Asia Pacific server spending declines for first time since dot.com 2001 meltdown

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 25 March 2009 09:30

IT Industry - Deals

Rajnish said spending on non-x86 servers, which were typically used for running mission critical core-business applications, sharply decelerated to 34% decline in Q4 2008 compared with a 23.1% drop in Q3 2008.

And, Hong Kong, with a very large concentration of global and regional financial services companies, didn’t escape the troubles, with IDC reporting that it took the brunt of the financial services sector meltdown with server spending contracting an ‘eye-popping’ 52% in Q4 2008, according to Rajnish.

"Server spending in Hong Kong declined the most among the 14 markets in Q4 2008 year-on-year. This resulted in Hong Kong becoming the 7th largest server market in the region in Q4 2008 versus the 5th position it held in Q4 2007."
 
Rajnish said that, from a platform perspective, the non-x86 (RISC and EPIC) Unix was one of the few positive spots with spending declining a sliver 1.4% in 2008 due to 7% increases each in the PRC and India.
 
He said x86 Blade server shipments crossed a key milestone in 2008 with more than 100,000 units sold across Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan).
 
“Overall, x86 server shipments grew at a fairly subdued 7.9% in 2008, which is a sharp contrast to the strong double-digit increases in excess of 15% for the past five consecutive years since 2003. In revenue terms, x86 server spending declined 4.3% for the full year 2008 after growing for the past 6 consecutive years.”

IDC says IBM remains ‘well perched’ in the number one position capturing 37% revenue share of the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) server market in 2008, while HP remains the dominant vendor in unit shipment terms in 2008, capturing 30.7% share underpinned by its strength in the x86 server segment.