Gartner: Server shipments up over 10 percent in Q1

The worldwide server market performed better than expected in the first quarter of 2003, despite the threat of a lingering war with Iraq and a continued weak economy, which had an effect on IT spending during the quarter, market analyst Gartner said Monday in a statement.

Worldwide server shipments in the first quarter rose to 1.2 million units, up 10.4 percent compared to the same period a year ago, according to preliminary numbers published by Gartner.

Hewlett-Packard defended its leading position in the worldwide ranking, accounting for 29.1 percent of server shipments. Dell Computer came in second place with a 20.2 percent market share, followed by IBM with 14.8 percent, according to the Stamford, Conn., analysts.

The top three vendors accounted for more than half of all servers shipped during the first quarter.

Sun Microsystems was the only top-tier vendor to suffer a decline in worldwide server shipments, down 13.2 percent in the first quarter over the same period a year ago. The company accounted for 4.9 percent of shipments, Gartner said.

For the fifth consecutive quarter, server shipments in the U.S. experienced a year-over-year growth rate greater than 10 percent, according to Gartner. The U.S. server market grew 13.2 percent in the first quarter to 499,609 shipped units from 441,540 units a year ago.

Dell bumped HP from the top spot with a server market share of 27 percent, due in part to its partnerships with Oracle Corp. for database products and EMC for storage systems, according to Gartner.

Since the war with Iraq started toward the end of the first quarter of 2003, it didn't have a severe effect on server shipments during the quarter, Gartner analyst Joseph Gonzalez said in the statement.