Global server revenus rise 5.1 % despite marginal decline in shipments in Q4 '12

Global server shipments fell 0.2 per cent in fourth quarter of 2012, while revenues rose 5.1 per cent from the same period a year ago.

The global server shipments grew 1.5 per cent in 2012 as server revenues declined 0.6 per cent, according to a study by research and analyst firm Gartner.

''2012 was a year that definitely saw budgetary constraint which resulted in delays in X86-based server replacements in enterprise and mid-sized data centres,'' said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner.

''Application-as-a-business data centers such as Baidu, Facebook and Google were the real drivers of significant volume growth for the year. Relatively weak mainframe and RISC/Itanium Unix platform market performance kept overall revenue growth in check,'' Hewitt said.

The three highest growth rates were posted by North America (5.5 per cent), Asia/Pacific (3.4 per cent) and Latin America (0.2 per cent) in terms of unit shipments. These were the only regions to experience an increase in shipments. These three regions grew at a rate of 16.3, 15.5 and 6 per cent, respectively.

IBM extended its lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue in the fourth quarter of 2012. IBM's server revenue reached $5.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012 to increase its global market share to 34.9 per cent. This was up from 33.7 per cent market share in the fourth quarter in 2011.