2Q Servers: Sales Fall, Dell Rises, Lenovo Knocks Cisco Off Top Five

Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner and Framingham, Mass.-based IDC may have differed slightly in percentages, but both said total server revenue for the quarter fell. Gartner estimated total revenue fell 2.9 percent over last year to $12.9 billion, while IDC estimated a 4.8-percent drop to $12.6 billion.

However, the two disagreed over shipment trends. Gartner estimated total second quarter server shipments rose 1.4 percent over last year to 2.4 million units, whereas IDC pegged shipments falling 3.6 percent to 2.0 million units.

[Related: Gartner: New Top Five Vendor In Server Shipments, Revenue ]

Both Gartner and IDC agreed the top server vendor in revenue terms was Hewlett-Packard with a 29-plus-percent share of the total server revenue in the second quarter. It was followed by IBM, Dell, Oracle and Fujitsu. However, while Gartner listed IBM as having a 27.2 percent market share, IDC estimated Big Blue's market share to be 29.2 percent, putting it in a statistical tie with HP at the top.

Both also agreed that, of the top five server vendors in terms of revenue, Dell was the only one to see second-quarter growth of 5-plus percent over last year. The rise in Dell's server sales came even as investors have recently pummeled Dell for a steep drop in PC sales.

Gartner also released its top-five list of server vendors in terms of shipments. HP was on top with shipments of nearly 679,000 units, down 5.6 percent over last year. Dell's shipments rose 5.9 percent, IBM's slipped 16.7 percent and Fujitsu's fell 15.7 percent.

Coming in at number five in world server shipments was a newcomer, Lenovo, which saw shipments rise 44.7 percent over last year.

Lenovo bumped Cisco off the list. Cisco in the first quarter was a top-five server company in terms of overall server shipments, and was in the top five for both shipments and revenue in the x86 server market, according to Gartner. Gartner said Cisco was in the second quarter the number-four vendor in terms of x86 server revenue in the quarter due to its UCS blade server strength, but it dropped off the top-five list for shipments.

PUBLISHED AUG. 29, 2012