Dubai: Total server shipments into Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) stood at 2.7 million units in 2007, a 9.2 per cent increase from 2006, said research firm Gartner.
HP maintained its top position with shipments growing 16.4 per cent to 1.08 million units in 2007 compared to 929,263 units in 2006. Dell pushed ahead of IBM to claim second position with just over 50,000 units separating the two vendors.
"HP's solid unit growth through 2007 meant that it exhibited the strongest year-on-year growth of all the vendors; however Fujitsu Siemens Computers was a close second, with only 0.4 percentage points difference," said Errol Rasit, senior analyst at Gartner, said.
He said the fourth quarter of 2007 exhibited a positive level of growth up 6.4 per cent in shipment terms and 3.3 per cent in revenues compared to the same quarter in 2006. As a result, the full year drew to a positive close.
"In the x86 market, ongoing demand for additional capacity, strong small and medium-sized business growth are currently offsetting any negative effects such as virtualisation, leading to a growth of 13.9 per cent in revenue and 11.3 per cent in unit shipments in 2007," Rasit said.
He said although RISC-Itanium Unix servers exhibited growth in the fourth quarter and achieved a three per cent increase in revenue terms for 2007, volumes for the year declined 20.6 per cent signifying increased high-end sales. Mainframes had the weakest revenue performance of any segment for the year, declining seven per cent from 2006.
Based on revenue, HP retained its top position in 2007. HP's strength was largely driven by its x86 business as well as modest growth with business-critical systems sales in EMEA. IBM's position was weak in 2007 due to a slow down in their Mainframe business, caused by the highly cyclical nature of the business.
HP recorded $6.2 billion revenues in 2007, an increase of 14.1 per cent year-on-year from $5.43 billion in 2006 followed by IBM with $5.51 billion, Sun Microsystems with $2.11 billion, Dell with $1.6 billion and Fujitsu Siemens with $1.27 billion.