The EMEA server market "continues to suffer" during Q4 2013 according to Gartner, with revenues dropping by -6.4% Y-o-Y to $3.6 billion as shipments total 613000 units with a -2.5% Y-o-Y decline.
Further decline is seen in overall 2013 results-- shipments are down by -5.6% to 2.3 million units while revenues drop by -6.3% to $12.4bn.
"The EMEA server market continued to suffer as it recorded its 10th consecutive quarterly revenue decline," the analyst says. "Economic weakness continued to have a profound effect on the EMEA server market. Total revenue in 2013 was only around two-thirds of that seen in 2007, before the downturn set in."
All regions see Q4 2013 revenue declines, with the worst in E. Europe at -14.1% Y-o-Y. W. European revenues drop by -4.9% Y-o-Y, while MEA sees a -6.8% decline.
The only platform seeing Q4 2013 growth is x86 servers, with revenues grow by all of 1.4% Y-o-Y. RISC/Itanium Unix revenues drop by -20.1% and Other CPU by -35.7% as platform migration continues to hit non-x86-based systems.
When it comes to vendors both HP and IBM see revenue declines. HP sees lower than average decline, as improved execution led to Y-o-Y market share gains. On the other hand product life cycles lead to a weak quarter for IBM, with revenues declines of -26.4% Y-o-Y and market share loss of 7% compared to the same quarter in 2012.
Oracle and Dell achieve the strongest Q4 2013 revenue increase at 4.5% and 5% respectively.
"The EMEA server market ended the year on a particularly low point," Gartner adds. "The good news for vendors is that demand appears to be stabilising, but polarization remains between high-end and low-end platforms. Vendors that sell low-end servers should see a more positive 2014, but those exposed to the high-end segments will continue to face tough challenges."
On a global basis the Q4 2013 market sees 3.2% Y-o-Y shipment growth and revenue declines of -6.6% Y-o-Y as the enterprise segment remains "relatively constrained" even as the industry sees growth in web-scale IT deployment.
