Asia-Pacific server sales up 12.4 percent

Server sales across the Asia-Pacific region were up 12.4 percent in the second quarter to US$1.4 billion, according to new Gartner Dataquest figures.

The market analysis firm said China led the region, buying US$488.3 million worth of servers and enjoying a 23.7 growth year-on-year.

South Korea took second place, spending US$224.7 million -- 10.9 percent less than in the same period last year, Gartner Dataquest said.

Australia came third, shelling out US$203.4 million for servers but only growing a dismal 0.3 percent year-on-year, it said.

Matthew Boon, vice president for hardware and systems at Gartner Asia-Pacific, said the second quarter continued to grow as it had in the first quarter of 2004.

"The region remains intensely competitive and price-sensitive as multinationals take on local vendors in markets such as China," he said.

Chinese server consumers had taken advantage of their local conditions to buy more product, Boon said.

Australia's server spend was still healthy, he said, despite the strong appreciation of the Australian dollar against the greenback.

Other strong national performers in server sales across the Asia-Pacific were India, which came fourth. India bought US$98.4 million-worth of servers, up 31.3 percent on last year's second quarter.

Hong Kong grew its server sales an astounding 59.4 percent on the year ago quarter. That country came fifth, selling US$62.8 million-worth of servers, Gartner Dataquest said.

Indonesia took sixth place, growing 13 percent up on 2003's second quarter to record server sales of US$25.5 million.

As for the vendors, IBM still led the region and grew 1.2 percent from the year ago quarter to take 37.2 percent market share. HP came second, with 30.7 percent marketshare, Gartner Dataquest said.

"While HP managed to hold its market share, given the growth across the region as a whole this must be disappointing for them," Boon said.

Sun came third, with 14 percent market share, but was down 2.3 percent on the same quarter last year.

"While managing to improve its efforts in the volume space, tough conditions in the traditional mid-range and high-end continue to cause revenue issues for Sun in the Asia-Pacific," Boon said.

Dell came fourth, with 5.9 percent server sales. That was up from 4.9 percent in the 2003 second quarter.

"China in particular remains a strong focus for Dell," Boon said.

Fujitsu and Fujitsu Siemens came fifth, with 1.6 percent market share across the Asia Pacific, Gartner Dataquest said.