Worldwide Server Shipments Grew 13 Percent in the First Quarter of 2015: Gartner

In the first quarter of 2015, worldwide server shipments grew 13 percent year over year, while revenue increased 17.9 percent from the first quarter of 2014, according to Gartner. "The first quarter of 2015 was a particularly strong start to the year, with the strongest shipment growth since the third quarter of 2010, when the market was recovering from the downturn. It was also the second-largest-volume quarter ever," said Adrian O'Connell, research director at Gartner. "The market was driven by particularly strong demand from the hyperscale area, which benefited North America, in particular. This comes at a time when other regions are struggling, due to price pressure driven by the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. The strength in North America was strong enough to offset declines in Latin America and Japan. EMEA was barely positive, with 1 percent volume growth."

"x86 server shipments increased 13.2 percent from the first quarter of 2014, and revenue increased 14.5 percent. RISC/Itanium Unix server shipments declined 2.9 percent, while revenue declined 3.1 percent compared with the same quarter last year. The 'other' CPU category, which is primarily mainframes, showed an increase of 95.1 percent in terms of revenue," said Mr. O'Connell.

Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 1Q15 (U.S. Dollars)

Company	1Q15 Revenue	1Q15 Market Share (%)	1Q14 Revenue	1Q14 Market Share (%)	1Q15-1Q14 Growth (%)
HP	3,191,694,948	23.8	2,890,992,229	25.5	10.4
Dell	2,296,473,026	17.1	2,006,639,006	17.7	14.4
IBM	1,887,939,141	14.1	2,244,631,789	19.8	-15.9
Lenovo	970,254,659	7.2	127,973,470	1.1	658.2
Cisco	890,179,930	6.6	616,620,000	5.4	44.4
Others	4,157,871,704	31.0	3,469,383,444	30.6	19.8
Total Market	13,394,413,409	100.0	11,356,239,939	100.0	17.9

HP maintained its No. 1 ranking in the worldwide server market based on revenue with 23.8 percent market share in the first quarter of 2015 (see Table 1). Lenovo experienced the largest increase in the first quarter of 2015 with 658.2 percent growth. All of the top five global vendors had revenue increases for the first quarter of 2015 except IBM.

In server shipments, HP remained the worldwide leader in the first quarter of 2015, but growth was flat (see Table 2). HP's worldwide server shipment share was 20.0 percent, representing a drop of 2.6 percentage points in share from the same quarter in 2014. All of the top five vendors experienced shipment increases in the first quarter of 2015, with Lenovo producing the largest growth rate of 239.2 percent.

Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipment Estimates, 1Q15 (Units)

Company	1Q15 Shipments	1Q15 Market Share (%)	1Q14 Shipments	1Q14 Market Share (%)	1Q15-1Q14 Growth (%)
HP	534,559	20.0	534,652	22.6	0.0
Dell	507,433	19.0	464,141	19.7	9.3
Lenovo	220,379	8.3	64,970	2.8	239.2
Huawei	105,803	4.0	85,919	3.6	23.1
Inspur Electronics	91,847	3.4	80,929	3.4	13.5
Others	1,209,319	45.3	1,131,102	47.9	6.9
Total Market	2,669,340	100.0	2,361,712	100.0	13.0

Source: Gartner (May 2015)

In the first quarter of 2015, the regions with the highest growth rates in terms of unit shipments were North America (22.9 percent), the Middle East and Africa (20.8 percent), and Asia/Pacific (13.6 percent).

Additional information is available to subscribers of the Gartner Servers Quarterly Statistics Worldwide program. This program provides worldwide market size and share data by vendor revenue and unit shipments. Segments include: region, vendor, vendor brand, sub brand, CPU type, CPU group, max CPU, platform, price band, operating system and distribution channel.