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.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Server Vendor Revenue, Market Share, and Growth, Second Quarter of 2021 (Revenues are in US$ Millions)

Company

2Q21 Revenue

2Q21 Market Share

2Q20 Revenue

2Q20 Market Share

2Q21/2Q20 Revenue Growth

T1. HPE/H3C(a)*

$3,704.6

15.7%

$3,582.4

14.8%

3.4%

T1. Dell Technologies*

$3,680.3

15.6%

$3,339.8

13.8%

10.2%

3. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems(b)

$2,212.7

9.4%

$2,532.9

10.5%

12.6%

4. Lenovo

$1,651.5

7.0%

$1,466.6

6.1%

12.6%

5. IBM

$1,170.8

5.0%

$1,453.5

6.0%

19.5%

ODM Direct

$6,307.4

26.7%

$6,917.6

28.5%

8.8%

Rest of Market

$4,912.1

20.8%

$4,942.3

20.4%

0.6%

Total

$23,639.4

100.0%

$24,235.1

100.0%

2.5%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, September 9, 2021

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.

(C) 2021 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire