Sales Trend: The market for server hardware is shrinking

According to data from the IDC market research institution, global sales of servers have slightly increased once again. After a stagnant 2012, at least 9 million units were dispatched in 2013. This corresponds to an increase of about 3% compared to the previous year. In 2014, 9.3 million units are expected to go to the dealers, which would correspond to an increase of 4%.

However, the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East and Africa) does not contribute to this positive figure. There, server sales decreased by about 3% in 2013, which corresponds to 2.2 million units. But IDC still predicts an increase of around 2% for 2014.

Nevertheless, these figures are unsatisfactory because the increasing sales figures are hampered by declining turnovers. Global expenditure on server hardware has declined by 5%, to around 40 billion euros. For 2014, market researchers expect a further decline of around 3%. In the EMEA region, expenditure declined by as much as 9% in 2013, to around 9.8 billion euros. And in 2014, turnovers are expected to decrease by 2%.

It is the trend towards cloud computing which is responsible for this development. Hosting service providers primarily resort to cheaper mass-produced goods for equipping their data processing centres, and they can negotiate substantial discounts with manufacturers. At the same time, in the wake of increasing virtualisation on a hardware basis, multiple servers are usually operated.

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