The server market remains under the pandemic impact

The overall server market in India witnessed a year-over-year (YoY) decline of 11.2% in terms of revenue to reach USD 266.1 million in Q4 2020 (Oct-Dec) versus USD 299.6 million in Q4 2019, according to the latest IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, Q4 2020. The x86 server market contribution grew to 92.9% in terms of revenue, a growth of 4.8 percentage points over the same quarter last year.

The highest contribution in the x86 market mainly came from the professional services, telecommunications, and manufacturing verticals. In the professional services vertical, original design manufacturers (ODM) and new-age IT companies witnessed positive YoY growth with respect to the server spend. At the processor brand level, AMD witnessed YoY revenue growth of 4.7 percentage points, claiming a revenue share of 8.4% at the end of Q4 2020.

The x86 server market in terms of revenue declined YoY by 6.3% to reach USD 247.2 million in Q4 2020 from USD 264.0 million in Q4 2019. The contribution largely came from the custom-built server category with revenue growth of 28.7% YoY. Hyperscalers continues to spend towards building robust data centers and support the global and local customer demands. The general-purpose server revenue declined 13.4% due to weakening demand across different industries. During Q4 2020, verticals such as utilities, resource industries, and securities and investment services witnessed the highest YoY growth in terms of revenue at 331.5%, 218.7%, and 160.6% respectively.

The non-x86 server market declined YoY by 47.1% to reach USD 18.9 million in revenue in Q4 2020. IBM continues to dominate the market accounting for 49.4% of revenue share, during Q4 2020 with revenues of USD 9.3 million. HPE came at the second position, followed by Oracle with a revenue share of 27.8% and 8.3%, respectively.

In Q4 2020, Dell Technologies emerged as the top vendor in the India x86 server market with a revenue share of 29.6% and a revenue of USD 73.1 million. The top three verticals for Dell Technologies were professional services, banking and discrete manufacturing. HPE came at second spot with a revenue share of 19.5% and revenues of USD 48.2 million. Key verticals for HPE were telecommunications, discrete manufacturing, and professional services. At number three is Lenovo with a revenue share of 10.9% and revenue of USD 27.0 million. Cisco came in fourth, accounting for a revenue share of 9.1% and revenue of USD 22.6 million.

“During 2020, the server market failed to recover as it remains impacted due to the pandemic. For 2021, we expect the server market demand to grow across hyper scalers, local data centre players, telecommunication companies, banking and financial institutions, and manufacturing firms. Government pipeline looks promising and can expect to spend in H2 2021,” HarshalUdatewar, Market Analyst, Server, IDC India, said.

India forecast

India’s economy is on the verge of gaining momentum post-COVID-19 lockdown and the rollout of Coronavirus vaccines. From an enterprise spending perspective, investments are anticipated to come from global hyper scalers and local DC players, telecommunications vertical, banking sector, and manufacturing vertical.

Overall, telecommunications spending would be focused on network modernisation, VAS services, and preparing for 5G rollout. At present, the x86 server market in India is expected to witness a YoY growth in value by 29.7% during the period of 2020-21, IDC stated in a press release.