Server success dominates Q1

The server market has seen its fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, according to research from IDC.

The analyst firm claimed revenues were up 12.1 per cent year on year, reaching a total of $11.9 billion (7.3 billion) for the first quarter of 2011.

Shipments also blossomed with a rise of 2.5 per cent to 1.9 million units. This was the second highest number of shipments ever recorded by IDC for a first quarter.

Midrange enterprise servers saw the most success, with revenues rocketing by 28.3 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. However, with high-end and volume servers both increasing revenues by 14.2 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively, Q1 2011 was the first time in two years all three sectors grew simultaneously.

"Meaningful enterprise infrastructure refresh occurred across all geographies in the quarter," said Matt Eastwood, group vice president of enterprise platforms at IDC.

"Although the public sector weakened, worldwide demand for servers across hosters, SMBs and enterprise customers remained strong."

HP managed to keep hold of the top spot when it came to server sales by vendor. It held on to 31.5 per cent of market share and increased revenues by 10.8 per cent to $3.75 billion.

IBM showed the most impressive growth. The company's market share increased by 2.3 per cent to 29.2 per cent and revenues exploded, going up 22.1 per cent to almost $3.5 billion.