Virtualisation drives jump in APAC server sales: Gartner

Australian server revenues up 10 percent despite five percent fall in unit shipments.

Analyst group Gartner identified virtualisation as a key driver behind strong first quarter sales of servers reported for the Asia Pacific, although it wasn’t enough to reverse a relatively flat result for Australia.

“Enterprise spending on server consolidation using virtualization technology continued to be a key driving factor for server market growth in this region,” said Erica Gadjuli, principal research analyst at Gartner.

She added that positive economic sentiment helped to boost sales in the key verticals of financial services and the public sector throughout Asia Pacific. It was the sixth consecutive quarter of growth recorded for server shipments and revenues in the region. 

The Australian market was relatively flat, however, with first quarter shipments falling five percent, although revenues from server sales grew by 10 percent to $154 million. 

In contrast, the fastest growing country in the region was Singapore with a 68 percent jump in server revenue to $US million. The biggest market, China, grew 37 percent to reach a whopping $1.2 billion.

Korea also saw strong growth with its first quarter sales up 21 percent to $192 million, while Taiwan rose 31 percent to $ million. Hong Kong also performed strongly during the quarter with server revenues up 21 percent to $70.4 million, driven largely by increased spending on RISC and x86 servers.

Interestingly, while Hewlett Packard claimed the top spot for server shipments, IBM knocked it to second in terms of server revenues suggesting that big blue is having more success generating revenues out of value-added services.

See below for Gartner’s complete rankings for the top five vendors in Asia Pacific by revenue and unit shipments:

Table 1: Asia Pacific: Server Vendor Revenue Estimates, 1Q11 (U.S. Dollars Thousands)

Source: Gartner (May 2011)

Table 2: Asia Pacific: Server Vendor Shipments Estimates, 1Q11 (Units)

Source: Gartner (May 2011)