software, other bundled software and initial internal and external disk shipments.

IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly unit shipments and revenues (both vendor revenue and value of shipments), segmented by vendor, family, model, region, operating system, price band, CPU type, and architecture. The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is part of the Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker, which provides a holistic total addressable market view of the five key enabling infrastructure technologies for the datacenter (servers, external enterprise storage systems, purpose-built appliances: HCI and PBBA, and datacenter switches).

For more information about IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, please contact Lidice Fernandez at 305-351-3057 or lfernandez@idc.com.

About IDC Trackers

IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC's Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly Excel deliverables and on-line query tools.

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About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights.

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According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, worldwide server market revenue declined 2.5% year over year to $23.6 billion during Q2 2021. Worldwide server shipments surpassed 3.2 million during the quarter, an increase of 0.1% over Q2 2020.