According to Gartner EMEA server shipments continue to slide during Q1 2014 with shipments falling by 6.1% Y-o-Y to 547900 units, even as revenues make an unexpected return to growth after 10 quarters of of consecutive Y-o-Y decline.
The analyst reports Q1 2014 server revenues total $3.0 billion with 2.5% Y-o-Y growth.
“Although shipments contracted, the fact that the server market has finally shown revenue growth will be a welcome relief for server vendors,” Gartner says. “The business environment in EMEA remains challenging, but the severe declines that we’ve witnessed in the non-x86 product segments have abated, at least in Q1 2014.”
On a regional perspective only W. Europe sees revenue growth (6.7% Y-o-Y), as both E. Europe (-14.5%) and MEA (-3.6%) face revenue declines.
Meanwhile x86 server revenues increase by 3.4%, RISC/Itanium UNIX revenues drop by -3.4% and Other CPU revenues grow by 8.6%.
“Platform migrations continued to be a factor but the rate of these declines has slowed and the worst rates of decline may be behind us,” the analyst remarks.
When it comes to vendors HP retains the lead with a 5.1% Y-o-Y increase in revenues, even if shipments are down by -1.8%. IBM follows in revenues but suffers from cyclically weak product lifecycles atop additional x86 business weakness bringing about a revenue decline of -8.7%.
Dell comes 3rd in revenues and 2nd in shipments, but suffers in comparison to a "particularly strong" Q1 2013.
“After some challenges in 2013, vendors will be relieved to see 2014 get off to a relatively good start,” Gartner continues. “The demand environment is stabilizing but challenges remain… We are likely to see revenue growth in 2014, but the reality is that the market is operating from a significantly lower level than it was prior to the downturn in 2008.”
On a global level Gartner says Q1 2014 shipments are up by 1.4% Y-o-Y to 2.4 million units, while revenues are down by -4.1% Y-o-Y to $11.3bn, the result of variation in results across regions.
