The worldwide server market recorded a 17.9% growth in the first quarter of this year, significantly higher than that achieved in the fourth quarter of 2014, when the plus was only 2%, according to the Gartner consulting company.

The 18 percent increase is the best result recorded in this market since the third quarter of 2010. The total value of the global server market was approximately USD 13.4 billion in Q1 2015.

Global uptrend was mainly supported by the US market, driven by the accelerated development of the Cloud projects. EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) had a 6.6% increase, while Japan and Latin America recorded a declined.

 

Changes in the ranking

In the world ranking of server vendors, HP has retained the first place, although it recorded a decrease in the market share (from 25.5% it had in Q1 2014 to 23.8% in the same period of 2015). But not in what the turnover is concerned – HP managed a plus of 10.4%, gathering approximately USD 3.2 billion (in Q1 2015), with almost 900 million above the second placed Dell, which ranks second of the league, replacing IBM. However Dell too shows a decrease in the market share (-0.6%), but not in the turnover as well (which increased by 14.4% to approximately 2.3 billion USD).

As expected, IBM felt the full backlash of the sale of its x86 division – it came third, while its turnover fell by 15.9% this year, to 1.88 billion dollars. This value is still almost double that recorded by the fourth-ranked Lenovo (970 million USD). The Acquisition of the IBM x86 Division provided the Chinese with an “artificial” growth in the turnover of 658.3% (in Q1 2014 Lenovo had only 127 million USD) and a jump in market share to 6.6% (from 1.1 a year ago).

 

Plus 44% for Cisco

On the fifth place with an increase in the turnover by 44.4% – deemed by analysts as “natural”, increasing their compared to that recorded by Lenovo – ranks Cisco, which remain on an uptrend, increasing market share by 1.2 percent to 6.6% in Q1 2015. However, the company occupies the second place in the x86 blade server market worldwide, with a steadily growing market share of 25.2%. (The first place is held by HP with a 46.3% share.) Cisco is the only company in the blade top which records an annual growth of two digits (+ 30%), unlike other competitors who have rates lower than 10% (Del + 6%; HP, Fujitsu and Oracle: + 1%; IBM: -17%).

The American company, which made its entry in 2009 on the blade server market, developed a business with an annual value of over $ 3 billion and managed in less than six years to include in its customer portfolio 85% of the Fortune 500 companies. The number of Cisco UCS (Unified Computing Systems) server customers was, in May this year, of 43.800 and records an annual growth rate of 34%.

 

The Chinese are gaining ground

The global server market ranking is the same in Europe too, and market shares do not differ significantly: HP holds about one third of the market (while last year it had approximately 36%), and Cisco and Lenovo have a little bit more than 7%.

However, if we consider the number of servers sold, the hierarchy is visibly changing – the Chinese become the majority in Top 5, to the detriment of the Americans who keep the advantage of the market share. Thus, HP holds the first place (with a market share of 20%), closely seconded by Dell (19%), followed at a great distance by Lenovo (8.3%), Huawei (4%) and Inspur Electronics (3. 4%).

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