Worldwide Server Market Revenue Grew 2.2% Year Over Year in the Third Quarter of 2020, According to IDC

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#IDCTracker–According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, vendor revenue in the worldwide server market grew 2.2% year over year to $22.6 billion during the third quarter of 2020 (3Q20). Worldwide server shipments declined 0.2% year over year to nearly 3.1 million units in 3Q20.

Volume server revenue was up 5.8% to $19.0 billion, while midrange server revenue declined 13.9% to $2.6 billion, and high-end servers declined by 12.6% to $937 million.

“Global demand for enterprise servers was a bit muted during the third quarter of 2020 although we did see areas of strong demand,” said Paul Maguranis, senior research analyst, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC. “From a regional perspective, server revenue within China grew 14.2% year over year. And worldwide revenues for servers running AMD CPUs were up 112.4% year over year while ARM-based servers grew revenues 430.5% year over year, albeit on a very small base of revenue.”

Overall Server Market Standings, by Company

Dell Technologies and HPE/New H3C Group were tied* for the top position in the 3Q20 worldwide server market with 16.7% and 15.9% revenue share respectively. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems finished third with a 9.4% share of revenue. Lenovo was fourth with a 5.9% share and Huawei was fifth with a 4.9% share. The ODM Direct group of vendors accounted for 28.0% of total server revenue, up 8.4% year over year.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Server Vendor Revenue, Market Share, and Growth, Third Quarter of 2020 (Revenues are in US$ Millions)
Company	3Q20 Revenue	3Q20 Market Share		3Q19 Revenue	3Q19 Market Share		3Q20/3Q19 Revenue Growth
T1. Dell Technologies*	$3,757.8	16.65	%	$3,779.1	17.12	%	-0.6	%
T1. HPE/New H3C Group^a*	$3,596.9	15.94	%	$3,737.9	16.93	%	-3.8	%
3. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems^b	$2,114.7	9.37	%	$1,973.3	8.94	%	7.2	%
4. Lenovo	$1,326.0	5.88	%	$1,189.8	5.39	%	11.4	%
5. Huawei	$1,098.9	4.87	%	$916.7	4.15	%	19.9	%
ODM Direct	$6,303.3	28.03	%	$5,816.0	26.34	%	8.4	%
Rest of Market	$4,367.9	19.36	%	$4,663.8	21.13	%	-6.3	%
Total	$22,565.6	100.00	%	$22,076.6	100.00	%	2.2	%
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, December 8, 2020

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 the New H3C Group, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for HPE and New H3C Group as “HPE/New H3C Group” starting from 2Q 2016.
b		Due to the existing joint venture between IBM and Inspur, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for Inspur and Inspur Power Systems as “Inspur/Inspur Power Systems” starting from 3Q 2018.

In addition to the table above, a graphic illustrating the worldwide revenue share of the top 5 server companies over the previous five quarters is available by viewing this press release on IDC.com.

Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Server Unit Shipments, Market Share, and Growth, Third Quarter of 2020
Company	3Q20 Unit Shipments	3Q20 Market Share		3Q19 Unit Shipments	3Q19 Market Share		3Q20/3Q19 Unit Growth
1. Dell Technologies	502,409	16.39	%	502,306	16.36	%	0.0	%
2. HPE/New H3C Group^a	425,117	13.87	%	459,395	14.96	%	-7.5	%
3. Inspur/Inspur Power Systems^b	296,121	9.66	%	314,975	10.26	%	-6.0	%
T4. Huawei*	177,729	5.80	%	156,150	5.08	%	13.8	%
T4. Lenovo*	163,908	5.35	%	204,040	6.64	%	-19.7	%
ODM Direct	989,024	32.26	%	896,625	29.19	%	10.3	%
Rest of Market	511,482	16.68	%	537,752	17.51	%	-4.9	%
Total	3,065,791	100.00	%	3,071,244	100.00	%	-0.2	%
Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, December 8, 2020

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 the New H3C Group, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for HPE and New H3C Group as “HPE/New H3C Group” starting from 2Q 2016.
b		Due to the existing joint venture between IBM and Inspur, IDC is reporting external market share on a global level for Inspur and Inspur Power Systems as “Inspur/Inspur Power Systems” starting from 3Q 2018.

Top Server Market Findings

On a geographic basis, China was the fastest growing region at 14.2% year over year. Asia/Pacific (excluding China and Japan) increased 3.0%, while Latin America and North America grew 1.5% and 1.8% year over year, respectively (Canada at 13.1% and the United States at 1.5%). Both EMEA and Japan declined during the quarter at rates of 4.9% and 21.4%, respectively.

Revenue generated from x86 servers increased 1.6% in 3Q20 to just below $21.0 billion. Non-x86 server revenue grew 10.4% year over year to around $1.6 billion.

IDC’s Server Taxonomy

IDC’s Server Taxonomy maps the eleven price bands within the server market into three price ranges: volume servers, midrange servers and high-end servers. The revenue data presented in this release is stated as vendor revenue for a server system. IDC presents data in vendor revenue to determine market share position. Vendor revenue represents those dollars recognized by multi-user system and server vendors for ISS (initial server shipment) and upgrade units sold through direct and indirect channels and includes the following embedded server components: Frame or cabinet and all cables, processors, memory, communications boards, operating system software, other bundled software and initial internal and external disk shipments.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is a quantitative tool for analyzing the global server market on a quarterly basis. The Tracker includes quarterly unit shipments and revenues (both vendor revenue and value of shipments), segmented by vendor, family, model, region, operating system, price band, CPU type, and architecture.

The IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker is part of the Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker, which provides a holistic total addressable market view of the five key enabling infrastructure technologies for the datacenter (servers, external enterprise storage systems, purpose-built appliances: HCI and PBBA, and datacenter switches).

For more information about IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, please contact Lidice Fernandez at 305-351-3057 or lfernandez@idc.com.

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