Server sales decline continues in Europe

Revenue from server sales declined by about 12% year-on-year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the first quarter of 2012, as vendors continue to suffer from a slowdown in server spending, according to market research company IDC.

This was the second consecutive quarter of annual revenue declines, and the first double-digit decrease since the third quarter of 2009. Difficult market conditions compounded the current slowdown in server spending, IDC said.

Revenue totalled $3.1 billion, compared to $3.5 billion during the first quarter last year.

Shipments were down 3.8% and ended up at 556,877 units.

HP recovered the top spot from IBM with 38.2% of the market, even though its sales dropped by 19.1%.

IBM didn't do much better with a 17.8% sales decline, and its market share was 26.3%.

Third-placed Dell on the other hand saw its sales grow by 6.3%. The vendor is benefiting from strong demand for high-end x86 servers, according to IDC.

The company had a 14% share of the market, which is up from 11.6% during the same period last year.

Rounding out the top five are Oracle and Fujitsu, which saw sales decline by 6.2% and 7.4%, respectively.

Oracle grew its market share slightly, by about 0.5% to 7.2%, despite the annual revenue decline, IDC said.

Fujitsu grew its market share by 0.2% to 5.8%.

By operating system, Windows held 52% of the market, down 0.6% compared to the first quarter in 2011.

Linux was the only operating system to see positive growth year-on-year. It grabbed 20.7% of total market sales, which is a 6.5% improvement.

Unix sales declined 27.6% on the back of weaker RISC system sales, which was enough to get a 17.4% market share.