Gartner recently announced their server shipment data for Q2 2016. We can see a year of year increase in server shipments while revenue is down. That tends to make sense given the fact that the dominant Intel Xeon E5-2600 V4 platform is an incremental upgrade and we have seen innovation at the lower-end of the market. The big news is that pre-EMC merger, Dell moved into the top spot in terms of servers sold while HPE continued to have a large revenue share lead. IBM continues to be on the revenue list while being lumped into “Others” in terms of units shipped (e.g. not in the top 5.) This is largely due to the fact that IBM sells fewer but much more expensive systems than the generic x86 servers.
Here is an excerpt from the release:
Dell Moved Into No. 1 Position in Shipments; HPE Maintained No. 1 Spot in Revenue
In the second quarter of 2016, worldwide server revenue declined 0.8 percent year over year, while shipments grew 2 percent from the second quarter of 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. There was some shuffling among the top vendors in the second quarter, as Dell moved into the top spot in shipments, while Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) remained the worldwide leader in server revenue.
“The second quarter of 2016 produced some continued growth on a global level compared with the first quarter, although there were some varied results regionally,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner. “All regions showed a decline in shipments except Asia/Pacific and North America, which posted growth of 5.6 percent and 3 percent, respectively. In terms of revenue, all regions except for Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe exhibited a decline. Asia/Pacific grew by 6.1 percent and Eastern Europe posted 1 percent growth. Variations of growth by data center segments and exchange rate issues are the main reasons for these results.
“x86 servers grew 2.1 percent in shipments and 5.8 percent in revenue in the second quarter of 2016. Dell garnered 19.3 percent of the market and moved into the No. 1 position in worldwide server shipments due primarily to growth resulting from programs it has in place in the Asia/Pacific region, most notably in China. However, HPE continued to lead the x86 market in revenue with 26 percent of the market,” said Mr. Hewitt.
Despite a decline of 6.4 percent, HPE continued to lead in the worldwide server market, based on revenue, with 23.7 percent market share (see Table 1). Dell grew 9.9 percent and maintained the second spot in the market with 19.1 percent market share. IBM secured the third position with 9.1 percent of the market but experienced the largest decline among the top five vendors.
Table 1
Worldwide: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 2Q16 (U.S. Dollars)
| Company | 2Q16 Revenue | 2Q16 Market Share (%) | 2Q15 Revenue | 2Q15 Market Share (%) | 2Q16-2Q15 Growth (%) |
| HPE | 3,208,997,829 | 23.7 | 3,428,089,692 | 25.1 | -6.4 |
| Dell | 2,594,180,873 | 19.1 | 2,361,553,746 | 17.3 | 9.9 |
| IBM | 1,226,947,968 | 9.1 | 1,869,261,145 | 13.7 | -34.4 |
| Lenovo | 968,175,316 | 7.1 | 949,775,893 | 7.0 | 1.9 |
| Cisco | 858,924,000 | 6.3 | 866,700,000 | 6.3 | -0.9 |
| Others | 4,695,515,875 | 34.6 | 4,180,263,723 | 30.6 | 12.3 |
| Total | 13,552,741,861 | 100.0 | 13,655,644,198 | 100.0 | -0.8 |
Source: Gartner (September 2016)
Due to its success in the x86 market, Dell moved into the No. 1 position in server shipments in the second quarter of 2016, with 8.9 percent growth, garnering 19.2 percent market share (see Table 2). HPE dropped to the second spot with 17.2 percent shipment share, representing an 18.7 percent decline year over year.*
Table 2
Worldwide: Server Vendor Shipment Estimates, 2Q16 (Units)
| Company | 2Q16 Shipments | 2Q16 Market Share (%) | 2Q15 Shipments | 2Q15 Market Share (%) | 2Q16-2Q15 Growth (%) |
| Dell | 529,135 | 19.2 | 485,745 | 18.0 | 8.9 |
| HPE | 474,803 | 17.2 | 583,790 | 21.6 | -18.7 |
| Lenovo | 235,267 | 8.5 | 222,206 | 8.2 | 5.9 |
| Huawei | 139,866 | 5.1 | 122,565 | 4.5 | 14.1 |
| Inspur | 120,417 | 4.4 | 82,032 | 3.0 | 46.8 |
| Others | 1,258,045 | 45.6 | 1,207,005 | 44.6 | 4.2 |
| Total | 2,757,532 | 100.0 | 2,703,344 | 100.0 | 2.0 |
Source: Gartner (September 2016)
Additional information is available to clients who have access to Gartner’s Servers Quarterly Statistics. This database provides worldwide market size and share data by vendor revenue and unit shipments. Segments include region, vendor, vendor brand, subbrand, CPU type, CPU group, max CPU, platform, price band, operating system and distribution channel.
*Beginning in the second quarter of 2016, HPE’s server sales in China are reflected in H3C; however, Dell is ranked No. 1 in worldwide x86 shipments even if the shipments of HPE and H3C are combined.
