HP, IBM Lead Global Server MarketHP, IBM Lead Global Server Market

Server vendors increased shipments and revenue in the third quarter, with Hewlett-Packard leading in shipments and IBM in sales, a market research firm says.

Overall, shipments climbed 9.1 percent from the same period a year ago to just more than 2 million units, and revenues increased 4.4 percent to $13 billion, Gartner said. Blade and x86 servers recorded the highest growth rates. Shipments of RISC and Itanium Unix servers dropped 6 percent, as revenues increased slightly at 0.6 percent.

IBM continued to lead the market in terms of revenue with $4.4 billion in the quarter, or 33.7 percent of the market. HP was second with $3.3 billion, or 25.3 percent of the market; followed by Dell, $1.4 billion, 10.8 percent; Sun Microsystems, $1.3 billion, 10.1 percent; and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens, $634.3 million, or 4.9 percent.

In terms of shipments, HP led with 26.5 percent of the market, followed by Dell, 22.5 percent; IBM, 16.3 percent; Sun, 4.1 percent; and Fujitsu/Fujitsu Siemens, 3.2 percent.

For the second consecutive quarter, Sun posted significant growth in shipments and revenue, 6.4 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively, Gartner said.